Weekend fatality

Uh, what about soul death?
As above, so below.

mb

 

Ultimately, we die. Whether we die on our bikes or at our desks, we
still die.
We tweak and tamper to reduce the number one and two killers deathrates.
So number 3 slides to the top of the list. Which would you rather? Heart
attack/stroke? Colon cancer? Spin the wheel.

The bike option has it's merits. It is perhaps, at some level, why some
of us ride.

mb

 

Funny you should mention it. There was something on tonight's news to
the effect the the WHO now identifies motor vehicle accidents as the
third leading cause of death worldwide, ahead even of AIDS. The story
went on to give US traffic fatalities -- I recall the number around
36,000/yr, which is a good deal lower than it was in my youth (circa
50K) and given how many more people are on the road, I think we must
be doing something right. Unfortunately for the Frisbies, it's
progress but not perfection.

R, UB

 

Among those merits are that a motorcycle death is likely to leave our
heirs in far better shape financially than a debilitating disease.
R, UB

 

It isn't all or none. Not controlling what I can leads to reckless
endangerment. Trying to control what I can't is the shortest path to
insanity. In this, as in so much, AA's Serenity Prayer is about as
good a guide as I can find, and the "wisdom to know the difference"
may be the hardest part of all.


R, UB

 

I truly have no idea what leads to your conviction that Mr F wasn't doing
that. If you think you will always be able to react when vehicles are coming
at each other at over 80mph with just a few feet to go, you lack some basic
math skills and knowledge about reaction times. I am all for anticipating
risks, for constant paranoid scanning of the world around me. I have been
doing it long enough. But I do not delude myself into thinking that will
guarantee I make it out of any worst case situation. I once saw a friend die
in a crash, you know. My saving grace was the fact I saw him slam on the
brakes ahead, not knowing what he was braking for at all. He tried to avoid,
he nearly made it. A drunk truck driver that missed the turn, as it so
happened. It was many, many years ago, and I was just staring at the screen
for a minute after writing those last 2 sentences. Some things just affect
you too much when they come back, even if it's just for a microsecond. But
you can *not* avoid a truck coming at over 40mph out of a blind turn.

That is one reason why "skills arrogance" rubs me the wrong way. My friend
was a safe, and amazingly gifted rider. Jumped into the Streaker Cup and
finished 6th on his streetbike, no mods. Rode like an angel on the road,
watching speed limits, never having even a little beer, first one of us to
always wear a helmet.

No skill on earth could have saved him - sometimes it's a freak coincidence
that you wind up at the point with no escape through no fault of your own. A
split second earlier or later you'd have been alright, and it'd been one of
those "oh sh*t" memories that you survive with your heart up your throat.
But sometimes fate decides that's that, and there's nothing you can do. I
think it's offensive to the memory of many riders to claim otherwise, I
truly do.

You've never been hit in the face by an insect? Little stone's never chipped
your helmet? Come on, you should have seen those coming, right? What, too
fast to avoid? Or just seemed to fast by the time you saw it? You know
insects actually don't fly all that fast, do you?

We don't live in the Matrix, Larry. Claiming you can detect a mistake in Mr
F's riding is incredibly arrogant, in my opinion.

Practice our skills - sure, everytime. Just so you know, I do obstacle
avoidance training almost every time I am on the bike when I see the road is
basically empty. I am just not naive enough to raise my fist in triumph and
declare myself invulnerable because of that. That is bullshit, plain and
simple. The little devil luck can strike hard, anytime. And even if we keep
our skills sharp, it's stupid to think we'll go through the rest of our
motorcycle lives without making a single mistake. If that's the criteria for
survival, we'll all die. We all do make mistake, and will keep on doing
them. A gear that's not engaged cleanly. A moment of inattention because
something else distracts us. A turn we misjudge some. Some gravel that was
just too damn hard to spot. Sure we leave something called the margin for
error, and luckily typically it provides a buffer, thus we can have this
discussion. Sometimes there's none, though, and sometimes there isn't even
an error, and fate still strikes hard, and mercilessly.

Here's wishing none of us ever experiences that most unforgiving side of the
road.

....pablo

 

No problem John...

First, I

I also posted in one of the Janklow threads along your line of thinking...

Mr. Frisbie's mental imagery saw a safe return home... but the ride home
proved more dangerous... that may be because only 4% of fatal accidents
occur between 6:00 am and 9:00 am... but 19% happen between 3:00 pm and
6:00 pm... riders are tired... easily distracted by the days events...

