Is it really true that everybody crashes?

[Mr. Peanut]

It only takes one mate.

Law of averages. Bro.

Less intermasections and traffic lights. In fact, theres only one, the Kopu bridge *snigger*

[terbang]

Though I had an off last week I still subscribe to the "its Possible" rather than the 'Its inevitable' . I have now averaged one every 10 years and all of them were caused by a string of errors with me, the rider, being the biggest player (error). The rider is always the last line of defence. My latest had all the hallmarks of me being tired playing a big part, which seems to be a thing we all feel at this time, as we settle into a new year.

[Ixion]

Tired is bad, though personally I find tired just makes me go slower and slower . Hungry is bad too, I know my lines get rough as hell when I'm hungry. And worse, hungry actually makes me want to go faster, not slower, sort of panicy. Why I always carry nuts and chocolate (assuming a certain Frosty person hasn't ridden over the chocolate!) .

[bikemike]

Glad you are OK, but what can we learn from your incident?

[bluninja]

I know this thread is specifically for bikes, but......is it true that everyone crashes? even in a cage?

I now commute 1000kms a week and 20% of that time I'm filtering because of the congestion...very busy motorways.

In the last 3 months on my route I've seen the aftermath of one minor motorbike accident (no injury to rider) due to some bad filtering (lane splitting). In the same time I've seen over 40 multi vehicle cage accidents, 1 of which was a head on that closed the road and required 3 ambulances.

Lots of threads on KB about bikes going down (yeah I know it's a bike site, and often we may know those involved, if only to nod/wave to) may give the impression that bikes are unstable dangerous machines that should be banned from the road...oh they are dangerous?? Maybe a bit of balance is needed. How about a thread to keep 'score' of the numbers of cage crashes v bike crashes as observed by kbers?

[Chisanga]

I would be very interested to see statistics (if they exist) comparing motorbike and cage crashes as a percentage of total motorbikes/cages on the road.

Anybody have any clue what said statistics might show?

I know this thread is specifically for bikes, but......is it true that everyone crashes? even in a cage?

I now commute 1000kms a week and 20% of that time I'm filtering because of the congestion...very busy motorways.

In the last 3 months on my route I've seen the aftermath of one minor motorbike accident (no injury to rider) due to some bad filtering (lane splitting). In the same time I've seen over 40 multi vehicle cage accidents, 1 of which was a head on that closed the road and required 3 ambulances.

Lots of threads on KB about bikes going down (yeah I know it's a bike site, and often we may know those involved, if only to nod/wave to) may give the impression that bikes are unstable dangerous machines that should be banned from the road...oh they are dangerous?? Maybe a bit of balance is needed. How about a thread to keep 'score' of the numbers of cage crashes v bike crashes as observed by kbers?

[terbang]

Tired is bad, though personally I find tired just makes me go slower and slower. Hungry is bad too, I know my lines get rough as hell when I'm hungry. And worse, hungry actually makes me want to go faster, not slower, sort of panicy. Why I always carry nuts and chocolate (assuming a certain Frosty person hasn't ridden over the chocolate!) .

Thats an important issue and very relavent. That morning I had dragged my arse out of bed at 0400 AM and had done a longish day at work (riding the Boeing). I finished in time to quickly get home, suit up and make it to the Autobahn for the SATNR. Grabbed a quick coffee there and off we went. A combination of being tired, hungry and also just a dumb ass, (gung ho) I can do it regardless attitude, saw me making a string of errors. This ultimately saw me fall for a fundamental trap and bin it. I had recognised my tiredness and was riding at a slower pace though my lines were terrible having had more than one little fright prior to the final crunch. This is no excuse, just an explanation as to how I proved the possible, possible.
There are times when it runs like clockwork with perfect lines (well you know what I mean), good handling and a good smoothe flowing ride and yet there are times when no matter what we do, we are all over the show making hard work of it all with lots of little scares. The difference between the two is probably our level of fatigue affecting our mental and cognitive state. Being well rested and watered has a big bearing on our performance, especially (dare I say it) as you get a bit longer in the tooth.

