Does the bicyclist who blew a stop sign in Portland’s Old Town at 5:28 p.m. Friday know how lucky he is to still be pedaling?

As this video from

shows, he was about a heartbeat away from getting hit from a No. 9 TriMet bus as it rumbled north, full of evening commuters, on Northwest Broadway. In a blur, the bicyclist -- dressed in black with no light or helmet -- ran the stop sign at Flanders.

I was on that bus, headed home, when the driver slammed on the brakes. In TriMet training, it's called a "panic stop." And it caused several people on board to literally fly forward, with some landing on the floor near the driver and others falling on other riders.

One man was taken to the hospital with injuries. He was standing in the center aisle. he’s the one wearing the baseball cap in the choppy video. You can see him suddenly disappear from one frame as he flies forward several feet. (On the floor, writhing in pain, I heard him say that he thought he had broken his arm.)

I suffered a couple bruises from hitting plastic and metal around me. My left knee still smarts.

Picking themselves up and brushing themselves off, other riders watched in shock as the black outline of the bike rider disappeared into the darkness. "He'll probably go home and complain that a bus almost hit him tonight," one man near me said.

The video, taken by four cameras on the bus, really doesn’t do the hard-brake -- or the bus driver’s stellar reflexes and commendable customer-service skills -- justice. To get an idea how suddenly and powerfully the bus stopped, keep your eye on the upper right frame. See the seated man holding a box? Watch how he flies out of his seat, trying to hold onto his cargo.

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As the driver called dispatch to get help for the injured man, the grumblings quickly turned from bumps and bruises to disgusted comments about scofflaw bicyclists. “Too many of them just ignore stops,” a woman said. “This has got to end.”

Eventually, everyone but the man who was still groaning in pain on the floor, had to get off and walk a couple blocks in the cold to catch the next bus.

I’ve long contended that bicycle riders who ignore traffic signals give those who obey them -- and that’s the majority of bicycle commuters -- a bad reputation. I’m often

by other bicyclists for that position. But let me ask again:

, a bicyclist on the same bus wrote:

"This individual cyclist's irresponsible actions actually hurt people in a quantifiable way. I had conversations with other cyclists on the bus, and we were all in agreement that this individual was a complete (expletive). Of course, incidents like these hurt us all. Stupidity begets stupidity."



But really, the panic stop on the No. 9 is a lesson for all road users -- bicyclists and motorists -- who think they can blow a stop sign or red light. Just because there isn’t collision doesn’t mean someone doesn’t get hurt.