In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention I was not on the bike at the time. The bike was on the bike rack on the front of the bus and fell off about three blocks afther I put it on the rack
The rack totally failed. Check out the arm on the left that is supposed to clamp down on the front tire, it's fully extended. The spring was working when I put it over the tire. Unfortunately something happened to the (spring?) after that because there was no longer a spring keeping the arm in the "Non-extended" position over my tire.
The operator could not believe it either. She and the supervisor that came out were great about the whole thing. A CTA emergency truck came out and "disabled" the the inside position on the rack afterwards so that it couldnt be used.
Oh man, I always tell my boyfriend that I am always a tiny bit nervous putting my bike in the bus rack. He always tells me, nonsense, they're totally solid. Eeep.
Believe it or not the bike is not toast, which I thought it would be! Aside from the handle bars being turned to the side and I'm sure more scratches, scratches I couldnt distinguish from the ones that were already there. It's my work bike so it always been very functional but not pretty in a non-theft, non- attractive sort of way.
I think the driver stopped just in time. She yelled back "Ah- sir, your bike is under the bus".
The supervisor that came out said that "we put our bikes on the rack at our own (the bikes) peril. I told the supervisor if that is the case it would only probably count if their equipment were working properly. Not sure if that's true or not. I took lots of pictures and had an accident report made out just in case it.
I never had a second thought about putting my bike on a bus rack until now. I probably will choose to ride more in the future rather than put it on the bus. I wish there was something I could have done but I think it was just some freak accident thing where the spring broke while it was holding my bike.
So if the driver rear ended another car and crushed your bike in the process they would say sorry it's your problem? Or in this case the device fails and they say sorry your problem? Seems like BS to me. Fuck the CTA. Glad you are ok as well as the bike.
Not Nathan Fillon (aka Paul) said:
"The supervisor that came out said that "we put our bikes on the rack at our own (the bikes) peril. I told the supervisor if that is the case it would only probably count if their equipment were working properly."