A lovely day to die

Such a lovely day here today, you could be forgiven for thinking it
were August rather than late October.

On the narrowest of the lanes we ride I turned back to make a field
call and met a guy in pickup truck barrelling the other way. He didn't
even slow for me, and gave not an inch, his truck filling the lane. I
dropped off the sharp edge of the blacktop six inches or so into
slippery mud and was thrown, as one always is in these situations,
towards the road; the reflex correction on these occasions is always
the wrong one. In this instance I was turned perpendicular to the road
and back onto the road by my momentum, and became a sitting duck for a
broadside that would have thrown me clear across the next corner. I
did the only thing left to me and shot at right angles across the
narrow lane and off into the ditch and the hedge on the other side,
clearing the front of the truck by inches. If I'd been in any other
gear I would be writing to you now, if at all, by ouija board.

The driver's brake lights never even came on. He was trying to run me
over. There is no way he cannot have seen me: I'm a large silhouette
against the low sun, and I have strong dynamo lights plus flashing
lights front and rear of my bike, all of them permanently on day and
night.

If I see his truck, I'll turn it into an insurance write-off. If I see
him, I'll make a citizen's arrest and hope he tries to resist.

***

Though I've had idiots swing their cars dangerously close to me to
shout, "Get off the road," and though there are plenty of idiots who
cut me off at corners (once, because I make a point of humiliating
them when I catch them at the next stop), this is the first time in
almost twenty years as a cyclist that someone has deliberately tried
to kill me.

Generally -- though in part because I don't commute and can choose
where I ride with due attention to my safety -- I agree with Frank
Krygowski that the roads are less dangerous for cyclists than commonly
thought; it is probably the only thing on which Franki Shavelegs and I
agree without reservation. But this afternoon's experience was an eye
opener. It isn't that I'm shaken -- as a young man I participated in
several bloodsports where the expectation *in each* was one in three
of not surviving through seven years of participation, and was
involved in the kinds of politics and guerilla activities that give
insurance companies nightmares, so the thought of dying is one I came
to terms with long, long since, nor is it a novel idea to me that
someone or even many people want me dead. But it is somewhere between
bothersome and shocking that some total stranger should dislike
cyclists so much as to want to murder me merely because I happen to
the one he sees on a lonely lane.

Of course, he might turn out to be some insanely jealous hushand whose
wife once kissed me in public. (Women, some that I hardly know,
spontaneously kiss me. It is in the pheromones.) In a way, it would be
preferable if he tried to run me over for some cause, even if only in
his mind, rather than as a representative cyclist.

***

Maybe I can stop motorists seeing me as a representative cyclist. I
could have the back of my jacket silkscreened:
NOT YOUR COMMON OR GARDEN REPRESENTATIVE CYCLIST.
LOTS OF OTHER CYCLISTS HATE ME.
RUN OVER A ROADIE INSTEAD.

Andre Jute
Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live -- Mark Twain

