Crashes avoided - Thought processes and techniques

[iranana]

In my four years of riding I've never had a crash, but I've had two pretty close calls. The first was going through a roundabout in wet weather. I hit a patch of oil slick right at the hardest point of the turn with a negative camber and lost traction. I was going to quick for the corner, quite frankly, and my rear wheel just started sliding out on me. This was when I rode an RG150, and purely out of reflex I put my foot down and kicked myself back upright. I was pretty wobbly, but I made it out of the roundabout OK. Had it been a heavier bike, I probably would have binned it.

The second closest call I've had was once again on the RG150. I was blasting around a left hand corner at around midnight, when this rather large dog just came wandering out from behind a car. It stood there, directly in my path of travel, so I leant in harder hoping to avoid it, and I managed to miss it by a few cm's. I was bracing myself for a messy crash, complete with dog guts, but thankfully, there was none of that...

[george formby]

What Motu said, some bikes do some stuff betterer than others, who would have thought that a CBR 600 could leap onto a wide kerb at 80mph & back onto the road again unscathed? Not me, but I saw it. T'was another tractor did that...

I reckon any reasonably looked after semi modern bike really does not want to crash.

Back in a Blighty a few years ago I was returning from Dumfries to Newcastle on the A69, bastard of a road, traffic mayhem. It was pishin doon, had been for weeks. I could not see s%&t, really. Any hoo, yet again, an artic decided to turn right, across my lane into a big lay by. Must have been time for his snoo. Pretty certain their was no indication, no lights on either. But the truck was red this time. Those big bar stewards really limit your options for an exit so I had to chuck the anchors out first & figure out what was the least painful escape route whilst realizing I could not stop.
Easy, chuck the bike into the lay by entry, too. Hard on the brakes, in the rain, big truck just a couple of feet from me. Those light speed synapses managed to back off the front brake quickly & gently enough to get the bike around the corner. It never moved. Loved Bridgestone's ever since. I could not ride into that lay by, at that speed, in the dry, consciously.
I was riding more or less a 1000 mile's a week on that trip back home, easy, sometimes double, so was right on my game. The bike was as comfortable & familiar as me underpants. I think this helped a lot when the shit hit the fan.

[noobi]

Dunno if im welcome here or not, only riding dirty bikes and what not.
I've had some pretty horrendous close calls off road.

Two that stick in my mind were from marshaling trail rides.
The first was a quad wide forestry track, clay, greasy. Come over a left hand crest at a fair speed, not race fast or anything, and see this flipping tiny kid lying in the middle of the track having the bike trap her underneath. Forgot to mention its also really steep off to the right, and a bank on the left. Instinct said don't hit the kid no matter what. So just missed her and just about pulled it up, but just went over the edge, I jumped off the bike and managed to not fall too far down. Climb back up and help this poor kid, probably 5 or 6, no one around to supervise her. A second after moving her bike, another person does the same as me, but has no control and asses off exactly where the kid was. Guess it was a close call for her.
Had to bush bash my bike down the hill for about 10min to rejoin the track, it wasn't going back up the hill.

At another trail ride, come across a slight crest, also slightly to the left. I was on my 3rd or 4th lap, so knew roughly what the track was doing. I figured I could clip the inside of the bike marks over the crest and carry on, I thought there was nothing sinister on the other side. So probably 4th gear mid throttle, probably 60k or something, come over the crest with the bike pointing straight at a stump, probably a meter or more in diameter, and 500mm high. Just made the call that if I hit that, I won't ride out of it, so threw myself off the bike. Probably looked pretty spectacular, rolling along the ground and all that, came to a stop and did the 'check all my body parts are still moving' and everything checked out. Went over to the bike, and the left hand side of the bars is buried about a third of the way into the stump.


So I guess I didn't really avoid either of those.

[Ripperjon]

I had a scary moment when i was riding home on new tyres on my old 250.
I was taking it easy but was paranoid about the slippy new rubber, especially cos it started pissing down and i had a big(ish) ride home ahead (Invercargill to Queenstown).
It was probably the fear of sliding that made it slide (stiffening up on the bars and braking too much).
And slide it did. I don't know for sure but it felt like both wheels slid at least a little and i immediately started deciding whether to slide down the road on my belly or back.
I was surprisingly calm once it happened though and remembered what i'd read in 'twist of the wrist' and kept the gas on and loosened right up on the bars.
Got a decent bit of shake as it sorted itself out, but i let it happen and didnt fight it and before i knew it, i was back on track and it was over.
It all happened really fast, but im sure if i'd tried too hard to fix it myself, i'd have been off.

[Metastable]

Can't say I have had too many close calls on a bike on the road.... more while driving. A few that stick out:

- While driving my F-150 with family dog etc though the Rogers Pass, a minivan pulling a trailer with a home made wooden roof passed me. Shortly after the roof came flying off. I saw it go up.... looked to the shoulder.... took it and the roof landed beside me on the road where I would have been.
- Driving in downtown Toronto a woman walking in the same direction on the sidewalk inexplicably just decided to cross the road.... I almost wonder if she was trying to off herself..... I knew there were no vehicles in the lane beside me and just swerved to that lane just missing her. Honestly average Joe who typically doesn't go to the race track would probably have smoked her.
- Driving at night through a small downtown area, a drunk kid just jumped in front of the car and did a huge roar/yell. Not sure how I didn't hit him... stopped inches from that bastard. His friend pulled him out of the way and apologized.
- Driving on the freeway at night cresting a hill there is a bumper taking over the entire lane. There were no cars in the lane next to me, I swerved real hard and just clipped the end of the bumper spinning it.... no damage to the car. Again... good thing I spent time at the track.

