Filtering and NASS saved my life this morning

**TheDemonLord** · 1st July 2014, 07:44

So this morning - riding along the Silverdale - Albany stretch of HW 1, Outside lane, weather is shitty so I am riding with the traffic at around 110 kph. Up ahead, I see a clump of red lights and so ease off the throttle a little as I am not sure what is happening, as I get a bit closer, its clear the traffic is stopped and that there has been an accident, so I start slowing down (I have plenty of room and plenty of grip, despite the shit weather) then all of a sudden I hear the lovely sound of rubber skidding on Tarmac, the car behind me has locked up and locked up hard. Very calmly - I look at my options, see the hard shoulder on the right side is free and as the sound gets louder I decide that I don't want to be the gooey meat in a Steel Cage sandwich.

I pull to the right and start to filter up the hard shoulder, as I do so I start thinking 'When the car behind me hits the car in front of me, I don't want to be hit by any debris or get clipped if the car gets shunted' so I give her a quick flick of the wrist and sure enough about a a quarter of a second later, I hear the car behind me slam into the car in front of me, I'm still rubber side down, I see the original accident so drop down a gear or too, think about stopping, but I can see other people are already helping and at this point the Adrenaline and realization of how close to serious injury/death I came kicks in and I decide that the clear motorway offers more in the way of protection as opposed to being a stationary target - so I head off leaving the destruction in my wake.

If it wasn't for my confidence filtering and some of the skills I learned at NASS, I truly believe I wouldn't have had the calm presence of mind to avoid the crash, I would have either panic braked, locked the front and slid into the car in front, just before being sandwiched by the car behind, or I would have stopped and been rear ended and thrown to god knows where.

Moral of this post - is that never underestimate training, the people who teach at the NASS are worth their weight in Gold, I am now a firm believer that Filtering can and does save lives (it sure as fuck saved mine) and that hazard identification and developing your Spidey sense is key to staying alive.

\m/

**yevjenko** · 1st July 2014, 08:08

Nice escape. What's NASS?

**TheDemonLord** · 1st July 2014, 08:14

North Auckland Survival Skills - there is a thread devoted to it in the other section

**nodrog:Me** · 1st July 2014, 08:32

Are you spiderman?

**R650R** · 1st July 2014, 08:34

That's basic common sense/situational awareness for most people, good on you for missing it but I wouldn't credit training for it.

I watched an oncoming car drift slowly to the left once on SH27 at night, my instincts said that bugger looks asleep/not right.
Sure enough when his left wheels hit the shoulder he wakes up and yanks the wheel to the right doing a big 180 across the highway into ditch. If I'd stayed on cruise control he would have been under truck or front trailer.
He started jabbering BS about swerving to avoid a dog so told him what I thought of that rubbish and he lucky to be alive etc...

**Katman** · 1st July 2014, 08:45

**BuzzardNZ** · 1st July 2014, 09:09

Originally Posted by R650R

That's basic common sense/situational awareness for most people, good on you for missing it but I wouldn't credit training for it.

I kind of agree with this. I've survived a few closes shaves like this and never had any formal training, I credit experience and as mentioned above, situational awareness and the will to survive.

Still, any training can't hurt and probably would have done it myself when I was starting out , if it was available.

Glad to hear the OP escaped with his life

**TheDemonLord** · 1st July 2014, 09:57

Originally Posted by BuzzardNZ

I kind of agree with this. I've survived a few closes shaves like this and never had any formal training, I credit experience and as mentioned above, situational awareness and the will to survive.

Still, any training can't hurt and probably would have done it myself when I was starting out , if it was available.

Glad to hear the OP escaped with his life

I hear you - I look at it on the lines that Semi-Formal Training is a tool that I have in my Tool Kit - Today when I pulled out my Tool Kit, I had all the tools I needed to survive.

Would I have been able to Survive without NASS, maybe.

But I felt thanks to NASS, I felt calm and confident which IMO helped me make the right call

**nodrog:Me** · 1st July 2014, 10:42

The bit about Tools i agree with.

**buggerit** · 1st July 2014, 10:57

Good save, may not have heard it coming if it had ABS, check dem mirrors!

**p.dath** · 1st July 2014, 11:07

Originally Posted by TheDemonLord

So this morning - riding along the Silverdale - Albany stretch of HW 1,

Thanks for sharing that. I'm glad you are okay and very inspiring.

Originally Posted by buggerit

Good save, may not have heard it coming if it had ABS, check dem mirrors!

ABS kicks in after the tyres have locked.

**f2dz** · 1st July 2014, 11:09

Originally Posted by TheDemonLord

But I felt thanks to NASS, I felt calm and confident which IMO helped me make the right call

I think you're probably right. Good work! Glad ya didn't get crushed.

**Gremlin** · 1st July 2014, 11:19

Good work, keep those observational skills working!

**Big Dog** · 1st July 2014, 12:02

Training is no substitute for experience but what NASS and SASS offer is a way to make your collection of experience more efficient and hopefully less painful. There are a lot of situations I find myself in that I just calmly do the needful, 22 years ago I would have spent the first 2s wondering what the best course of action was.

Glad to hear you are ok.

Stupid phone / Tapatalk, apologies in advance.