Wow Andre,
I read your posts, and I know everyone else does as well but where
are the sympathetic replies. It's been 5 hours and nobody responded.
Wow, at least I care enough to write some reply.
But I will tell you, a couple things that got me turned around about how
I feel about drivers, when I am out on my bike.
I frequently ride at night, even in this soon to be wintery chill here in
the
bay area, I still get out for a night ride. I'm 51 now, and over the years
a couple things have happened, that made me think about me or them.
I used to always feel like they were out to get me-whoever it was. One night
I was riding on elcamino real in san carlos, that is like 6 miles from home
and I was riding to redwood city. Its like 9:30 pm and I am riding pretty
quick like 20 mph, and a door opens from a car, and I was able to dodge
out of the way, and I yelled at the guy -"you missed me," the guy replies-
"I'm glad I did". From that night on I realized that that guy would never
willingly hurt anyone, and something clicked in my mind. I now realized that
I was wrong to think that everyone in a car was out to get me. I used to run
full blast through red lights. Red lights are different than a stop sign.
But anyway,
I learned to be more careful out there, and slow down a bit and take in the
scenery.
Then I was out one night and riding through Hillsborough, and I had been out
about a half hour, and heading for home, yet still like 5 miles away from
home
and I was riding on a bit of a downhill grade, and I see headlights coming
near,
and right in frount of me and like without even slowing down this lady makes
a u-turn in front of me. She must not have even noticed me there coming
headOn.
This was a time that I used to ride by starlight. There are no (or very few)
streetlights
in hillsborough. She would have ran me over if I didn't react, but I was
****ed to
say the least. By the time she completed the uturn in front of me, I was
along side
of here screaming - stupid bitch and she still did not even know I was
there. Well
anyway.
There was another time I was riding at night and I am like 3 blocks away
from home.
I am riding on Alameda de las Pulgas, southbound near the Carry School and
there
is a small hump in the road, yet steep, so I am riding up and over the hill
and a car
makes a u-turn, and follows me alongside up the hill -tires screaching. And
I see a
gun poke out of the window, and I knew right there, I think it's over, and
there was a
pop. But it turned out to be only a pelet gun, and I only got nicked in the
ass, the
two guys were just out for trouble that night. I called the cops that time,
and I went out
looking for them in my van. They asked me, "did you get the license plate,"
I said,
"it happened so fast and it was dark I couldn't see it." Nothin ever
happened.
Then there was this time I was riding in the day and this young guy with his
girl
were playing run the cyclist off the road with their mercedes. We came to a
stop
together and the car pulls ahead but then the car is only going like 15mph,
what kind
of person drives like 15mph, and they are angling there car to squeez me
into parked cars
with their necks turned at me and laughing. I got the plate and memorized
it. I knew
a place in hillsborough that has a pay phone and dialed 911, and 2 cops show
up like
20 minutes later. I tell them my story and they say they are going to his
fathers house
and tell his father what his son is doing with his car.
What else - well after all the riding, and everything, and the enjoyment of
it all I still
want to ride bike. There is a lot of weird people out there, but for the
most part, mostly
good people out there.
If I could meet up with these people, well I can say that - as long as
nothing happened
and they were just messing with me, I forgive it all. Anyway all this stuff
has happened years
ago.
I think Andre, that you'll get over it.
Now I can recall that, seems like every time that I crashed, and being that
it was nobody's
fault but my own, a motorist has helped me. I fractured my skull, and was
unconscious, and
a person helped call police. I fell flat on my face and broke my teeth and a
motorist saw it in
their rear view mirror, and turned around and gave me a ride home. I crashed
and broke my
clavicle, and punctured my lung, and someone driving behind me stopped and
made me
take a ride - I seriously didn't know how bad I was hurt. I was telling the
guy I was ok, and
then I thought about it for a second, and said yes, I take the ride home. I
was like 20 miles
from home. Broken clavicle, punctured lung, handelbars turned sideways- what
was I thinkin
that I could make it home ok on my own.
Well I still want to ride my bike. I think Andre you still want to ride as
well. This isn't really
bike.tech stuff, but I know you post alot - so I responded to you.
Greg
"Andre Jute" wrote in message
...
Such a lovely day here today, you could be forgiven for thinking it
were August rather than late October.

On the narrowest of the lanes we ride I turned back to make a field
call and met a guy in pickup truck barrelling the other way. He didn't
even slow for me, and gave not an inch, his truck filling the lane. I
dropped off the sharp edge of the blacktop six inches or so into
slippery mud and was thrown, as one always is in these situations,
towards the road; the reflex correction on these occasions is always
the wrong one. In this instance I was turned perpendicular to the road
and back onto the road by my momentum, and became a sitting duck for a
broadside that would have thrown me clear across the next corner. I
did the only thing left to me and shot at right angles across the
narrow lane and off into the ditch and the hedge on the other side,
clearing the front of the truck by inches. If I'd been in any other
gear I would be writing to you now, if at all, by ouija board.

The driver's brake lights never even came on. He was trying to run me
over. There is no way he cannot have seen me: I'm a large silhouette
against the low sun, and I have strong dynamo lights plus flashing
lights front and rear of my bike, all of them permanently on day and
night.

If I see his truck, I'll turn it into an insurance write-off. If I see
him, I'll make a citizen's arrest and hope he tries to resist.

***

Though I've had idiots swing their cars dangerously close to me to
shout, "Get off the road," and though there are plenty of idiots who
cut me off at corners (once, because I make a point of humiliating
them when I catch them at the next stop), this is the first time in
almost twenty years as a cyclist that someone has deliberately tried
to kill me.

