Indy 500 CDL (commuter ride report)

As I pedaled down a long straight-a-way, a semi pulling two trailers of gravel started to pass me as it decided to floor the gas. I looked at the yellow light ahead. It was clear that there was no way the semi would make it. I had already started coasting, knowing I wouldn’t make the light either. The semi was peeling down the left hand turn lane, and I thought it was pretty ballsy for a long truck with such a heavy load to take a left hand turn on a stale red light during rush hour. Some trucks take a whole light cycle just to make the turn. At the last second, the truck suddenly changed its mind and pounded the breaks. It made a loud stinking screeching noise and bowed out to the side, into the bike lane. It stopped in time. I was glad I decided to coast when I did or the truck would have bowed into me. This particular intersection gets a lot of bicycle traffic, so there is a designated green box for all the bikes turning left. The skidding semi covered the left hand turn box, the crosswalk, and the green way for bikes going straight. I had the option to either turn around and pedal to the end of the semi to wait for my left or sit in the car's right hand turn lane. Knowing the semi would take the whole green to turn, I opted to block off the cars wanting to go right. I sat there worried that a car wanting to turn right would come behind me and lay on his horn while I had to smell the overwhelming stench of the burnt smell brought on by the skidding semi. I was impressed how strongly it smelled! Luckily, no one came behind me until the light turned green. I signaled spastically (did the semi even see me? He could have swerved right on me while he was braking!) and pedaled out as quickly as I could so as not to be in the way of the truck’s wide turn. It all worked well. While the semi took the next stretch as quickly as humanly possible, we met again at the next light 500 feet later without alarm or craziness. I chuckled, the poor guy didn’t get ahead at all with all this. The rest of my ride continued without incident.