Avoiding a collision

[larrydr]

3 years ago my wife and I riding the trans Canada highway west of Winnipeg Manitoba ... We had just come from a short holiday from a small resort riding at about 65 miles per hour , when we came up to a small car following a Semi , I noticed the truck was slowing down . A large part of a tire from the rear of the trailer came up and bounced off the car and headed right for lane to the left ..A second later a large or most of the tire came and up and hit the car and came right at us .. My wife began to scream and grabbed me from behind ... The pulled the bike to a hard left and at that time I had steered at the first piece of tire  ...I pulled the bike to a hard right to avoid hitting the part of the tire on the road , as I managed to miss that part of the tire on the road ...The second and larger part of the tire hit my right leg ,  I hard a hard time keeping the bike upright ...At that time I noticed I was heading to side of the semi trailer , I pulled the bike to hard left barely missing the Semi , but was able to avoid a collision .  All this at 65 miles per hour , ride a mile and pulled into a gas station , there was some blood coming from my right leg ..I felt no pain for a bout a hour , and I had to work to keep myself calm at that point ..It took a while for my leg to heal ....I told this story at a small gathering a week later , and everyone thought that I was blowing smoke ..I noticed a guy standing about 5 feet to my right , he came over to where we were standing and said to me were you on that bike that day  , we were in that small car...  There is more to the story , but not important .. 

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by larrydr

[saddlebum]

What is important is that you lived to talk about it. It doesn't matter if anyone believes you or not because You were there and they were not and I imagine your underwear is still deeply stained. I know mine would be.

[uncledj]

Well handled, and glad that you and the wife are OK.   Amazing how time slows down in a situation like that, and you're able to remember every action clearly.

[larrydr]

10 hours ago, saddlebum said:

What is important is that you lived to talk about it. It doesn't matter if anyone believes you or not because You were there and they were not and I imagine your underwear is still deeply stained. I know mine would be.

It took a couple of days for us to settle down ...I have riding on the road ways since 1964 and there have been times when there was no time to think about what to do and this was one of them ...It was a matter doing and not thinking .

[larrydr]

6 hours ago, uncledj said:

Well handled, and glad that you and the wife are OK.   Amazing how time slows down in a situation like that, and you're able to remember every action clearly.

It took us a couple of days to settle down ..I have been riding on the road ways since 1964 and there have been times when there is no time to think about what to do and this was one of them ...It was matter of doing and not thinking .

[SpencerPJ]

The man upstairs said it wasn't your day.  Glad you lived to tell the story. When I was 20 years old, I had an eye opening experience while at a college gathering, bumped another bike on a turn in the hills while racing, I literally saw a white light, very vivid in my mind to this day. I came home, sold my bike (XS1100 special) and didn't ride another bike for 25 years.  

[larrydr]

What I want to add to story is that if you drop your throttle to dead or zero you are not going to make it ...The bike simply won't handle , try this sometime when you have room on the road to do this ......

[BlueSky]

That was a close call!  Glad it turned out okay!

I was on I95 traveling at 70 plus in my Dodge Magnum behind a SUV.  There was a large piece of a truck tire in the road that the SUV ran over and tossed it back to me.  It cracked the rubber nose or bumper cover of my car and went under my car.  Ended up costing me over $600 to get a new bumper cover including painting.  Don't those big trucks still use recaps?  They do provide some extra danger to vehicles and especially to motorcycle riders.  It would be great if the railroads could take some of the business away from the trucks and get them off the highways. 

[larrydr]

3 hours ago, BlueSky said:

That was a close call!  Glad it turned out okay!

I was on I95 traveling at 70 plus in my Dodge Magnum behind a SUV.  There was a large piece of a truck tire in the road that the SUV ran over and tossed it back to me.  It cracked the rubber nose or bumper cover of my car and went under my car.  Ended up costing me over $600 to get a new bumper cover including painting.  Don't those big trucks still use recaps?  They do provide some extra danger to vehicles and especially to motorcycle riders.  It would be great if the railroads could take some of the business away from the trucks and get them off the highways. 

I visited one of the larger tire supply dealers to install 2 new tires on the front of my car ..I had some time so walked the show room floor and took a close look at some of the tires ..Most time you tell by  a seam or line on the sidewall of a tire weather it is a recap or not ....After that incident for us there I have been asking dealers that same question about recap tires ...I do know there was change in some of the truck inspections  regulations on tires here in Manitoba .. 

[saddlebum]

You can run recaps on the drives but not on the steer axle. Another interesting point is that not all road gaters come from recaps even original tires can loose rubber if they are run on low air pressure. Also recaps like anything else depends on the quality. Bandag and Michilin for example make very reliable recaps as reluable as a new tire, but there are some recapers that are not so trust worthy.

[circa1968]

Glad to hear you made it through with no major injuries!  Scary stuff.

Its strange how those things that happen so fast, seem to happen in slow motion at the time & then stay so fresh & vivid in the memory.  About 10 years ago, I was on a sweeping fwy-fwy merge curve, which was about to meet a similar curve coming from the other direction before both lanes then merged.  It had been raining hard that day and right before the two lanes met, I saw this spray of mud/rocks between the two lanes.  It looked like a large water main had just burst wide open.  Suddenly a car going sideways emerged from the spray, just ahead of me.   I was going around 60mph at the time and before my brain could calculate what I was seeing, the out-of-control car clipped the rear of the car in front of me as the spray of mud/rocks began hitting my car.  Both cars spun out, one to the right, one to the left and I even saw a wheel going flying off in one direction.  Miraculously, what was right in front of me was a gap and I somehow, instinctively punched the gas and powered through (no time to think, just do), completely unscathed as both cars went spinning out on either side of me.  That whole episode could not have been more than 1.5 seconds, if that, but I still see it in slow motion in my head.  By the time I had enough brain cells comprehending what just happened I was a good 100 yards past, looked in my rear view mirror and saw others stopping.  It wasn't safe for me to do so at that point, so I proceeded home, in shock.  Not a scratch or ding or anything on my car.