We should exercise control over all factors at our disposal... you can
tell a lot a motorcyclist by their riding habits... a novice ride has
few habits... mostly bad... as they progress a rider develops additional
habits ... some unconsciously some deliberately... They may learn the
"What If" game... a mental exercise to imagine the worst case possible
scenario that could be played out by traffic... "What if" an on coming
cage swerves across the center line??? to answer that type of question
keeps you mental sharp... you'll look for escape routes... reevaluate
your position in the lane... and when that crazy mental image you've
been mulling over comes true... you already have a plan to cope with
it... you still may stain your underwear but there should be less panic
and more action...

Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/-xlax-/
http://home.comcast.net/~netters2/
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=netters2

 

The clue is there are riders in the world who have faced cagers head on
like Mr. F and escaped without injury...

Sorry to learn of your friends death... if your friend could rewind his
life what do you think he would have done differently to save his life???

Yes...

Little stone's never chipped

Yes...

Come on, you should have seen those coming, right? What, too

Negative... you don't avoid a fast coming insect... you acknowledged
that risk by wearing a full face helmet with a protective face shield
covering your eyes...

Or just seemed to fast by the time you saw it?
You can see them at night...

You know

Fastest is the Dragonfly at 36 mph...

I'll hold that thought pablo...


Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/-xlax-/
http://home.comcast.net/~netters2/
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=netters2

 

I find your idle speculation about what his mental imagery was presumptuous
and tasteless. You have no idea what he was thinking.

I agree with what you say when it comes to safety etc, but find the link the
recent accident very questionable and, unless you're a mindreader or
intimately familiar with the accident, way off the mark.

....pablo

 

I should have prefaced my earlier messages already with this:

Note I don't want to come this across as flaming, I fully admit to being
emotional about the issue given the fact I once witnessed one of my best
friends death, an incredibly traumatic experience that haunts me to this
day, and that thus I feel it is an affront to claim skills always invariably
save the day.

Larry: You are an incredibly helpful resource to many bikers, and lots of
good stuff, it's just on this one issue I am sensitive and hold a different
opinion and a different take on etiquette, that's all. I have great respect
for you, and no one should read anything different into these messages.
These are simply emotional topics.

Every situation is different. Mr F wasn't a greenhorn, so I am sure he had
actually managed to avoid cars invading his lane before, as have most of us
that have been riding for a while. Not a test I'd care to be subjected to on
a regular basis, because I am fully aware the element *luck* is involved, as
in timing. If you're doing 45 mph in a turn, and the opposite car approaches
at 45mph, and visibility is questionable, as it will often be in places like
Skyline (which in my opinion is a terrible place to ride bikes fast)... we
can mathematically calculate this scenario based on typical turn radius. At
90mph, every 100ft pass in less than .8 seconds. Do visibility-reaction time
calculations based on that... blind turns with oncoming cars can very
quickly become situations where we don't stand the whiff of a chance, that's
what the simple numbers say. When we manage to avoid it is because fate buys
us a few additional split seconds somewhere.

He'd given me the "you go ahead sign"? I have no idea. He didn't do anything
wrong. It was a blind turn, he entered cautiously, he tried to brake, then
quickly evade -no target fixation, just quick execution of escape
strategies-, and still got caught in the end. If we'd talked about something
interesting for another second before jumping on the bikes, we'd have
witnessed an idiot trucker run off the road somewhere in front, and that'd
been it. If we'd taken less time putting on our helmets and gloves, the
trucker would have run off somewhere behind us. It's one AM, and by now I've
spent half the evening thinking about my friend. I know it may haunt me in
my sleep, thus I am going to open a bottle of Stonestreet Cab and drink to
his memory. He was the type of friend you knew you'd always miss, and
unfortunately not the only one we lost to a motorcycle accident, but the
other one was avoidable, unfortunately. God, it's a miracle I still own a
bike. Some bitter, bitter memories intertwine with the great ones.

Indeed.

....pablo

 

OK Larry, how about this scenario:

You're riding a cliff-hugging one-lane road. On your left the pavement
ends at the base of a rock face, 100 ft. up. The rock face has
crumbled onto the edge. On your right the pavement ends at the edge of
a cliff, 100 ft. down. There's no shoulder. You gingerly navigate a
couple of blind corners, then just as you enter the next one suddenly
there's a giant SUV taking up the whole lane, flying straight at you.
What do you do?

My point is that riders _may_ be able to escape a head-on collision if
there's a wide, paved shoulder on one side of the road or the other, or
if there's at least some runoff. But I can think of a few places,
especially on Hwy 1 north of SF, where a rider wouldn't have that
luxury. Unless both rider and driver have instantaneous response and
excellent brakes and traction, a crash would be certain, and possibly
fatal.