Generally -- though in part because I don't commute and can choose
where I ride with due attention to my safety -- I agree with Frank
Krygowski that the roads are less dangerous for cyclists than commonly
thought; it is probably the only thing on which Franki Shavelegs and I
agree without reservation. But this afternoon's experience was an eye
opener. It isn't that I'm shaken -- as a young man I participated in
several bloodsports where the expectation *in each* was one in three
of not surviving through seven years of participation, and was
involved in the kinds of politics and guerilla activities that give
insurance companies nightmares, so the thought of dying is one I came
to terms with long, long since, nor is it a novel idea to me that
someone or even many people want me dead. But it is somewhere between
bothersome and shocking that some total stranger should dislike
cyclists so much as to want to murder me merely because I happen to
the one he sees on a lonely lane.

Of course, he might turn out to be some insanely jealous hushand whose
wife once kissed me in public. (Women, some that I hardly know,
spontaneously kiss me. It is in the pheromones.) In a way, it would be
preferable if he tried to run me over for some cause, even if only in
his mind, rather than as a representative cyclist.

***

Maybe I can stop motorists seeing me as a representative cyclist. I
could have the back of my jacket silkscreened:
NOT YOUR COMMON OR GARDEN REPRESENTATIVE CYCLIST.
LOTS OF OTHER CYCLISTS HATE ME.
RUN OVER A ROADIE INSTEAD.

Andre Jute
Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live -- Mark Twain

On 24 Oct, 18:57, Andre Jute wrote:
Such a lovely day here today, you could be forgiven for thinking it
were August rather than late October.

On the narrowest of the lanes we ride I turned back to make a field
call and met a guy in pickup truck barrelling the other way. He didn't
even slow for me, and gave not an inch, his truck filling the lane. I
dropped off the sharp edge of the *blacktop six inches or so into
slippery mud and was thrown, as one always is in these situations,
towards the road; the reflex correction on these occasions is always
the wrong one. In this instance I was turned perpendicular to the road
and back onto the road by my momentum, and became a sitting duck for a
broadside that would have thrown me clear across the next corner. I
did the only thing left to me and shot at right angles across the
narrow lane and off into the ditch and the hedge on the other side,
clearing the front of the truck by inches. If I'd been in any other
gear I would be writing to you now, if at all, by ouija board.

The driver's brake lights never even came on. He was trying to run me
over. There is no way he cannot have seen me: I'm a large silhouette
against the low sun, and I have strong dynamo lights plus flashing
lights front and rear of my bike, all of them permanently on day and
night.

If I see his truck, I'll turn it into an insurance write-off. If I see
him, I'll make a citizen's arrest and hope he tries to resist.

***

Though I've had idiots swing their cars dangerously close to me to
shout, "Get off the road," and though there are plenty of idiots who
cut me off at corners (once, because I make a point of humiliating
them when I catch them at the next stop), this is the first time in
almost twenty years as a cyclist that someone has deliberately tried
to kill me.

Generally -- though in part because I don't commute and can choose
where I ride with due attention to my safety -- I agree with Frank
Krygowski that the roads are less dangerous for cyclists than commonly
thought; it is probably the only thing on which Franki Shavelegs and I
agree without reservation. But this afternoon's experience was an eye
opener. It isn't that I'm shaken -- as a young man I participated in
several bloodsports where the expectation *in each* was one in three
of not surviving through seven years of participation, and was
involved in the kinds of politics and guerilla activities that give
insurance companies nightmares, so the thought of dying is one I came
to terms with long, long since, nor is it a novel idea to me that
someone or even many people want me dead. But it is somewhere between
bothersome and shocking that some total stranger should dislike
cyclists so much as to want to murder me merely because I happen to
the one he sees on a lonely lane.

Of course, he might turn out to be some insanely jealous hushand whose
wife once kissed me in public. (Women, some that I hardly know,
spontaneously kiss me. It is in the pheromones.) In a way, it would be
preferable if he tried to run me over for some cause, even if only in
his mind, rather than as a representative cyclist.

***

Maybe I can stop motorists seeing me as a representative cyclist. I
could have the back of my jacket silkscreened:
NOT YOUR COMMON OR GARDEN REPRESENTATIVE CYCLIST.
LOTS OF OTHER CYCLISTS HATE ME.
RUN OVER A ROADIE INSTEAD.

Andre Jute
*Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live -- Mark Twain

I somehow just knew it would all come to a bad end. Such a promising
story, spoilt by its presentation.

