What I Learned From Being Hit By A Car

photo by Epsos.De

“The first time I took the Japanese driving test they failed me for indicating too early.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup. It’s just a racket to make you pay for a new test, but it’s bound to breed a nation of terrible drivers.”

This chance conversation in a pub was admittedly not the first thing that entered my mind as, a week later, a woman flicked her indicator split seconds before turning, sending me and my bicycle hurtling into her at an ungodly speed. No, the first thing that entered my mind was “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK” followed by the car bonnet. It wasn’t until a few days later that it all felt so horribly portentous.

Thankfully the accident, which left me unconscious for the time it took for the ambulance to arrive and with twelve stitches in my face, was not particularly debilitating. It could have been a fuck of a lot worse, and as they say, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger (unless you are talking about Parkinson’s disease or rheumatoid arthritis). So rather than lamenting over what passes for my shitty excuse for luck, I decided to see it as an opportunity, a chance to learn from my but-for-the-grace-of-god disaster. And now, because I’m that kind of guy, I will pass on my wisdom to you good people.

If you live in a foreign country, learn the bloody language.
I have been in Japan for a total of 20 months, yet my grasp of the language is only marginally more impressive than the English of that YouTube cat who was purportedly able to say ‘Oh, Long Johnson’ (which, let’s make this clear, means absolutely nothing and as such should not have garnered the squillions of hits it has since received). I have managed to blunder around the country with little more than wild gesticulations and the word ‘beeru’, and god bless the Japanese for choosing a word for my favourite pastime that so resembles that of my homeland. However, as I lay in the ambulance, and later on the operating table, and as instructions were barked at me, I desperately wished I knew what they were saying. Perhaps they were important directions for me. Or maybe it was nothing more than tutelage to the lower ranked colleagues that they needn’t worry about me too much as, being a foreigner, I was ugly enough already. Either way, I really wished I knew.

Japan is a nation of hit and runners
Generally speaking, the Japanese are sticklers for rules. They will wait indefinitely for a little green man to tell them to cross an empty road, and will patiently queue in line at the bar, merely tutting at foreigners who cut past them. However, when I relayed my tale to Japanese friends and colleagues, they were unable to disguise their shock that my assailant (for that is how I now think of her) actually stopped to help me. While thanks to a combination of concussion and unconsciousness I have no recollection of her stopping, it is apparent that she did the right thing. This, it seems, is the exception rather than the rule. In fact, just a few days later, a friend of mine was nearly hit by a guy in an SUV swerving across three lanes of traffic. He was barely able to stop in time, only arresting a potentially life threatening collision by sticking out a foot and denting the car. The driver then, with a look of shock, hit the accelerator and sped up with my friend giving chase. He only got out of the car after my friend photographed his licence plate and his massively concerned face. Which leads me to…

Japanese people are extremely kind, particularly when they think they are in trouble.
The driver of that SUV parked up, got out of his car and, with my friend screaming at him in Japanese (see point one), the guy fell to his hands and knees, bowing, apologising profusely as if my Aussie mate was the great Shogun Tokugawa himself. As for me, the woman who messed up my face visited me in hospital and presented me with, as way of an apology, an expensive looking box of cherry blossom flavoured jelly sweets. I have never seen anyone so relieved as her when I informed her interpreter that I didn’t intend on pressing charges. I am yet to eat the sweets. She has already tried to kill me once, and once bitten…

Cycle helmets look fucking stupid
OK, you Aussies probably don’t get this, but in the UK cyclists are not obliged to wear helmets. Oh how we laughed when watching the kids on Neighbours or Pugwall as they cycled around with those daft lumps of plastic on their heads. Yet, after beration from my sister, a nurse in an intensive care unit, I have had to buy one. I look fucking stupid. I mean, I am already the possessor of a big, thick-boned skull (proof as seen thanks to my resulting CT scan), but with one of these things on my bonce I have more than a passing resemblance to Toad of Super Mario fame. Mind you, it’s better to look like a dick than dead, I suppose. But only just.

The ability to grow a moustache is not something to be taken lightly.
It has to be said that I have never been able to grow the most hirsute of moustaches. For a start it’s kind of gingery. Also it doesn’t quite join in the middle. But still, when I used to live in the Swedish hinterland, to combat the bitter winters I used to grow a full beard, and then it was passible. But now, thanks to the deep scar that runs from my nose to upper lip, and another one that bisects the right side of my pathetic attempt at manliness, I will forever be denied every man’s inalliable right to grow full, bushy Stalinesque whiskers. And it couldn’t have come at a worse time. With November nearly upon us, my Facebook feed is soon to be inundated by friends proudly showing off their Movember attempts, while I gaze forlornly at what could have once been. Not that I have the balls to partake in the Movember festivities, but still, if the mood was to take me, the chance has now been ripped from me like Macduff from his mother’s womb.

Bike accidents are great for weight loss Japanese television, particularly in the daytime, is almost exclusively dominated by infomercials purporting the weight loss benefits of one vitamin supplement or another. They always start in the same way: a bunch of middle-aged women get together dressed in Lycra, pulling at near non-existent regions of flab. Then, after an unspecified period of time they re-join, showing off their newly svelte physiques thanks to the placenta pills (seriously) they have been popping. For any weight loss entrepreneurs reading out there, I have a new idea. How about we engineer for these women to get into horrific cycle accidents? No need to neck dozens of pills, thanks to facial stitches and the insides of their mouths being made up of 99% raw, bleeding tissue, they will be unable to eat even the most basic of foods and forced to subsist on a combination of yoghurt and protein shakes. It worked for me, despite my discovery that beer can be drunk through a straw in a Japanese pub with barely the batting of an eyelid of the other patrons. And if it can work for *ahem* a husky fellow such as myself, those women will be super-model thin in no time. And, as an added bonus, the scar tissue will mean no painful upper-lip waxing. Two cures in one! Patent pending.

So, there we have it, my newfound wisdom selflessly passed on to you. Enjoy, and be safe.
______________

Mark is a freelance writer whose rugged good looks belie a sensitive soul. He also likes to laugh at old people who fall down in the street. You can read his sub-Daily Mash rip off at The Daily Heckled or follow him on The Twitter and The Instagram.