A Colwood cyclist is thankful that his injuries weren’t worse after a collision with a BC Transit bus on Tuesday morning.
David DeFehr escaped the frightening crash with shoulder and rib pain and a few scrapes and bruises.
“I feel so fortunate that this is all that’s happened to me,” he told the Gazette.
Moments prior to the collision, DeFehr recalled stopping between the full-size bus and the curb at a red light on Island Highway at the Goldstream Avenue intersection. When the light turned green, DeFehr bolted out in front of the bus, crossing the intersection before the bus began to move. Both were headed towards Victoria.
He said he made a point to move ahead of the bus to give the driver a good line of vision on his location.
“I knew that it was a big bus that takes up a lot of room and that [the driver] would be able to see me and that just up the road a little ways the bike lane starts,” he said.
“When he overtook me, he cut towards the curb. I don’t know why, but then he clipped me.
“I felt it happening and I saw it happening and I was just engulfed in fear. I went flying and I thought ‘Oh God, am I going to get run over by the back wheel?’”
DeFehr said that the force of the collision sent him over the top of his handlebars and that they left a mark along the side of the bus after he was struck.
A first responder happened to be in the vehicle behind and was the first person on scene, according to DeFehr.
He was quickly transported to hospital by ambulance and released in the early afternoon.
BC Transit communications manager Jonathon Dyck said that the collision is being investigated internally.
“We send our wishes to the person injured this morning and hope that they have a full and quick recovery,” Dyck said. “We will be working with our driver to ensure that they also receive the support that they require.
“At this time we’re going to look at this internally and see what happened and try to see if there’s anything that can be done to prevent it from happening again.”
Dyck added that whenever there is a reported incident with a pedestrian or cyclist, additional training is immediately offered to the driver involved.
DeFehr, who bikes regularly to his job in the navy at Dockyards, says he isn’t mad at the driver and that it was probably a misjudgment of space, but admits that he’s frustrated with incidents like these that continue to plague cyclists.
“Even [when] it’s wide open … some people for whatever reason will drive within inches of you instead of giving you room. It’s frustrating because I’ve got every right to be on the road like they do.”
