Near-miss options

[pixc]

On the last corner before the straight to home, a nice lady pulled out of her driveway in front of me. I was prolly 100-110 kms and I saw her watching the car coming in the opposite direction. I heard myself thinking "Look at me! look at me!" but the tard had her eyes fixed on the other vehicle coming the other way. The driveway she pulled out of was just the other side of traffic island, one on each side of the road..on the corner ( those that know the road, are as befuddled as I am as to why they were installed) so my options werent plentiful. I was already into the corner when I saw her, and I started appling my front brake. I felt the front wheel 'shudder', for lack of a better word, and released it, before trying it again. (didnt want my front wheel to slip out from me)
She looked at me but it seemed to take a while for her to 'see' me. Half way out she stopped. I had traffic islands on each side of the road, on coming car, she was on my side on the road stationary, and this was all on a corner. On top of it all..I was busting for a wee The whole scenario went by like a matrix scene, in slow motion (Its amazing how the brain speeds up to process all the info quicker) I got around her ok, and managed to contain my bladder through it all.

How should I have braked? I was very aware of the corner and was very wary of using my brakes.

[Wasp]

I don't know about how you should have braked but I guess you did ok

I'd be tempted to write to the council explaining how their traffic islands nearly killed you though

[ZeroIndex]

If you were doing about 100km/h, what was the speed limit of that corner? I'm not going on at you about speeding if it was a 50km/h area, just that when you do speed, standard logic of cage drivers does tend to change...

[pixc]

posted just on the corner is 100km..just before is 80km

[davereid]

The two most important things when facing an accident are
a) scrub as much speed as you can off and
b) keep control of your machine.

Sounds like you did a good job of both ! Its not ideal having to brake while in a corner, you already are asking the tyres for extra traction, and braking will tend to destroy your line.

But if you are not overcooking it, there are usually ample reserves, so judicious use of the brakes will be OK. Well done spotting the driver and guessing her intentiions before it was too late !

Edit : If you brake and the back wheel locks up, you are in danger of a hi-side - straighten up, release the brake then get back on line as quick as you can - don't just release the brake while still banked over.

[sunhuntin]

well done keeping everything to your benefit. sounds like you did ok. certainly, you didnt bin or anything, and thats always the best outcome. dunno what i woulda done. likely laid it down and hoped like hell. lol.

[xwhatsit]

I've found that if I have to brake in a corner, the back brake seems to be the most stable. When I hit the front brake, the bike really feels quite unsettled and wants to lean over more, whereas the back brake just seems to make it track much better, albeit at a reduced braking force.

Then again, I'm both a n00b and I have an old bike with a drum brake, suspension prone to fade, and skinny wee tyres, so take my words with a grain of salt.

[N4CR]

brake and swerve has saved my **** many a time when legal and not riding legally either. on a zx10r throttle can get you to make vital gaps pretty easy too, had to use all that throttle once to beat some ****in **** turning across a road that i could have never braked for, made it with about 5cm between bike and bumper and swerved for parked cars ahead i was careering for.

aim for the gaps if not certain brake like **** unbrake and swerve so if it is a tiny gap and you're probably going to clip it it won't be quick and too bad. practice emergency stops also. aim for the rear of car/people cus they will usually freeze if they don't see you till it's too late.

another one is to jump off the bike if you can as a last resort, if all is lost... just ****in clear the car. sure you'll hit the road 2m up at 100kmh+ in some situations and cause some decent damage if you can't land properly but it's better than going over 100-0 into a door pillar in 0.1 seconds and not even making it to the icu and dieing on the spot.

aim for the gaps in any way possible, even locking rear and sliding under a truck trailer unit (i know a guy who's alive today cus of that)

[Ixion]

I find (and it's worked pretty well over 40 years) that the best use of brakes on a bike is to buy you some time , a few seconds , to find the gap that you can go into. And maybe slow you down enough to make the turn into the gap.

It's rare on a bike that there's no where you can go. Of course sometime the places to go may tip you off (eg, onto the footpath). But that's better than hitting a car.

So when you have to brake in an emergency, don't focus on the braking as the answer. Brake and search, find the gap, then steer into it - remember countersteering. Often this may mean actually accelerating - if you are going to go over a kerb (and I've done it more than a few times) you want to be standing up, accelerating , and pull back on the bars as your front wheel hits.

Then worry about what comes next. Hopefully nice wide grass verge or hedges or such.

Always remember the mantra too "He came FROM there when he pulled out in front of me - so why can't I GO to there - where he was"