Too close!

[pritch]

I had a close call going home from work last night. Too close!

Approaching Beach Street in Fitzroy, a side street to my left, I was riding in the right wheel track. There is a car inside me way over to the left because he's turning left into Beach Street. Then a guy pulled out of Beach Street with the intention of heading in the direction from which I’m travelling.

The gap in traffic on the other side of the road that he’s trying to fit into is seriously small. So he comes out of the side street like the lights just went green at Phillip Island, and because he’s concerned about the minimal size of the gap that he’s aiming for, he’s looking back over his left shoulder. Meantime he’s coming straight toward me in my lane accelerating hard.

As soon as he started to move I hit the brakes… hard. I was almost totally stopped and was staring at the middle of his grill about 4 metres away when he finally saw me and yanked the wheel to head across to the correct side of the road. He shot past maybe a metre to my right still accelerating flat out.

Now I know about target fixation, and I know what to do about it, and I have successfully avoided the problem previously. (If you don't know about target fixation do a search on KB or on Google.) I have to tell you though that staring at an approaching grill while basically parked in the road is a thought provoking experience.

The final option in that instance, that you should stand on the pegs, didn't occur to me until I was writing this which would have been a bit late...

[quickbuck]

Heck man,
Glad to see you are here to type this.

Hart sinking moment there.

[beyond]

Hell, pleased to hear there was not another accident. Man, you can be so careful and still, people don't even see you

That could have been real nasty and yeah you are right: you know what you should do but at the time it all happens so quickly and unexpectedly that you just don't even have time to react the way you should.

I have drummed it into my scone that you if you come off, you don't get up till everything has stopped moving unless you are heading for something solid.
I still tried to get up in my recent off. Things slow down so much that you think you have stopped so I tried to get up and promptly roll and slide a few more times as I'm still going 30-40kmh.

Glad you're ok mate. Not much you can do in situations like that. Buy a lotto ticket eh?

[Karma]

I've tried to breed out of the emergency stop / haul on the anchors bit, my preferred method if at all possible is avoidence.

Not sure about your exact situation, but would it have been possible in that distance to swing the bike around the back of his car? Even going so far as the mount the pavement if necessary (with no pedestrians of course).

Just yanking on the brakes leads to a few bins I've seen, so I'd prefer trying to steer out of it where possible.

[pritch]

Not sure about your exact situation, but would it have been possible in that distance to swing the bike around the back of his car? .

Not an option, he was coming straight at me, there was a car inside and traffic going the other way.

I started braking as soon as he started moving, I could see there was going to be a problem.

Originally I was trying to avoid either:
A) riding into the side of his car or
B) have him T Boning me.

When he tightened the turn and came straight at me though all the options evaporated...

[Blind spot]

sounds like normal west auckland traffic to me

[SPman]

Nah - just normal New Plymouth traffic!

[Clivoris]

In the classic motorcycling movie "Tourque" they were able to wheely over the top of problems like that. That could just be an Aprilia thing tho .

Bloody good escape man.

[TonyB]

Fark, that must've been a scary moment! If you start thinking about the different outcomes- like stopping a few metres further down the road, or him not looking around for another 1/4 second.... yeah well sometimes it pays not to eh! As for buying a Lotto ticket, don't bother- I reckon you've used your allotment of luck for a while

[vamr]

In the classic motorcycling movie "Tourque" they were able to wheely over the top of problems like that. That could just be an Aprilia thing tho .

Bloody good escape man.

Just ask yourself, what would Reno Raines do?

[ZeroIndex]

glue your horn to a permanent 'on' position.. sure, you'll get a lot of strange looks, but a blaring horn should "hopefully" catch the ears of the mindless idiots that roam our streets..

[notme]

I have developed a habit of thumbing the horn when anything starts going pear shaped (in traffic) and not letting go until i'm out of it

Even if it's not a momentous incident, you gotta make the cagers aware that you were there so they - faint hope i know - will think first next time.

Might be time for a train horn! (search youtube or google video......)

[pritch]

glue your horn to a permanent 'on' position.. .

That's another thing... I have these very loud aftermarket horns but in moments of need it doesn't occur to me to use them. Then again, I always used to feel that if you had time to use the horn there wasn't really a problem.

Some kind of horn button drill may need to be incorporated in to my daily routine?

[klingon]

That's another thing... I have these very loud aftermarket horns but in moments of need it doesn't occur to me to use them. Then again, I always used to feel that if you had time to use the horn there wasn't really a problem.

Some kind of horn button drill may need to be incorporated in to my daily routine?

LOL as a real newbie rider I've already had several situations when I could have used the horn - if only I could find it! Every time I go to use it I end up just cancelling my indicators. The irony is that I can't remember to cancel my indicators any other time!

[Whynot]

LOL as a real newbie rider I've already had several situations when I could have used the horn - if only I could find it! Every time I go to use it I end up just cancelling my indicators. The irony is that I can't remember to cancel my indicators any other time!

at least its not the other way round .... i did that once