Why, Greg, very Christian of you to send a sympathetic reply. But I'm
such a calm person, I didn't even mention the event to my riding
companion, who took up our conversation about putting when I caught up
where she was waiting for me at the crossroads. I just wrote it up
because it is so rare for me to agree with Krygo on anything, I
thought it was noteworthy. By the time your not arrived, I'd almost
forgotten about it; I was working away happily, lost in the world of
the characters in a novel.

I must say though, my lanes appear a lot safer than your roads, from
your account. I'm in fact far more likely to have an incident with a
motorist in the town at slow speed than in the lanes; today was
noteworthy precisely for being such a glaring exception.

But a fellow I know in the actuarial department of a life insurer says
most people who have accidents have them within five miles of home...

Andre Jute
Down with the spoilsport Telemachus!


On Oct 25, 1:47*am, wrote:
Wow Andre,
I read your posts, and I know everyone else does as well but where
are the sympathetic replies. It's been 5 hours and nobody responded.
Wow, at least I care enough to write some reply.
But I will tell you, a couple things that got me turned around about how
I feel about drivers, when I am out on my bike.
I frequently ride at night, even in this soon to be wintery chill here in
the
bay area, I still get out for a night ride. I'm 51 now, and over the years
a couple things have happened, that made me think about me or them.
I used to always feel like they were out to get me-whoever it was. One night
I was riding on elcamino real in san carlos, that is like 6 miles from home
and I was riding to redwood city. Its like 9:30 pm and I am riding pretty
quick like 20 mph, and a door opens from a car, and I was able to dodge
out of the way, and I yelled at the guy -"you missed me," the guy replies-
"I'm glad I did". From that night on I realized that that guy would never
willingly hurt anyone, and something clicked in my mind. I now realized that
I was wrong to think that everyone in a car was out to get me. I used to run
full blast through red lights. Red lights are different than a stop sign.
But anyway,
I learned to be more careful out there, and slow down a bit and take in the
scenery.
Then I was out one night and riding through Hillsborough, and I had been out
about a half hour, and heading for home, yet still like 5 miles away from
home
and I was riding on a bit of a downhill grade, and I see headlights coming
near,
and right in frount of me and like without even slowing down this lady makes
a u-turn in front of me. She must not have even noticed me there coming
headOn.
This was a time that I used to ride by starlight. There are no (or very few)
streetlights
in hillsborough. She would have ran me over if I didn't react, but I was
****ed to
say the least. By the time she completed the uturn in front of me, I was
along side
of here screaming - stupid bitch and she still did not even know I was
there. Well
anyway.
There was another time I was riding at night and I am like 3 blocks away
from home.
I am riding on Alameda de las Pulgas, southbound near the Carry School and
there
is a small hump in the road, yet steep, so I am riding up and over the hill
and a car
makes a u-turn, and follows me alongside up the hill -tires screaching. And
I see a
gun poke out of the window, and I knew right there, I think it's over, and
there was a
pop. But it turned out to be only a pelet gun, and I only got nicked in the
ass, the
two guys were just out for trouble that night. I called the cops that time,
and I went out
looking for them in my van. They asked me, "did you get the license plate,"
I said,
"it happened so fast and it was dark I couldn't see it." Nothin ever
happened.
Then there was this time I was riding in the day and this young guy with his
girl
were playing run the cyclist off the road with their mercedes. We came to a
stop
together and the car pulls ahead but then the car is only going like 15mph,
what kind
of person drives like 15mph, and they are angling there car to squeez me
into parked cars
with their necks turned at me and laughing. I got the plate and memorized
it. I knew
a place in hillsborough that has a pay phone and dialed 911, and 2 cops show
up like
20 minutes later. I tell them my story and they say they are going to his
fathers house
and tell his father what his son is doing with his car.
What else - well after all the riding, and everything, and the enjoyment of
it all I still
want to ride bike. There is a lot of weird people out there, but for the
most part, mostly
good people out there.
If I could meet up with these people, well I can say that - as long as
nothing happened
and they were just messing with me, I forgive it all. Anyway all this stuff
has happened years
ago.
I think Andre, that you'll get over it.
Now I can recall that, seems like every time that I crashed, and being that
it was nobody's
fault but my own, a motorist has helped me. I fractured my skull, and was
unconscious, and
a person helped call police. I fell flat on my face and broke my teeth and a
motorist saw it in
their rear view mirror, and turned around and gave me a ride home. I crashed
and broke my
clavicle, and punctured my lung, and someone driving behind me stopped and
made me
take a ride - I seriously didn't know how bad I was hurt. I was telling the
guy I was ok, and
then I thought about it for a second, and said yes, I take the ride home. I
was like 20 miles
from home. Broken clavicle, punctured lung, handelbars turned sideways- what
was I thinkin
that I could make it home ok on my own.
Well I still want to ride my bike. I think Andre you still want to ride as
well. This isn't really
bike.tech stuff, but I know you post alot - so I responded to you.
Greg "Andre Jute" wrote in message

...



