I was at an intersection this afternoon atfer a long day of riding, I was about 3 miles from home ready to call it a day......and then it happend.

I was going about 35-40 miles an hour when I was about to cross an intersection, I saw the light just turn green about 10 seconds before I got to the intersection, the car in front of me was moving along with traffic when she (well dont know if the driver was a he or a she, they drove off after I crashed) suddenly slammed on her breaks, she came to a dead stop in just a few short seconds; it was all I could to not run into her and land up in her backseat. My front wheel and my rear wheel both locked up, I started to wobble a bit and before I new it I was looking at the pavement head on.

Luckily I was wearing all of my gear, the jacket that I ordered just came in the mail a couple of days ago. (just in time ). I have some roadrash on my elbow and a bit on my knee, and Im sore as all get out, but it could have been alot worse. Im glad I spent the extra money on a good pair of gloves, without them my hands would be toast and I wouldnt be sitting here writing this.

The bike didnt sustain to much damage...I think...the side mirrors broke, and there is a scrape on the muffler and a scrape on the engine. Im going to be taking it to the mechanic on tuesday to have it checked out.

Ive been reading this board for awhile and decided to post this. Thankyou all for emphasizing how important safety gear is. I would be in a world of hurt if I didn't dress accordingly.

Ride safe everyone.

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On a side not, if anyone knows a good bike shop in the newport news / hampton area of Virginia, Id greatly appreciate a recommendation.

Glad you're basically OK.

So what did you learn from this experience to help prevent it from happening again?

OS

Definetely, could have been alot worse. Good to hear you don't have any broken fingers or what have you. Let us know where you got your gear specially your jacket, I'm gonna get myself some gear after reading this and other post like it!!

That f%$k drove away? Man, people are just so f%$king selfish in this great land of ours. :guns:  :guns:  :guns:  :guns:  :guns:  :guns:  :guns: There should be summary executions for asswipes like that.

OS. Two things.
1) Try not to lock the brakes, and when you do keep the bike under control and think back to my MSF training. When the bike is all fixed up Im going to have to practice some on emergency braking.

2) Keep a much bigger gap between me and the vehicles in front of me, I had about a 2-3 second gap. Im going to increase that to a 4-5 second gap

Rippa.
Your right it could have been alot worse. Most of my gear is from alpinestar. The helmet was HJC CL-14, gloves are Alpinestar GP-Plus and the jacket was an Alpinestar T-venom air-flo. Ive had the gloves for awhile and they are excellent, I only had the jacket for a couple of days so I really cant comment on it to much, but it seemed nice for the two days.

Jacket http://www.alpinestars.com/_lp/details/tvenom.htm


Gloves http://www.alpinestars.com/_lp/details/gplus.htm

Ollie,

Yeah it pissed me off royaly. What was nice though is that even though that asswipe drove off, there were another 10 people who hopped out of there cars to make sure that I was alright. It was nice to know that even though there are assholes out there, that there are some genuinely nice people as well.

lcput, glad you're okay. Better yet that you can take something from this and learn, change your behavior to avoid the next one.

Gear is all important. I wonder how you got a bit of road rash on your elbow though? Is it just a burn from the inside of the leather heating up as it slid?

Definitely practice emergency braking...

I have found that praticing emergency braking is one of the best things you can do.

Nick Ienatesch says to pratice braking from what ever speed you drive at.
If you frequent 150mph you better make sure you can stop in a hurry if need be.

Nice to hear the gear worked well.

Good luck and make sure to learn from your  mistakes.


Micah

Pantablo,

It is more of a burn then anything else. Hurts like hell this morning though.

It's amazing how many bad driver's are out there.  He/She was prolly too busy answering the cell phone to know what was going on.  Glad to know that some people actually stopped to help you.  I don't think any one would stop to help where I live.  Maybe a fellow biker.  More than likely they would just drive around me hoping not to get any blood on thier SUV's.

Rob

Hey, at least you're OK.  And apparently not much damage to your bike.  Those are the two most important things.

And think, it's possible the driver did it on purpose.  It;s possible.  I know people who intentionally wash their windows when bikes are behind them.  Why nor evolve it to trying to get a bike to rear end them or crash?  :dunno:

if i remember correctly from msf, isn't it faster for a bike to swerve to avoid a car at speeds greater than 40 than it is to try and stop?  that's always another option to keep in mine, you're on a bike, a nice small nimble bike.  instead of having to hit the brakes remember that if there's room you can always shoot along side the car, and then slow down once you're next to it.  just don't brake and swerve, or you'll be eating asphalt before you know it.

Quote from: 500riderIt's amazing how many bad driver's are out there.  He/She was prolly too busy answering the cell phone to know what was going on.  Rob

I remember one story from the "Hurt Report" on MC accidents.  A woman turned left in front of an on coming bike.  He locked the brakes, slid down and she ran over him. A witness said that she stopped, looked around, got in and drove over the poor guy again.  He was under the car.

She then pulled to the curb where the witness said "lady, you just ran over that guy!" She looked around and with a look of relief on her face, replied "Oh, is that what it was!  I thought I had a flat tire!"

I know all the training these days says to use your rear brake along with the front (80-20).  I have a hard time with that thought. I know that in a panic, it's way too easy to jam on everything locking the rear and causing it to slide out.  

If the front is still attached to the pavement and trying to stop the bike, the rear will try to slide right past the front.    Of course it never gets that far because you're already on the ground.  

I save the rear for low traction situations where it appears that traction is marginal such as sand, gravel or oil. Because I'm not in the habit of using the rear in normal situations, I've noticed that I don't use it when things get dodgy.

I've locked the front a few times over the years when I wasn't paying close enough attention and I was OK with the front sliding for a moment until I got my mind back and could modulate the brake.  You can actually steer a little with the front brake "full on" as long as it's not locked and the the forks aren't bottomed out.

I learned to respect the rear brake early. Back about 1973, I crashed using the rear brake too much in a corner causing the rear to slide out.  Bang! on the ground.

Two Words- Lane Split.  Since it's against the law in most states most people don't put it into their manuvers.  I had a similiar situation- but was too late to brake so I put the bike between the two lanes and came out no worse for wear and slightly smarter.

There was a really great article in cycle Canada about different braking methods.  To their credit, this was a pretty comprehensive scientific study.  If you don't have the article, basically the fastest brake time was achieved by activating the rear brake a fraction of a second before the front.  This resulted in a .033g greater deceleration. It was thought that the rear brake causes the bike to squat down a little keeing the weight lower and more tire on the ground.  This is not a huge difference however and if the rider gets confused by trying to modulate the front and rear brake to prevent lock-up then the advantage is lost.  

The most improvement comes from "covering" the brake with your hands and feet when in a situation where you may have to brake (ie. intersections).  This results in a .154 second decrease in reaction time.  At 60mph this translates to a reduction of 14 feet stopping distance (I hope no-one is going through traffic lights at 60mph).

Rob

In the equivalent of the MSF training we have to do in Switzerland to obtain our license you have to practice several emergency stops. They start by instructing you to lock up your rear brake and come to a controlled stop (out of about 35 MPH). Then they go on to let you add front brake, ideally to just before the point of lockup. All that only going straight, of course.

During the driving test you have to show an emergency stop with the rear wheel locking up (unless your bike has ABS). This is controllable for those cases where you come to a stop within, say, a second or two from the moment the rear brake locks up.

Don't ask me how my rear tire looked after I had taken course and test.  :guns: I had done about 20 stops with smoking rear tire by then.