My 3 accidents - Motorcycle-Journal Forums

Rickster · 01-21-2006, 07:30 PM

What I'm going to relate to you are just the facts, please din't beat me up to bad for the things you feel I should have done differently.

First of all I would like to say that I'm 56 years old, and I've been riding motorcycles sence I was 15. I use to "borrow" my dad's 250 Honda Scrambler when he was at work. I figure in my 40 some years of riding , I have somewhere's north of 300,000 miles under my belt. I'm no expert by any means, but I feel I'm on the + side of average when it comes to my abilities, and my awareness of what's going on around me when I'm riding.

The first time I went down was back in 1982, I was riding a rat of a 750 Honda, I don't remember the year, (of the bike) but it realy was a piece of crap. The previous owner had laid it down a few times. What can I say, I had just gotten divorced, and it was the best I could afford at the time. Any way, I was exiting the freeway. It was one of those exits that has a stop light at the bottom. I wanted to turn left, the light was green and I was in a hurry caus I could see the light was getting ready to change. There was a car stalled in front of me in my lane, so I did a quick check over my right shoulder, and started to go around him. All was fine until I started to cut back to my left. Turns out the reason the car was stalled is he had blown his tranmission, and oil was running down the road in front of him. It was one of those crashes that you really wish someone had a video of, the bike went down on it's left side, and somehow I stayed on top of it. We slid across 4 lanes of traffic, and hit wheels first on the curb on the other side. Don't ask me how it happened, but the bike bounced up in the air, and I landed back in the seat with the motor still running. I did one of those quick, did anyone see me look arounds, and drove off.The only new damage to the bike was a slight oil leak, and I never got a scratch. I was wearing a half helmet, T-shirt, and jeans. I know, I know, I was very lucky.

Move ahead 22 years, I was riding an 03 DL 1000 V Strom. It was a warm 50* March day in Minnesota. We had been riding all day, and it was starting to get dark, and colder, so we were heading for home. My tires were not warmed up caus we had just stopped for a bite to eat. I had on full gear, including a full face helmet, and armor in my jacket. I was going about 55, the deer came out of the swamp to my left. I didn't hit her hard, but with cold tires, I lost traction, and started doing a tank slapper. The bike went down on it's right side. I flipped over once and landed on my feet, but I was still going to fast and I couldn't run it out. I went down hard on my face, and it seemed like we were never going to stop sliding. The bike had $3500 in damages, but I was able to ride it home, I had a small scratch on my left arm, but had to replace everything I was wearing including my boots.

Last September, I was riding my 05 Triumph Rocket 111. Don't ask me why, but I just had to have that bike when it came out. It's not all it's cracked up to be. This is one of those days, where it was fate that I was going to get hit, it was just a matter of where, and how bad. It was a nice day, and I was only going a few miles, so I didn't have much on for gear. No helmet, and no pads in my jacket. I was about a mile from home when a car makes a left turn in front of me comming out of a gas station to my left. I had to break and swerve, but it wasn't real close, just enough to get my attention. This guy is now beside me, it's 4 lanes, and I see he is on a cell phone. I want to put some distance between me and him, so I pass him. A block down the light turns red and I stop. Now I'm watching this guy in my rear vew mirror. As he gets closer, and closer, I realize that I can't see him in the car. He is leaned over doing something in the passenger seat. So I check cross traffic incase I have to run the red light to keep him from hitting me. At the last min, he sits up, and stops just short of me. Now this has been two with this same guy, so when the light changes, I did what the Rocket did best, and I put some distance between me and him. A block down, I let off the gas, and check my mirror. He is a half a block back, so I breathe a sigh of relief, and focus my attention back to the front where I see that anouther car is pulling out in front of me from my left, so I am on the breaks, and swerving again. Again I manage to avoid the accident, but I have slowed down to almost a stop. The guy behind me, yes the same guy is busy flipping off the car that just pulled out in front of us. He hits me from behind doing about 40. I come off the back of my bike, and land on his hood. I remember as I was watching my bike slide down the road, I was thinking this is a good place to be, but now, he is putting on his breaks, and I am starting to slide off the front. I thought sh*t, this is where I'm going to die. I managed to grab the lip of his hood up by the windshield with my left hand, and I jerked as hard as I could. This caused me to roll off the side of the left fender, and saved me from being run over. This whole thing from start to finish took a bit over a minuet, and covered a little over two blocks. The guy that hit me was a 24 year old black male, he didn't have any insurance, or even a drivers license, and he had no idea who owned the car he was driving. The cops took him right to jail. The lady that pulled out in front of us, fled the scene, and the plates on her car came back registered to a different car than the one she was driving. she was never located. The bike had $15,000 damage, and my insurance totaled it. I wound up with anouther scratch on my left arm. Again, I know, very lucky.