Such a lovely day here today, you could be forgiven for thinking it
were August rather than late October.

On the narrowest of the lanes we ride I turned back to make a field
call and met a guy in pickup truck barrelling the other way. He didn't
even slow for me, and gave not an inch, his truck filling the lane. I
dropped off the sharp edge of the *blacktop six inches or so into
slippery mud and was thrown, as one always is in these situations,
towards the road; the reflex correction on these occasions is always
the wrong one. In this instance I was turned perpendicular to the road
and back onto the road by my momentum, and became a sitting duck for a
broadside that would have thrown me clear across the next corner. I
did the only thing left to me and shot at right angles across the
narrow lane and off into the ditch and the hedge on the other side,
clearing the front of the truck by inches. If I'd been in any other
gear I would be writing to you now, if at all, by ouija board.

The driver's brake lights never even came on. He was trying to run me
over. There is no way he cannot have seen me: I'm a large silhouette
against the low sun, and I have strong dynamo lights plus flashing
lights front and rear of my bike, all of them permanently on day and
night.

If I see his truck, I'll turn it into an insurance write-off. If I see
him, I'll make a citizen's arrest and hope he tries to resist.

***

Though I've had idiots swing their cars dangerously close to me to
shout, "Get off the road," and though there are plenty of idiots who
cut me off at corners (once, because I make a point of humiliating
them when I catch them at the next stop), this is the first time in
almost twenty years as a cyclist that someone has deliberately tried
to kill me.

Generally -- though in part because I don't commute and can choose
where I ride with due attention to my safety -- I agree with Frank
Krygowski that the roads are less dangerous for cyclists than commonly
thought; it is probably the only thing on which Franki Shavelegs and I
agree without reservation. But this afternoon's experience was an eye
opener. It isn't that I'm shaken -- as a young man I participated in
several bloodsports where the expectation *in each* was one in three
of not surviving through seven years of participation, and was
involved in the kinds of politics and guerilla activities that give
insurance companies nightmares, so the thought of dying is one I came
to terms with long, long since, nor is it a novel idea to me that
someone or even many people want me dead. But it is somewhere between
bothersome and shocking that some total stranger should dislike
cyclists so much as to want to murder me merely because I happen to
the one he sees on a lonely lane.

Of course, he might turn out to be some insanely jealous hushand whose
wife once kissed me in public. (Women, some that I hardly know,
spontaneously kiss me. It is in the pheromones.) In a way, it would be
preferable if he tried to run me over for some cause, even if only in
his mind, rather than as a representative cyclist.

***

Maybe I can stop motorists seeing me as a representative cyclist. I
could have the back of my jacket silkscreened:
NOT YOUR COMMON OR GARDEN REPRESENTATIVE CYCLIST.
LOTS OF OTHER CYCLISTS HATE ME.
RUN OVER A ROADIE INSTEAD.

Andre Jute
Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live -- Mark Twain

In article ,
wrote:

I read your posts, and I know everyone else does as well but where
are the sympathetic replies.

Andre is a habitual liar in this newsgroup and I don't believe his post
for a minute.

wrote in message
...
Wow Andre,
I read your posts, and I know everyone else does as well but where

pastorgregory,
Don't know if you were being sarcastic or serious, but NOT everyone else
reads Andre's posts.
Kerry

remainder of original post snipped

Andre Jute wrote:
Such a lovely day here today, you could be forgiven for thinking it
were August rather than late October.

On the narrowest of the lanes we ride I turned back to make a field
call and met a guy in pickup truck barrelling the other way. He didn't
even slow for me, and gave not an inch, his truck filling the lane. I
dropped off the sharp edge of the blacktop six inches or so into
slippery mud and was thrown, as one always is in these situations,
towards the road; the reflex correction on these occasions is always
the wrong one. In this instance I was turned perpendicular to the road
and back onto the road by my momentum, and became a sitting duck for a
broadside that would have thrown me clear across the next corner. I
did the only thing left to me and shot at right angles across the
narrow lane and off into the ditch and the hedge on the other side,
clearing the front of the truck by inches. If I'd been in any other
gear I would be writing to you now, if at all, by ouija board.

