Tour de France Crash

The other day, you may have seen it, there was another crash at the Tour de France. This time, however, it wasn’t caused by competitors running into each other due to the close proximity and changes in pace and/or direction. Not entirely, anyway.

This one instead was caused by a camera car side swiping a rider who, of course, in turn caused some chaos behind him in the pack. None of this is in itself shocking. But then word came later that French Police were looking into the incident. Huh? For what?!

Everyone on the planet knows the way that the Tour de France (and other cycle races) is run is a big accident waiting to happen.

What you have is a mass of riders, concentrating on the road, strategy, their health, the crazy spectators, their water supply, their competitors and the their teammates….everything except the cars and motorcycles that are incredibly sharing the road with them. The drivers of the cars are [theoretically] watching the road, but not cyclists beside them or in their blind spot. Sure there are others in the cars that are paying attention to the riders either passing them water or equipment or shooting video, but they are not driving the car and have no control over it.

I mean really, there are only three reasons why I watch the Tour: 1-the unbelievable stamina of the riders, 2- the great HD scenery, and 3-the nervous energy I feel waiting for this to happen and hoping it never does.

So when a car or motorcycle swipes a cyclist or runs over a spectator running on the street with a flag cheering on their favorite rider or just generally making a jerk of themselves, don’t open an investigation, just count your blessings that it doesn’t happen more often.