[BUNGY]

I was advised to start off on a cheap bike with no fairings because I would bin whilst learning to ride but haven't really had a close call yet. Maybe riding a scooter for a year helped when learning to ride a bike but didn't have any problems while learning to ride that either.

[Arthur]

I wouldn't say everyone crashes either - off-road, it is a case of when, not if. On the road though, the old boy scouts motto comes to mind - "prepare for the worst, and hope for the best." Personally, I've been riding for over twenty years now (alright - the first ten were on the back of a quad-bike), and the majority of my offs have all been my fault - things like not reading the terrain properly, or trying to push th bike to hard through a corner or over a jump. Even the first two offs I had with a road bike were my fault (washing out on gravel, spinning out on wet ground) - but the last one was not. I got taken out by a car that was turning right - he claims he never saw me. Mind you, it's one way of slowing down from 50 k's...

[Roj]

I got taken out by a car that was turning right - he claims he never saw me. Mind you, it's one way of slowing down from 50 k's...

I think this is what is meant by many comments on this thread...

While every rider does what they can to be safe there are drivers out there who don't care, my wife was knocked off her bike 6 months ago by an unlicensed driver in an unregistered car turning right, who "didn't see" her, how a bright red bike with headlight on can be missed from 20 metres away is the question (thre driver did get convicted but the sentence was just a slap on the wrist)

[Arthur]

He was just a young guy (about twenty) going to play touch with his brother and a mate. Most of you I know can see a rider coming the other way (both of you doing a hundy) when s/he is almost completey obscured (southern motorway in Auckland is perfect example - sometimes the traffic is split into two levels) yet you can see the rider without making any effort to look. A bike can stop in a very short space from 50 - I'd say about 5 metres. What I fail to understand, is how a driver cannot see someone, directly in front of them from that distance. Particularly when that person is on a motorcycle and has done what they can to make themselves visible. ACC might pay wages for time off, and the bike is insured, but all I seem to get out of this crash is a plastic testicle cos some clown had his eyes closed

[vifferman]

I was going to say, "All crashes are avoidable/preventable", but I'm not 100% sure that's the case, so I'll say instead, "Almost all crashes are preventable". Just to leave an 'out'.
Certainly, all the crashes I've had were avoidable. Not all were my fault, but even those that weren't technically my fault, I could have avoided.

The earlier ones were due to inexperience or bad decisions. More recent ones were due to carelessness and/or bad decisions.

Here's some examples:
1. Total noob, no licence - I dropped my first bike at the end of the test ride, in the garden of the owner (no damage). I found it heavy and difficult to handle at slow speed.
2. Pulling out of work, I clipped a car with my handlebar, and went splat. I didn't see it because it was dusk, rainy, and I was wearing a tinted visor. I also didn't allow for poor visibility and check more carefully.
3. Swerving around some people standing on the road, I hit a patch of gravel right on the corner behind them. I didn't see it, because I was watching them (they were moving) and they obscured my vision of the gravel.
4. I hit a cyclist who turned right in front of me. She didn't look before turning. I was going a little too fast, and didn't use my front brake to emergency brake, so couldn't stop in time.
5. I t-boned a car that failed to give way to the right at an uncontrolled intersection. I didn't see them because I wasn't alert, and because I was clowning around. When I did see them, I froze (didn't brake, didn't swerve).

So, all these were in my first 18 months of biking, and all were due to noobiness and carelessness.

I had no crashes on my second, third, or fourth bikes. I did recognise when I had my fourth bike that I was becoming a little blasé about my riding, and a bit reckless, and considered either giving it up, or getting something like a cruiser.

