It reads as if you would have been mowed down had you not hit the ditch. Well, that is a very serious offense the way I see it. Crime can happen anywhere, any time. Somebody said long distance bicycle touring is a low profile activity. I don't see it that way. The cyclist is exposed to a great many more motorists, and he / she attracts a lot more attention than does your average car / truck driver on a 60 mile run for the day. A motor vehicle can knock out 60 miles in less than an hour. They move with the traffic, do not draw any special notice, and encounter far fewer others on the road than do cyclists. With hills and some adverse winds thrown in it is possible a cyclist might require six to eight hours to make the same distance. Many more cars and trucks will pass him in his direction of travel and the opposite. If he's all loaded he attracts attention, especially out on those long stretches of interstate highways in the west. I would suppose the more people you are exposed to the higher the likelihood one of them will be just wanton and criminal enough to act out against you. I have had some experiences, a couple of them very serious. There are offenders plying our roadways. There is no contest between a ton of metal and a man / woman on a bike. Like the police officer told us in Louisiana in 1984: "There are a lot of crazy people around. They don't respect other people in cars, much less on bikes." Don't throw caution to the wind. If I get a gut feeling something's up, I leave the area, the people, the situation. You should not have to worry about it. It is all a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time I suppose.
