Being hit by a lorry or other large vehicle while you’re riding often results in serious injury or even death, which makes this dashcam clip of a 17-year-old Russian girl surviving a nightmare hit from a lorry as remarkable as it is stomach-churning.
According to the Express, Artem Droukov, 24, was driving behind the skip lorry when it ran over 17-year-old Natasha Balova in the Russian city of Zelenograd near Moscow.
Dourkov said: “I was driving behind the skip lorry when I saw this teenager get knocked off her bike and then run over.
“I thought she would be crushed flat but instead the truck bounced into the air and after lying on the ground for a short while screaming, she got up and really gave the driver a mouthful.
“I couldn’t believe it. She walked a bit unsteadily out of the side of the road and sat down and told him what she thought of him.”
Balova was taken to hospital — after making it very clear to the driver what she thought of his astonishingly dangerous driving — and found to have escaped with just bruises.
Her bike, however, was completely wrecked in the collision.
Police say they are considering charges against the driver.
Cyclists vs HGVs
In the UK, heavy vehicles are disproportionately represented in crashes resulting in deaths and serious injury of cyclists. In London they make up just 5 percent of traffic, but are involved in 50 percent of cyclist fatalities.
HGVs have also been cited as being disproportionately involved in crashes with female cyclists. On the whole, men are the victims of most cycling fatalities and sustain more serious injuries than women.
According to an NHS Choices report on cycling safety published in February this year, males are 1.4 times more likely to be killed and 1.7 times more likely to be seriously injured than females.
However, the report said there is evidence that women in the UK have a greater risk of being involved in a collision with an HGV than men.
It said: “The latest study into London's cycle hire scheme found that women were twice as likely to be involved in a fatal collision with an HGV, despite making up just 30% of the scheme’s participants.
“One theory is that, somewhat counterintuitively, this increased danger is actually due to women being less willing to take risks.
“A leaked TfL internal report suggests that women are less likely to jump red lights, meaning they are more likely to get caught in an HGV’s blind spot.
“One UK researcher has argued that many women wrongly perceive that overtaking an HGV on the left-hand side is less risky, possibly because they believe sticking close to the curb is safer. The researcher did find a statistically significant trend in women reporting to be “left-side overtakers”.”
However, it seems clear in this case that Natasha Balova was simply riding down the road and the truck driver didn’t avoid her or slow down enough to miss her.
Our official grumpy Northerner, John has been riding bikes for over 30 years since discovering as an uncoordinated teen that a sport could be fun if it didn't require you to catch a ball or get in the way of a hulking prop forward.
Road touring was followed by mountain biking and a career racing in the mud that was as brief as it was unsuccessful.
Somewhere along the line came the discovery that he could string a few words together, followed by the even more remarkable discovery that people were mug enough to pay for this rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work. He's pretty certain he's worked for even more bike publications than Mat Brett.
The inevitable 30-something MAMIL transition saw him shift to skinny tyres and these days he lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.