In most of those cases I knew my surroundings (i.e. paying attention), expecting the unexpected, looking where I wanted to go as opposed to the object, and thankfully having enough performance driving experience to be able to just do things automatically as opposed to thinking about it. You don't really have time to think.


Come to think about it, I had a huge OH shit moment on a motorcycle..... going over a set of double tracks the bike did a lock to lock to lock tank slapper.... it just ripped my hands off instantly. The bike sorted itself..... I was just on for the ride. Worst thing would have been to try to fight it, but I had no chance to do that anyway.

[300weatherby]

Coming down Dyers pass city side, approaching a blind 90 degree right hander, a group of cyclists had just come around toward us, the following oncoming cars decided to swing wide to pass them, putting them over the centre line as we approach to go in, nekminit- woman in a hurry decides to go AROUND the cars, completely occupying our side of the road and was initially hidden from our view as a couple of the oncoming vehicals were SUV types, nowhere to go and we were zipping along as per normal.........

There was a strip of gravel about a foot wide, between the oncoming car and the armco gaurd rail ( which had one of those big square crash absorbers fitted on the end), some how managed to react quickly enough to stick the Busa in the gravel and keep it pointed as my knee bounced it's way along the car, and stay off the barrier at the same time, the fun factor increased as the barrier goes around the corner and I am two up zipping along on a Busa carrying too much momentum........

Somehow got it turned inside the barrier still on the gravel, bike loose as like a trail bike, and regained the seal, couple of corners later was a layby for cars, turned the bike around amd malleted it up the hill at warp 9, caught and passed the stupid woman and forced her to a stop, was going to jump off the bike and smash things on her car, never got the chance, the wife jumped off the back rushed the driver and went quite psycho and made her (the driver) burst into tears, was so astonished at the wife, I just stayed on the bike while she raged ( as the traffic built up ) eventually the wife lets the woman drive off, crying so much there was snot running down her face (yuuuuck!)

The wife, who has learned to watch every thing when on the bike and had been paying attention, said later the she fixated on the big square bash guard, and thought we were dead. Had I not been a racer, we would have been, because: I have learned to look for the gap and go there, not even waste concious think time on the obstical.

Do all the courses you like, nothing prepares you for something like that, if you think, too late you are dead. It is NOT paranoia, they actually are trying to kill you, be prepared at all times

[george formby]

Dats scary 300 Weatherby. My G/F has that effect on some people, too. for bailing the numpty, she was probably a bit shocked, too.

A course may not give you the solution to such a dilemma but if you learn & practice it will certainly help. Time on the bike, too, is paramount. Sunny Sunday arvo riders ain't gonna cut it.

Did someone mention tank slappers? I had a 7fiddly kawasaki that would smack my thumbs off the tank at 120 mph but was tickety boo at 130mph. No idea why. Just had to keep my head up & the throttle pinned. Scary in a straight line, surreal with any lean on.

[Metastable]

H2?

[Taxythingy]

Thought processes - what thought processes?

I just about planted myself into a driver's door on Friday afternoon. Turning right on the roundabout from Springs Rd to Halswell Junction Rd & Southern Motorway. Saw a car coming from the other direction in his left lane, thought "you're probably going to go straight ahead in front of me" and rolled the throttle off just before he started moving. Had the presence of mind to check my left mirror and glance sideways (clear) but figured he'd just do what they normally do and scoot through.

Wrong. He wasn't in a hurry to get to the pub at all. Lazy git. The real problem though was me. I was thinking "oh, he's probably just drifting round to the left slowly. Or something." Also wrong. Then I reacted too slowly, didn't look for an escape route (round the roundabout), forgot completely about using the horn, and fixated on the object drifting in front of me.

Then he did what most people do when a motorbike is heading right at them. He stopped.

Brakes it was then. Rear locked up but I stopped about 3 feet short, bike upright and clutch in (woot). Looked at him, shook my head and rode around the front of his car. Then in a fit of "stupiddumbassgitpratswearwords" I high-tailed it round the next roundabout onto the motorway with bad cornering lines, failed to react to the slower traffic in my lane in comfortable time, flicked the bike into the other lane (did do the head check), whacked it up to 115 (125 by my speedo), then started thinking again.

Didn't take long to work out that the driver screwed up by not looking, but I really fucked it up about half a dozen times.

[russd7]

driving in to invercargill yesterday, most invercargil peeps know about the steel road stop (giveway dont stop) intersection, already claimed motorcyclists, i was heading towards invers and a stoopid bitch didn't stop didn't or look came straight out in front of a dude on a harley he saw her coming and was already braking but still had to swing wide to miss her, i saw the whole thing unfolding and moved left to give him room, considered doing a uturn to get her number and report but to much traffic behind, not two mins later at the lorneville round about and i was still cursing the stoopid bitch in the suv and a dickhead in another suv comes straight through the round about in front of me cutting me off, again saw him coming and knew he was not going to give way so was already braking, he continued on his way just cutting in and out of the traffic in town not giving a rats arse about anyone else on the road, then leaving town another big fat suv with a young fella driving it spent most his time in two lanes, i just stayed back and kept my distance, was losing my cool tho. real Pleased to get home again. fuckin suv should be banned from town, only the fatone i saw had actually been off road, the others were just fuckin status symbols and that is what most have them for, bloody remuera tractors.
oh and for all you dickheds in suv, ya don't need them to tow trailors, i have farmed all my life and never owned one for towing a trailor, only ones i ever had never left the farm.