How many accidents have you had and what caused it/them?

[MaxCannon]

Two (well unless you count dropping it in the driveway because I was in too much of a hurry and didn't put the stand down properly).

One on the back straight of Pukekohe. Riding beyond my limits, trying to pass someone at a track day when I should have waited.
Ended up on the grass at 250kph. It's a wild ride for sure.
Since the grass was wet and I thought it was too risky to try and join the track again I aimed for the gravel trap.
Bike dug in and flipped over on it's nose. I shot up in the air and landed square on my (apply padded) backside.
A few scrapes on the paint and dirt on my suit but otherwise all OK.

Second one - a month later at Hampton Downs. Lowside at turn. I couldn't figure out how I'd done it for ages.
Now I reckon it was case of entering too fast, not getting in the right body position, too much throttle and overloading the front tyre.
Didn't even feel the impact with the ground (always wear your back protector!).

[SMOKEU]

I'm still a noob, only got around 18,000km of riding but I've never crashed a road bike. I have crashed a dirt bike about a year ago and broke my hand. Still haven't recovered fully from that.

I did have a low speed (walking pace) bin on my old scooter (it was similar to a Nifty 50) due to gravel when I was turning into a driveway. I blame it on the small wheels as I've ridden my old CBR250 into the same driveway at the same speed and haven't had any issues.

[Sable]

Dug in a fixed footpeg going round a corner hard and the bike rotated around its axis. Hit a patch of gravel in the middle of a corner. Went to pull over in a really thick seafog and hit a road sign. Hit a patch of diesel. Got taken out by someone who stopped at a stop sign then hit the gas anyway.

[Fast Eddie]

aww I love swapping crash stories.

ill just pick my favourite one. I was riding down memorial ave in chch at say 60kph and an asian high school kid run across the rd infront of me with his mp3 player/earphones in. didnt even look left and right. tisk tisk.

anyway, I remember wondering why there was this kid infront of me.. then black out. then sorta came to and I was way further down the rd, the bike was under a parked car fairly mangled and the kid was further up the rd not moving :S

in the end he was ok, with internal bruising/bleeding and some sort of leg injury and I got a sweet neckbrace.

I'll prob pass the blame onto the kid if no body minds.

[ducatilover]

I'll prob pass the blame onto the kid if no body minds.

You weren't wearing HiViz and you didn't wave!

[Katman]

I'll prob pass the blame onto the kid if no body minds.

We'll let you pass the blame if you like.

But could you have avoided it?

Now, there's another story.

[FJRider]

We'll let you pass the blame if you like.

But could you have avoided it?

Now, there's another story.

I've had a few "incidents" with joggers ... with their I-pods on, they are in their own little world. They just forget they are on a public road, and dont hear ANY vehicles approaching from the front OR rear ... cyclists are in a similar group (although being a bigger "target" doesn't seem to faze THEM ...

[Katman]

I've had a few "incidents" with joggers ... with their I-pods on, they are in their own little world. They just forget they are on a public road, and dont hear ANY vehicles approaching from the front OR rear ... cyclists are in a similar group (although being a bigger "target" doesn't seem to faze THEM ...

Once again, the fact that they might not be aware of us doesn't mean it's not in our best interest to be aware of them.

[oldrider]

I've been reading the Safety in Motorcycling thread which got me to thinking about my own conduct on a bike, the accidents I've had, their causes etc.

I'm 43 and have been riding since 14. Have travelled about 350,000kms on bikes. I have my fair share of times when I've ridden like a FUCKWIT. Never been done DIC, but did lose my licence once for excessive speed.
MY ACCIDENTS.
Two crashes in the first month of riding wearing bugger all gear. A mate gave me his bike and gave me a 30 second brief on the controls, then I was off. A couple of grazes and hurt pride.
Rode into a drain (inattention, object fixation, and lack of skill).
Hit by a car that ran a red light. Full gear, very lucky, just a few bruises. Just needed a change of drawers!
Another car failed to give way and I clipped the back of it then slid down the road. Good gear, but a dislocated shoulder.
Went off the end of a bend (too fast and inattention). Bumps and bruises.

Between myself and six mates, we have had an accident (thus far) every 50,000 - 80,000kms, and two thirds of our accidents are our own stupid fault!
Lastly, I have known five guys who have died on bikes and of those, three were rider error, one was arguable, and one was a car driver.
So to me more than half of the 'blame' for motorcycle accidents should be shouldered by us.