Did you get the license plate? In the past I've call the rozzers over
this sort of thing, and while the response is a bit mixed, it can
sometimes be that extra bit of information they are looking for.

Still, all's well. Did I tell you about the time I went under a bus?
Thought my day had come early that time.

On 2009-10-24, Andre Jute wrote:
Such a lovely day here today, you could be forgiven for thinking it
were August rather than late October.

Sorry to hear about the truck, and it seems churlish to turn this into a
grammar quibble, but do you really mean, "you could be forgiven for
thinking it _were_ August"?

Perhaps "was", since there is never any question of forgiveness for
thinking in the subjunctive, at least not based on the _actual_ weather.

On the narrowest of the lanes we ride I turned back to make a field
call and met a guy in pickup truck barrelling the other way. He didn't
even slow for me, and gave not an inch, his truck filling the lane. I
dropped off the sharp edge of the blacktop six inches or so into
slippery mud and was thrown, as one always is in these situations,
towards the road; the reflex correction on these occasions is always
the wrong one. In this instance I was turned perpendicular to the road
and back onto the road by my momentum, and became a sitting duck for a
broadside that would have thrown me clear across the next corner. I
did the only thing left to me and shot at right angles across the
narrow lane and off into the ditch and the hedge on the other side,
clearing the front of the truck by inches. If I'd been in any other
gear I would be writing to you now, if at all, by ouija board.

The driver's brake lights never even came on. He was trying to run me
over. There is no way he cannot have seen me:

But here surely "there is no way he _could_ not have seen me?", because
this time it is a counterfactual.

I'm a large silhouette against the low sun, and I have strong dynamo
lights plus flashing lights front and rear of my bike, all of them
permanently on day and night.

He might have been tuning the radio, composing a text message, or trying
to find the bit of cornish pasty he dropped on the floor.

If I see his truck, I'll turn it into an insurance write-off. If I see
him, I'll make a citizen's arrest and hope he tries to resist.

***

Though I've had idiots swing their cars dangerously close to me to
shout, "Get off the road," and though there are plenty of idiots who
cut me off at corners (once, because I make a point of humiliating
them when I catch them at the next stop), this is the first time in
almost twenty years as a cyclist that someone has deliberately tried
to kill me.

Generally -- though in part because I don't commute and can choose
where I ride with due attention to my safety -- I agree with Frank
Krygowski that the roads are less dangerous for cyclists than commonly
thought; it is probably the only thing on which Franki Shavelegs and I
agree without reservation. But this afternoon's experience was an eye
opener. It isn't that I'm shaken -- as a young man I participated in
several bloodsports where the expectation *in each* was one in three
of not surviving through seven years of participation, and was
involved in the kinds of politics and guerilla activities that give
insurance companies nightmares, so the thought of dying is one I came
to terms with long, long since, nor is it a novel idea to me that
someone or even many people want me dead. But it is somewhere between
bothersome and shocking that some total stranger should dislike
cyclists so much as to want to murder me merely because I happen to
the one he sees on a lonely lane.

Of course, he might turn out to be some insanely jealous hushand whose
wife once kissed me in public.

Or one of your "fans" from usenet perhaps

(Women, some that I hardly know, spontaneously kiss me. It is in the
pheromones.)

Right, that must be a real problem.

On 25 Oct, 08:15, Tosspot wrote:

Still, all's well. *Did I tell you about the time I went under a bus?
*Thought my day had come early that time.

A 'bus'? You were lucky. Back when I were a lad, I was run down by a
coal waggon. Bloody great black thing it were, mother took all week
to get the coal dust out of my shirt.

Actually you are dead wrong in thinking that you are easy to see against
the sun - lights or not. I had a very similar incident but in my case I
was hit and hit hard. I ended up being propelled perhaps 15 m off the
rodeside and onto the verge.

The truck driver, hearing the impact, stopped and lent assistance
including a ride to a hospital. He could not see me against the (then)
rising sun because the sun blinded him. In my case, he ran off the road
to hit me but the point is that I was utterly invisible to him.

You are NOT a silhouette against the sun. You aren't visible if the sun
is directly in the driver's eyes.

I am no forgiving his actions. I'm instead saying that you are mistaken
about your visiblity.