I feel with you, mart. I'm glad nobody got hurt.
A couple of years back I almost knocked a woman off her bicycle, too. Those moments stick with you for quite a while, making you rethink your driving habits.
I had been driving off our company's parking area, on a small, short side road with hedgerows on the sides. My incident happened on the intersection to the next bigger road. On the left, where I expect traffic to come from, the hedge is low enough to look over. On the right side the hedge is too tall to look over.
I was driving slow at the intersection to look for traffic. "My" bicyclist came from the right, driving on the pedestrian walk, and wanted to turn into my street. She had to break hard and bumped lightly into the front of my car's right side and started yelling at me.
She would have had the right of way, coming from the right, but she wasn't supposed to drive on the footpath. I couldn't see her at all through that hedgeway. To see her coming I would have had to drive halfway onto the intersection.
I think she was just as startled as I was. The steet I came from is mainly used by foot or by bicycle as a shortcut into the city. Cars aren't allowed to drive all the way, but it is one of two ways towards and from our parking lots.
I'm more or less back to my old habits, now. There wasn't much I could have done better anyway. I am still extra cautious at that intersection, though.
I agree, those moments get you shaking like a leaf.
Again, I'm glad nothing more serious than scars and the shocks happened.
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