The Accident I survived
 

After I was hit by a Suv last monday, and survived in a miracle way.
I think we can share some stories on how we did not think right before an accident we were involved in happened?
What were the signs we did not read? Howcome we, the best riders that we think we are, made a mistake? and how we can pervet the next one, eaven if the other driver, or god that set the wether, the road, the engineer that made it is to blame...?
Tell us about the way drivers act in Rome or in Lima or in Tokyo. What we shuld know when we go there ("never ride at night in 'third world' coutries") What are the signs we will not understand? The gestures? The "no no"s?
Let us enrich each other with that. Lets make it very short and simple:

Bike: bmw1150Adv.
Riding: solo, dressed full protection.
Time: 13:30
Wether: clear sunny
Place: Dry new main street, red traffic lights, standing first in middle lane. signaling to the left.
What happend?: The light turned green, the Merc suv in the left line shot started first. turned left but suddnly decided to go straight. I was on my turn to the left and was hit by the Merc's right side.
What happend to me?: Fell from the bike and jupmed on my feet to run aside before another car hit me. no injury at all.
Whats with the bike?: hardly nothing. Left arm bent, right cylinder cap broken.
Whats with the other car?: Deep dent in right back door.
What I hade to consider to prevent that?:Look at the Mercs driver (a woman talking in her cellphone. a kid jumping in the back.)
Maybe standing a bit in front of the Merc so the driver can see me before moving.
honking slightly to let her know I'm there.
Wating a second before jumping to the middle of the junction.

Hope my story will help others.

Tell us your streetwise experiance. and if you are still a virgin to to that
well... be happy.

Ride safe
Yoni

Every country is a bit different.

Accidents?
 

After working in motorcycle shops for 30 years I have repaired lots of bikes that have been crashed. Invairably the rider says something like "that car driver didn't see me" . Sometimes they were right along side the car or some other place that the car driver probably couldn't see them. My advice is don't count on traffic laws, stripes on the road, loud pipes, your horn or bright colored vests. The best protection is not to be where the other traffic can get you. If this means driving down the sidewalk or taking a taxi...so be it. I once fell down and slid into a metal road barrier (thank you shoie helmet) because it was sunrise and I came around a freeway/motorway off ramp and ended up looking right into the blinding sun. just at that point the road jogged and I ran over a curb which launched my poor guzzi into the air. Was I going to fast for conditions...probably. What would I do different, not worry about what is far ahead instead pay attention to what is right in front of me. I could always turn around and find that turn off again.

"I also hire Taxi's to get me where I want to go if lost. Saves a ton of time and you can relax and just follow."

What a brilliant idea!!!!! Thought I'd heard it all, but not this one....

Lorraine

"Dickhead Alert" "Dickhead Alert"
 

Yes it was me today, over the years I have had many new tyres fitted and been warned every time about the wax. The mechanic had just finished warning me that Tourances have more wax on them than other brands. You guessed it, today I slid down the road on the first corner outside the dealer. After covering many miles in my riding career this is the first close encounter with bitumen that I have had. On the up side I only managed to do light damage to my near new bike and I suppose if you are ever going to drop a bike, a low speed drop is the way to go.

Lets hope that this is the first and last time! :funmeterno:

Glen

Loxsmith on the looooose
 

We call it mold release agent. I test bikes ABS in the parking lot with slippery new tires........ABS works and new tires are amazingly slippery.

Good advice here, i often use a large vehicle as a blocker on roundabouts and junctions. Just assume always that they cant see you.

Had a wee spill myself last week:

After nearly 20,000 miles on this trip, I had so far managed to avoid being hit by anything much larger than an uncoordinated bird however all that changed as I was pulling into Acapulco. Skimming up the outside of a very congested line of traffic, I could see it happening before it happened if you know what I mean. The VW Beetle taxi driver makes a movement that stongly suggests he is about to pull a very quick U-turn right in front of me, and indeed he does. I heave the bike over to the left to try and avoid contact with the front left corner of the car now immediately in front of me however it is too late.

Crunch! It actually doesn´t feel as bad as I am expecting and when I open my eyes again, I am a bit further down the road but somehow I didn´t go down. I look around at the taxi, the driver of which appears to be in a state of shock as he´s still sitting in the line of traffic, however the best part of his front wing now appears to be ripped and dented to buggery. My rather solid Al Jesse metal panniers seemed to have caused more damage to his car than it did to my bike. And so with a ´see ya, sucker´expression to the driver, I shot off through the traffic leaving him wondering how the hell a bike just smashed up his car.

Chalk one up for the two-wheelers, Mike! :thumbup1:
Stephan

There is a nice compilation of advices in the following link. Every now and then they are worth remembering.

How to Survive on a Motorcycle: How To Survive on a Motorcycle.. from your friends at Pirates' Lair

Wishing everyone of us happy and safe rides on this beautiful earth. It is more in our hands.

Funny Customer Story
 

The following is a quote from an article I found in a Team Moto news letter that was email to me the other day.

thought I would put pen to paper with an amusing biking tale that happened to me recently. I regularly commute to the city on my FZ6N travelling up and down the dreaded M1. On this journey there never fails to be some sort of incident and this ride home proved no exception. There had been an accident on the M1 and the outbound route was stationary.

Now I am not a fast filterer as I think it's dangerous at high speed but I do like to plod along at my own pace and then get out of the way when necessary. While filtering I was keeping my usual vigil for all the tell tale signs of a tin box about to cut lanes and all looked good until a white flat back van closed the gap in front of me so that I couldnt get through.

This phenomenon is becoming common place and has been discussed in AMCN before, but on this occasion he did it so late that I had no other option but to carry on. BANG..... my left hand mirror hit his and after a few well chosen words in my helmet I carried on thanking my lucky stars that my mirror wasn't broken and I was okay.

Within a kilometer I had a GSX-R600 right up behind me beeping and flashing his lights, I thought there was further damage to my bike that he was warning me of so I pulled over and he followed. As the guy lifted his visor he was crying with laughter, he told me that he had seen the BAST@~* cut me off and then filled me in of what happened next ... Apparently I had knocked the Vans giant, electric, heated mirror and the glass popped right out with the electrics hitting the floor and amazingly staying in one piece, the van man had turned the air blue at me as I left. On then seeing his mirror in one piece on the floor, he was unable to believe his luck until my new friend on his GSXR ran over it for me......

Still makes me smile now...... Jeff a very happy TeamMoto customer.



End quote. Another win for the two wheelers!