 

yeah, you never know , so be prepared to take an unconventional route. Note
this post I made here a week or so ago:
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=chNO
stem-1403041914150001%40user-2ivflqv.dialup.mindspring.com&prev=/groups%3Fdq
%3D%26num%3D25%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dba.moto
rcycles%26start%3D50

 

My point is that riders _may_ be able to escape a head-on collision if

Been there recently, but managerd to escape, mostly by dumbass luck and
finding the back way around a careening Lincoln exiting a corner.
Sometimes we dodge bullets, sometimes we don't get the chance.
It furthers one to expect anything at any time.

 

Every time that we get on our bikes and go for a ride, we're rolling
the dice. This is true of many other sports and activities as well,
especially in mountain climlbing (as opposed to rock climbing) where
an avalanch can wipe out even the most experience team as has been
demonstrated many times.

That said, while the odds on the dice can not be entirely reduced down
to a zero probability but we can significantly reduce the odds by
being proactive in our approach to defensive driving and developing
our skills in responding when we do find ourselves in a bad situation.
Another factor that effects the odds on the dice is the speed that we
go and what we do to compensate for this by keeping our awareness at a
heightened level.

One thing that we all need to do is to recognize the inherent risk in
driving and to decide for ourselves if they are acceptable to us with
the recognition that virtually everything that we do in life including
eating, drinking and breathing have inherent risks. Race car drivers
have been facing these questions for decades and clearly accept them.

Speaking for myself, the risks are worth it with the steps that I take
to minimize the risks in a balance of caution and speed which I have
adopted in my riding. To minimize the odds, I have adopted a policy
to ask myself if I can respect the risks every time that I go out for
a ride, a policy that I put in place after buying my R1. I also
accepted the risks of rock climbing, a sport that I've enjoyed for
over 10 years and which has brought big personal rewards.

Brett
01 Yamaha R1
99 Honda F4 (Track bike)
89 Katana 750

 

Slow down before the corner and have your escape spot planned out.
(probably hugging the uphill cliff face). If the SUV is going
real fast, you may be screwed. If you're the one travelling too
fast for the road, guess who you've got to blame.

For ten years or so, we lived at the end of a five mile road very
much like this, only instead of big SUVs coming the other direction,
it was big logging trucks and propane trucks. Throw in a few deer,
floods, rockslides, washouts, downed trees, clueless vistors to a
local Christian retreat, some pumpkin and christmas tree shoppers
plus some occasionally under the influence locals while you're at it.
I still kinda miss that place.

See past Adny Woodward rants about "sightlines".

 

That's exactly my point. No matter what kind of plan, or how careful
you are, you can still be screwed. To think otherwise is to be in
denial.

As a bicycling friend who was severely injured by a wrong-way driver
once told me, "You can be careful, but you can never be safe."

 

More like virtually no one rides to work and all the squids get up
late.

Too bad not everything is at your disposal. Like whether or not you
spot that invisible oil slick in time.

Or whether or not your tranny seizes and locks the rear solid.

Or how about the crazy cop who runs intentionally rams you from behind
while you're slowing down for his lights?

Or maybe some punk tosses a tire off an overpass just as you're coming
out from under it.

Or maybe that giant hunk of plywood comes flying off the truck in the
oncoming lane and decapitates you like a 50 lb. guillotine.

Or maybe there's a sniper waiting right around the next corner. You
got a bulletproof helmet?

 

Thanks pablo... I think ba.moto people know how to multiply pleasure and
divide grief...

I'm sure Mr.F told some interesting near miss stories in his days...

I think what makes us reevaluate our riding more than anything is
learning of the high timers demise... it brings into focus the reality
of what chance do I have to survive out on the road when highly
experienced riders are dying???

I think the answers we seek to help our enthusiasm and help kick start a
new positive attitude rest with MSF... you can't help it when you get in
the act because taking about safety is followed by the act of safety...
http://www.msf-usa.org/

Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/-xlax-/
http://home.comcast.net/~netters2/
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=netters2

 

Wait Denise... remember my story when I almost harpooned two Ford
pickups on Arkansas roller coaster road??? I faced one Ford Pickup truck
making a left turn across my path and another Ford Pickup truck right
behind it blocking my path... I braked with all my might but I was never
going to stop in time... the best I could do was aimed for a sliver of
day light growing at the trail end of one truck and the growing head
lights of the other truck... you'll be happy to recall I made it pass
both obstacles unscathed... however panic caught up with me at the gas
station for my knees turned into Jell-O... mercy me now that was close...

Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/-xlax-/
http://home.comcast.net/~netters2/
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=netters2

 

Certainly... I got my bullet proof helmet the same place you got your
sniper...

Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/-xlax-/
http://home.comcast.net/~netters2/
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=netters2