How does this compare to everybody else? Are my mates and I short on skill and long on luck?
Cheers.

With all due respect.

I don't think it's healthy focusing overtly on accidents, I prefer to dwell on the thousands and thousands of miles/kilometres that I have ridden without negative incident!

I have just been for a wee blatt to top up the tank on the bike, a couple of K's ended up being a ride from Otematata to Omarama and back, felt so good I then went around Lake Aviemore, then down to Kurow and back home, where it all ended too soon!

Why did I put myself in front of all that danger .... because there was no danger, simply a shit hot lovely ride on a nice day on a great bike!

[Fast Eddie]

You weren't wearing HiViz and you didn't wave!

haha hindsight eh the hi viz may not have helped I don't think. He didnt look up from his mp3 player at all.. when I realised he was crossing into my path and it was going to happen he still hadn't looked up.. he didn't know what hit him until after it all happened

[Fast Eddie]

We'll let you pass the blame if you like.

But could you have avoided it?

Now, there's another story.

yea.. I could have avoided it but I figured I had nothing else on that arvo and I was bored of my new bike.. time to plow it into a pedestrian and see whats what.

[puddy]

With all due respect.

I don't think it's healthy focusing overtly on accidents, I prefer to dwell on the thousands and thousands of miles/kilometres that I have ridden without negative incident!

I have just been for a wee blatt to top up the tank on the bike, a couple of K's ended up being a ride from Otematata to Omarama and back, felt so good I then went around Lake Aviemore, then down to Kurow and back home, where it all ended too soon!

Why did I put myself in front of all that danger .... because there was no danger, simply a shit hot lovely ride on a nice day on a great bike!

Sorry, I probably didn't structure it properly. Probably should have been a poll .......... total accidents/rider error. My intention was not to focus on the particular accidents, but to highlight the fact that as a group the majority of our accidents are caused by us and not by other road users. Just sometimes when I read some threads here or elsewhere, I get the feeling that some feel that it is other road users that should improve their skills to ensure that we (motorcyclists) live longer.

[avgas]

27.
Me and my obsession with cubic numbers. I used to only have 9. But when I had the 10th crash I just couldn't stand the pressure so I went out and had 16 more.

Only one or 2 were ever serious.

[Mark Nansett]

Well if you wanna get involved in an accident - go on the LIONS Coast to Coast ride from Himatangi to Akitio. Did this for the 1st time last Sunday and likely won't bother again as it was spoiled by some guys who wanted to display their trackday prowess on the unmarked, bumpy, windy back-country roads. These roads should be approached as low speed fun rides - not races. Most were sensible...a few like us just wanted a slow amble..two-up and can't be buggered risking the arse for the sake of getting to the finish 7-8 mins earlier just to wait for everyone else. We kept moving over and waving these guys on past - and some gave us back a friendly wave...but we really just wanted them off our tails...Knees down and flinging themselves into blind corners without a thought for country drivers in utes coming the other way. We saw two bikes go down - a Suzuki went through a farmers fence and down a bank just about 30 seconds from Pongaroa and a Harley went down on a 90 degree turn onto a bridge - I think that may have been a gravel skid..perhaps went onto the verge to come to a stop and went whoopsie.. but the black Suzuki did not look good on the back on the trailer at the finish at Akitio...hope the rider was OK..he'd just gone past our bike a few seconds before he crashed.
I guess I'm just too old for that crap....and guess I would like to be that confident/rash with riding too - but maybe I'll live longer to ride on longer..

[shrub]

My first off was the weekend I bought my first bike. I didn't know at that stage that grabbing a big handful of front brakes in the wet and trying to turn at the same time was a bad idea and the next was about 3 months later when I learnt about white lines. The next after that was about 2 years later when I had a lesson about how drinking tequila influences riding bikes, and that lesson wrote my bike off and ended up with me in hospital for 2 months (I was pretty badly broken).

The next lesson was about a year later, and I found out that cowshit in the middle of a corner ruins traction. I stayed upright for a few years after that until I learned that riding an old and badly maintained bike back from buying it is sometimes a bad idea because when I hit the brakes loose handlebars meant I ended up in front of my bike instead of on it. The final off was in 85 when I discovered that racing an XT550 down a gravel road is not such a good idea when you're two-up on a CB900.

All of them were caused by me, all of them hurt to varying degrees, one damn near killed me and some of them cost me a lot of money, so I have decided that I will do my best not to have any more. So far it's working.