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Showing results for tags 'collision'.
Found 3 results
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This happened just east of the town I live in http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/05/11/nl-moose-memories-511.html Keith
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Much talk has taken place here lately about the danger of hitting dear. Rightly so and we should certainly take it to heart. However, a friend and I were riding to Florence, AL from Decatur this past Saturday evening to watch a football game and encounted another hazard, maybe not as dangerous, but certainly not anything you would want to happen. My friend was in the lead, in the right lane when I noticed a hawk in the median of the divided four lane. As he approached it, it took off across the highway in front of him about 2 feet high. He did not see it, until, to avoid a collision, the hawk went verticle right in front of his windshield just missing the top of his helmet. It seemed the hawk then stalled and the turbulance from bike cause it to sink, this time in front of me - at least I was seeing this unfold and swerved to avoid a collision. A 2 to 3 lb bird with a 3 to 4 ft wing span in you face would certainly mess up your day. Food for thought!!
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I’d be curious to know how many riders have experienced survivable collisions with other moving vehicles in the course of their riding careers. I thought others might be interested in some of the details surrounding a collision I had in September 2006. I got my new 2006 black cherry RSV in January 2006, trading up from a 1500 LC Intruder. I’d been riding for 15 years before my first (and only so far) collision. It was a temperate rainy Virginia morning, riding to work in a light steady rain. The time was 0745 and I was about 12 miles from home on a two lane road. I started from a stop light and had gone about 500 yards and was up to about 30 mph when a young woman pulled out at the last second from a side street on my right (she was trying to turn left, opposite my direction of travel). I locked up the brakes, slightly angling to the right with no opportunity to avoid the collision. When we collided, my left side smacked into her left side back near her sedan’s rear wheel well. My momentum came to an abrupt halt as our vehicles separated and I and the 06 RSV flopped over on the left side – no sliding or tumbling involved. I landed on my left butt and left elbow. I was wearing Firstgear rain boots, a Nelson-Riggs rain suit, HJC full face helmet, and gloves (don’t remember what kind). Underneath I was wearing a polyester dress shirt (sans tie) and dockers. There were no tears or damage to the rain suit, nor my shirt, but I had a silver dollar sized road rash just below my left elbow. Lots of soreness over the next few days, but no other injury. My poor baby (black cherry 2006 2nd Gen) was lying completely flat on her left side. I had dropped her a few times in a parking lot when I first got her due to the top heaviness (embarrassing moments), but she always just leaned on the engine guards causing little to no damage. In this case though, she was seriously wounded. The most visible damage was the crumpled engine guard, shattered left lower fairing and broken left mirror. At first I though I would ride her home and call it a day, but after the ambulance crew checked me out and the police took my statement, I discovered the shift lever was bent and it wasn’t rideable. The ambulance crew was kind enough to drop me at my office close by and the tow truck took the bike to the dealer. Over the course of the next month, the dealer identified all the parts that would need to be replaced (since it was nearly new, all the damage was a result of the collision) and the parts total not including labor was over $8000. The girl’s insurance (USAA) considered it totaled – paid off the loan, compensated me for 30 days time without the bike and threw in some extra cash (probably because I didn’t have a hospital bill). I was fortunate enough to be able to acquire another black cherry 2006 from the dealer and came away pretty much break-even. I’ve included some photos of the damage. It’s a sample size of one, and a few milliseconds either way could have changed the nature of the collision, but I believe the big heavy RSV really helped mitigate the impact with the foreign mid-sized sedan. Now I wear jacket and pants with armor religiously and the first thing I added to the new bike was passing lamps and a rear LED brake light. I also watch very closely as I approach side streets to see if there is any indication some idiot may jump across my path.