I was 7-8 years off from my last motorcycle at that point, but I think my instinct to punch the gas was still there from my prior moto days.  I often find myself seeing something I don't like the looks of and accelerating away from it, pretty much by instinct.

[BlueSky]

In the US, I think you are required by law to stop and assist the people in the accident. 

[circa1968]

I think true, under the concept of leaving the scene of an accident, if you are a part of the accident, and definitely if you are the cause of the accident, but I was neither.   In any case, as soon as I was past the accident, I was on a 4-lane freeway in the middle of the day and it would have been quite unsafe for me to stop and try to go back.  Plus, as I mentioned there were several vehicles right behind me who stopped to assist.   I suppose I could have taken the next exit and worked my way back, but that would have taken quite some time here in suburbia.  Within minutes, there is typically a mile-long backup behind an accident.  Different story if I was in a safer rural area, I would stop to assist without question, regardless of the circumstances of my involvement in the accident.

[Marcarl]

When in MC training the one thing our instructors harped on constantly was: the throttle is your friend.

Meaning: What to do if you encounter an obstacle in your path that you can't avoid. You grab some throttle, all you got, hold the bars straight and ride over it. Yah it might bump some but two things take place. 1st you take pressure off the front to help it across and second you add traction to the rear to keep the bike up right and then help it across. If you grab the brake instead the opposite takes effect and you will most likely end up going down. I know it works, experienced it 2 times with no ill effects.

Now on steering, try this: while cruising down the road with no traffic, sit absolutely straight on you bike, stay that way, don't lean one way or the other. You should be in the left track on a 2 lane. Now slightly, just slightly push on the right handle bar, no,, not the left, the right one and see what happens. Don't lean, look straight. I think that you'll find that you move over to the right hand track. Now push on the left bar to do the opposite. As you experience this you can get more aggressive and through the coming days you should experiment this more often so that it becomes part of you. It may save your life, it did mine!! You'll discover you no longer need to expend energy to lean the scoot into a turn or to wrestle with it down the highway. In fact as you travel you can just sit back, relax and gently guide the bike from one area/track/road to another and then arrive at your destination fully rested.  

[larrydr]

What I found that the passenger grabbing you from behind and hanging on to you and the screaming  did not help the hole event either ...I have been on many race track and cross country events on a YZ250 Yamaha ,360 Kawasaki , and the oval flat track with 500cc ... Also 350 cubic 600 hp chev on flat  1/2 mile track running 15% nitro methane and 85% AV gas many a time with speeds over 100 mile per hour ...Still no matter how much or often you do these things , and there can be one time that what ever you know or have done things , will turn out different ..I retired from racing in 1980 and have not looked back and do not want to do any of that again  

[bpate4home]

19 hours ago, larrydr said:

What I found that the passenger grabbing you from behind and hanging on to you and the screaming  did not help the hole event either ...I have been on many race track and cross country events on a YZ250 Yamaha ,360 Kawasaki , and the oval flat track with 500cc ... Also 350 cubic 600 hp chev on flat  1/2 mile track running 15% nitro methane and 85% AV gas many a time with speeds over 100 mile per hour ...Still no matter how much or often you do these things , and there can be one time that what ever you know or have done things , will turn out different ..I retired from racing in 1980 and have not looked back and do not want to do any of that again  

LOL.  Yeah the passenger screaming is no help at all.  It only interrupts my screaming, swearing and a few other things too. 

[Pasta Burner]

On 1/15/2022 at 10:21 AM, larrydr said:

It took us a couple of days to settle down ..I have been riding on the road ways since 1964 and there have been times when there is no time to think about what to do and this was one of them ...It was matter of doing and not thinking .

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/8d00bd73-7981-4108-b16f-b36098477741

[Pasta Burner]

On 1/17/2022 at 10:34 AM, bpate4home said:

LOL.  Yeah the passenger screaming is no help at all.  It only interrupts my screaming, swearing and a few other things too. 

Been there too 😆

[bpate4home]

On 1/15/2022 at 2:30 PM, BlueSky said:

That was a close call!  Glad it turned out okay!

I was on I95 traveling at 70 plus in my Dodge Magnum behind a SUV.  There was a large piece of a truck tire in the road that the SUV ran over and tossed it back to me.  It cracked the rubber nose or bumper cover of my car and went under my car.  Ended up costing me over $600 to get a new bumper cover including painting.  Don't those big trucks still use recaps?  They do provide some extra danger to vehicles and especially to motorcycle riders.  It would be great if the railroads could take some of the business away from the trucks and get them off the highways. 

Yeah, there are a lot of trucks that still use recaps here in the Houston area. Road Gators have been increasing the last few years too. I bout the SVTC in April of 2019 and within 6 months I hit a piece of tire doing 75 that was hiding in a streetlight shadow line. It hit the oil filter and the oil cooling line.  Busted the seal on the filter draining all the oil out. Waiting on a tow truck for 90 minutes on a highway that has 15 to 20 lanes of traffic is not fun and not quiet. Luckily, I was in an HOV lane and an area that had a wider berm.