The Bystander Metaphor

This morning, while running and talking, a friend and I witnessed a bicycle/pedestrian collision. I confess that (a) I must not have been paying very close attention to the trail ahead, or (b) I make a lousy eye-witness. My friend said that he saw the accident unfolding. I didn’t see it until maybe two seconds before it occurred. What I saw was an older woman in a white shirt turn in such a way that she clearly didn’t see that she was stepping right in front of a bicycle which was not traveling at top speed but was moving quickly enough to make quite an impact. The bike hit the pedestrian straight on. It was not a side-swipe. Both the woman and the bicyclist fell immediately.

There were several other women walking with the one who stepped in front of the bicycle. They gathered around her as she lay on the ground. My friend and I checked on the woman and the bicyclist. We stayed around to help with calling and directing the ambulance and making sure the cyclist was OK too. My friend gave the cyclist his name and number in case the cyclist realized a mile or two down the path that he did need help, or in case there turned out to be some sort of legal ramifications and witnesses were needed. 

After the EMTs had attended to the woman, a police officer approached the cyclist, and my friend and I heard the description he gave to the police. The cyclist, who was clearly upset and shaking and worried, had previously told us that he had been trying to avoid the woman, that he had slowed and was keeping his eye on the group of women. He kept repeating that he tried to avoid her. Of course he did. I never suspected him of hitting her on purpose. Plus, I had paid attention just at the moment when she moved somewhat erratically, just a second before the impact. It seemed like both parties and neither party owned the “blame” for what happened. When the cyclist described the scene to the police officer, though, he repeated what he had told us about seeing the group of women on the trail as he approached and thinking about whether/how he could avoid hitting them, but then he said something else: “There were runners coming from the other direction, and when she moved to avoid them, she stepped in front of me.” (The scene from The Great Gatsby came to mind, but I’m a literature nerd.)

My friend and I turned and looked at each other. The “runners” were us. 

As we left the scene of the accident, we discussed the cyclist’s story. Before he told it to the policeman, neither of us had considered that we were a factor in what happened. In our version of the story, we were just witnesses. We happened to be running in the direction of the accident. We decided, though, that the cyclist might be right. In my memory, the woman did turn oddly and step sideways shortly before the impact. It is possible--likely even?--that she did turn and move that way because she heard us coming. It is possible--likely even?--that our roles in the scene were not just detached witnesses but somehow integral to the event. It is possible--likely even?-- that the events would not have happened as they did if we were not running in that place at that moment.

I do not mean this to be an invitation to place or even discuss blame. None of us meant to cause that accident. I do think, though, that it’s an interesting reminder that sometimes we need to see a situation from a perspective other than just our own. 

Writing this in June of 2020, during the resurgence of a pandemic so many people are trying to either avoid or discount, during the moment when my white friends and I are suddenly awake to racial patterns that we have been privileged enough to observe as “innocent bystanders,” I feel like today’s situation might be a metaphor. 

It is possible--likely even?--that none of us are ever just innocent bystanders.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." --John Muir