Sight and Sound

This morning I saw a cyclist ride straight into a tram.

He was looking the other way and had headphones in his ears. No sight and no sound.

The scalar value of momentum is mass × velocity. In this case the two vehicles had about the same velocity, say 10 kmh.

One bounced and the other didn’t.

And then it bounced again a couple of times when it hit the earth which had an even greater mass than the tram.

Three bounces later it wasn’t moving and probably wishing it had hung onto the useful senses of sight and sound.

I wasn’t the first to the scene and, would you believe it, someone closer was an off-duty paramedic.

Thank God for that….I have always dreaded having to dredge up those intermittent medical emergency courses in a real situation.

The cat lived; hence all the bouncing. A few broken bones. Unconscious for a spell. Off to hospital for a few weeks.

Me, the police and the tram driver yarned for a while. And we decided there was no case to answer for the tram driver.

The police did note that, in any case, there was no procedure for booking a tram driver.

And that was my morning’s entertainment.