It happened fast. One moment, I was riding my motorcycle; the next, I was on the pavement in agony, struck down by a minivan.

On a motorcycle, you must be ever-vigilant, assuming that every car, bicycle, or pedestrian is about to do something stupid. You have to assume that the truck in front of you is about to slam on his brakes, that the approaching SUV will abruptly hang a left in front of you, that the oncoming car with the college girl staring at her cell phone is about to drift across the centerline, or that the minivan sitting at the side street to your right is about to punch it and plow into you.

Every one of those examples literally happened to me in the course of a week. It’s typical, because people don’t pay attention, usually because they’re selfish and disrespectful of the safety of others. I avoided the truck slamming on his brakes and the SUV cutting in front of me and the girl almost hitting me head on. If you ride a lot, you avoid near-death experiences like these all the time. It took forty thousand miles on this bike before a careless driver finally got me.

NOTE: Start the stopwatch!

It was early evening and sunny. I was on my 2007 Honda Shadow Spirit VT750c2. The 2018 Chrysler Pacifica minivan was to my right, at a stop sign on a side street. I clearly saw the back of the driver’s head; she was looking away from me, to her right, apparently waiting for oncoming traffic to pass. There was no one close in front of me, so I assumed that, at any moment, she was going to punch it and jump out of the side street and I would have to brake or countersteer or run into her.

I had a bead on her for several seconds as I approached, and I never stopped watching.  She was waiting for traffic to clear. I hoped she’d look left once it did, but just in case I eased the bike toward the centerline, to give myself a much distance from her as possible.

Oncoming traffic cleared just as my front wheel was almost in front of her, and she put the hammer down. Never looked left. Just floored it. I tried to lean hard away, tried to roll on the throttle to jump ahead of her, but no dice. This all happened so fast that when she turned her head forward to look, she didn’t even have time to let her eyes widen in surprise as she saw me — and hit me.

NOTE: Stop the stopwatch! Everything you just read took place in about four seconds. I traveled about 144 feet, always paying attention to her. I could see her clearly the entire time. She never looked to her left.

I was airborne, trying to get my left leg up and away from the bike so that it wouldn’t get crushed under 524 pounds of metal, and hit the pavement on my left side. Quickly, patrons from a bar swarmed out to assist. The minivan driver never got out to see if I was okay, but a woman knelt down to hold my hand as sirens sounded in the distance. I was in agony and unable to move.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said. “God will take care of you.”

Those were not her exact words; I don’t remember them, but she invoked God as she tried to comfort me. I usually avoid public religious debates with strangers — unless they’re blocking my path waving Chick tracts in my face — but I said, “I’m an atheist.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she cried. “I’m just trying to make you feel better.”

I thanked and told her she was doing great. She didn’t let go of my hand in anger and tell me I was going to burn in Hell, like I often get when religious people hear that I’m an atheist.

Then came paramedics, my frantic wife, an ambulance ride… X-rays, CT scans, morphine… an agonizing trip home, and days of excruciating pain…

But this story really isn’t about a motorcycle crash. It’s about respecting the beliefs of others. Or respecting others, period.

I posted about the crash on Facebook, and there was an outpouring of support. Many people messaged me to tell me that they were praying for me. These are people who are Christians who know that I’m an atheist. For the record, a Christian telling an atheist that he’s praying for him is like an atheist telling a Christian that he’s going to write a letter to Santa Claus asking him to help.

One day, following an update post, two people responded. The first, a co-worker said something to the effect of “Thank God it wasn’t worse than it was.” The second, the wife of a close friend, echoed his sentiment.

Maybe it was the drugs or the pain, but that tag-team invocation that God was somehow responsible for me not being worse was really annoying. I responded politely: “Thanks, but no gods had anything to do with it. Me trying to avoid her through countersteering and acceleration was why it wasn't worse.”

It’s true. I had moved toward the centerline and then leaned hard and accelerated when she punched it. That’s probably why she didn’t crush my right leg. But trying to take credit for that, and asserting my atheism, did not go over well with either of them.

The co-worker immediately deleted his response to my post and unfriended me.

The friend’s wife stuck to her religious guns, saying, “well we will agree to disagree about God. But I am glad that everything is working out” [sic].

It was annoying, obnoxious, disrespectful, selfish, and rude. If you think I’m being petty, let’s try a role reversal.

Let’s say a Christian friend riding a motorcycle was T-boned by a minivan, and she posted about it on Facebook. And let’s say that we had this exchange:

ME: Thank no gods that you’re OK!

HER: Thank you, but God was responsible for me being OK.

ME: Well, we will agree to disagree about no gods.

Imagine the blowback from that! I would be publicly reviled by angry Christians. How dare I respond in her hour of pain and need like that! How dare I volunteer that there are no gods when I know she’s a Christian! How dare I disrespect HER post on HER Facebook timeline like that! How DARE you!

It would indeed be in extremely poor taste for me to turn her tragedy, pain, suffering, and survival into an opportunity to beat her over the head with atheist perspectives. Better that I just say “I’m so glad you’re doing OK” — or say nothing, if I can’t be respectful. That, in fact, is what I always do when religious friends post religious things. This is because I’m not a disrespectful asshole.

Yes, had I been so callous, then the vitriol from everyone would be justified. But the reverse, of course, is somehow not true. This woman turned my situation into an opportunity to preach, despite knowing that I’m an atheist. And when I politely voiced my belief, she didn’t apologize for proselytizing. Of course not. She continued to make it all about her and her religion: “well we will agree to disagree about God…”

I wanted to respond, but didn’t want to get into religious argument on a post updating people on my health and welfare. So I visited her timeline and found a post where, on her wedding anniversary, she thanked God for being married to my friend. I planned to reply to her post with “Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for guiding you together with His noodly appendages!” Maybe that would lead to the opportunity to say “Well, we will have to agree to disagree about the FSM...”

I managed to restrain myself. Instead, I decided to message her privately and explain my position. So I began crafting a polite explanation hoping to show her my perspective, but I came to my senses again. In my experience, it’s unlikely that explaining anything to someone with that level of superiority and self-righteousness will accomplish anything. After decades of asking overbearing Christians how they’d feel about “In Zeus We Trust” on their money or “one nation, under Odin” in the pledge or “Allah Bless America” sung at baseball games, they just never seem to get it.

So how could I deal with this situation without offending or upsetting or hurting the wife of a great friend?

Then I realized that I wasn’t married to her, and that my friendship with her husband wasn’t contingent upon having to put up with that crap. So I unfriended her and moved on.

The woman who held my hand at the accident scene invoked God, and apologized when I said that I was an atheist (despite not needing to apologize). A complete stranger responded to my statement that I was an atheist with caring and respect. The wife of a close friend responded with uncaring and disrespect.

There is an overwhelming problem of disrespect and intolerance in so many things today, from religion to politics to culture to race to sexuality. Maybe taking the time to consider things from other people’s perspectives would give more of us the ability to temper our personal beliefs.

The driver of that minivan told the police officer that she looked to her left and just didn’t see the motorcycle. But I had my eye on her for four seconds and 144 feet, and she never turned her head. I wonder if she’s lying and knows it — or if she’s just deluded herself that she wasn’t careless and reckless. But if a friend isn’t going to admit that she was out of line on Facebook, I can’t expect a complete stranger to own up to a mistake that could have killed me.

That doesn’t mean I have to be Facebook friends with either of them.

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.