Bike 5 was a disaster. It had obviously developed a taste for blood, or was jinxed! It had been crashed before I bought it, and must've liked it. Or maybe my realisation about my recklessness was correct.
1. I low-sided on a squashed softdrink can. I didn't see it on the road, as all the paint had been rubbed of it, so it was sort of road-coloured. I hit it with my front tyre at the instant I tipped into the corner, and was on the road in a split second. It took me a while to work out what had caused it.
Bad luck? Well, I didn't think so, and learned to scan the road surface for debris before setting up for a corner.
2. I hit a pedestrian who was crossing illegally (against the lights). I paused, sounded the horn, then decided she was going to continue across the road, and went around behind her. Unfortunately, once I'd committed to this course of action, she changed her mind, and turned (away from me) before stepping into my path. I could have avoided this if I'd left work a minute later/earlier, given her more room, sounded the horn more than once, proceeded more slowly, watched her more carefully (instead of assuming that she'd carry on walking).
4. A car changed lanes on me abruptly, when the driver decided she was in the wrong lane and changed line before checking it was clear. I'm not sure if she clipped my front wheel, or I dropped the bike when braking then swerving. I was nearly at my destination, and had possibly dropped my guard, and was less wary than I should've been.
5. A car u-turned into me. When I came up behind him, I saw that his windows were fogged/rain obscured, and slowed down, as I was unsure if he knew I was there. My instinct was to give him a melodious tootle, but when he pulled back into the kerb, I assumed he'd seen me. In fact, he was doing his morning routine: start car, pull out from kerb, drive down road a few metres, crack a u-turn. Which is what he did. At the point he cracked a u-turn, I'd already decided he was stopping, and accelerated past. I swerved, but obviously a u-turning car can turn faster than a swerving bike. It was legally his fault (he didn't indicate or check the way was clear), but I could have avoided it.


What about other circumstances, like where someone rear-ends you? Well, there are still things you can do. I was rear-ended on my Firestorm - luckily at only slow speed. I guess the driver behind me thought I was about to go, and started to take off. Now I keep an eye on my mirrors when thinking about braking at orange lights, and don't if I'm being closely followed. I also keep an eye on them if I'm sitting at a stop sign or red light with no-one behind me, so I can move forward a bit if necessary.

At intersections, I make sure people can see me, and tootle them if not sure. Likewise, I always tootle people backing out of driveways if there's any doubt. Not a loud, rude PARP!!, just a quick blip on the button to let them know I'm there.


I try not to assume I know what people are doing. I've become very good at reading whatever the car version of body language is, and can usually tell if someone is going to change lanes. I'm not sure what it is - perhaps a barely detectable slowing down, a change in their lane position, or what, but I'm seldom wrong. (The u-turning Audi driver was an example of drawing the wrong conclusions from the observations.) I wouldn't stake my life on it though.


I try not to let my testosterone or pride get in the way of safe riding. Sometimes it still happens, and I've been lucky it hasn't (yet) resulted in a crash.


I recognise that sometimes my headspace isn't conducive to safe riding, and try to rein myself in. Being a head case, this sometimes isn't easy, and my most recent 'incident' (dropping the bike/doing a faceplant while undertaking on the footpath) was an embarrassing and sobering reminder to do a systems check before riding.


Riding to the conditions has never been a problem, as I have a vivid imagination, remember well the horrible sickening feeling of the inevitable crash, and so I ride like a pussy when it's wet and/or the road's wet.


I hope all this crapola helps someone there to learn from my misadventures. I've had remarkably few crashes and injuries considering the way I ride, and that I've been riding since 1974-ish...

[MSTRS:Me]

Are crashes inevitable?? That being the question, I'd have to say the answer is 'Yes'. How bad the outcome is largely down to luck.

[bikemike]

Though I had an off last week I still subscribe to the "its Possible" rather than the 'Its inevitable' .

Absolutely! Possible I can agree with, inevitable is utter bollocks mostly promoted by those who have come off who think their life experience proves stuff. Any stuff.

It's utterly obvious that it is false to say it is inevitable. Plenty of folks have said they haven't come off, and if they popped their clogs today, or gave up the saddle, they would prove the failing of that rhetoric.

What are you all saying, "I rode for years and years, all over the place until I finally came off" Good work. For those that haven't succeeded in coming off yet, just keep on trying...

[d.mcmeel]

Role 10 dice and you might never get 10 six's but you might... as someone else said, you can (and should) take all the precaution you can but if some tool in a subaru Impretza corners on the wrong side of the road the only thing thats probably going to save you is a time machine. Having said that there are courses to increase your awareness, reading the landscape the topography riding for to what you can actually see... interesting stuff and can make the whole expereice a little safer... load the dice in your favour!