Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Another stupid driver to the books

Sunday was perfect day for a ride so I meet up at Tunxis with some of my friends and after some time of watching noobs learning to ride we took off to Toymakers cafĂ©, and had a decent ride along the way. (Toymakers it’s a popular spot for people that like to ride and sometimes you can see some cool and rare bikes and have a very nice breakfast) So after and hour or two, we took off for some more riding, mostly in corner of Mass. NY and CT where you can find some nice roads.
Ok to the point, we were zooming along this very nice 55mph road with few nice turns, my friend Voytek was leading, I was second and 3 bikers behind me. We come up on to a blind turn with a house behind tree line and fenced in field on left side (it was a right turn). Voytek has disappear into the turn and I followed in few seconds behind, it was all good until I got to the middle of the turn where I noticed Jeep Cherokee parked across both lanes (the guy back out of his driveway straight onto the road across both lanes) and split second later my focus was set on already stopped bike in front of me. All the years of riding and instructor training kicked in and in split second my bike was straight up and I was breaking hard in straight line, but because I had much less room to break as Voytek was already there I quickly realized that its already to late. So the choices were: Crush into my best fried, or go into the field which was few feet below the road and had a fence. I don’t know where I got the guts to pull that off but in millisecond I made a decision to stop breaking and instead turn my handlebars all the way to the left to drop the bike and lunch myself to the right sliding on my right forearm and than onto my back. Both me and my bike end up on the side of the road as the rest of the riders pull up, one of them (Rafal) ran up to help me but the only thing I had on my mind was my bike so I screamed repeating “shut of my bike, shut it off!!” but because it was in 6th gear the bike stalled anyway. Next I started moving my arms and legs as well as my neck and I could not believe that I was totally ok and with just two scrapes above my knees, wow that made me happy and the strange thing was that I had no adrenaline rush, not even a bit wow. Than the anger kicked in, I threw my jacked down onto the ground and my helmet follow it in one sec (I saw a little black part flying into to the field) at first I was pissed on Voytek and I screamed to him “WTF man! You had room to go” but than I realized the clearing I saw happened after my drop when the guy moved the car. So anyway some people come out the house and started talking to me but I was so mad I didn’t even want to hear that crap so I started looking for that little part from my helmet (it was a shield locking disc no biggie $15 for pair) and everyone joined in at that point. After while I told everyone to stop and we left to the nearest gas station.
Well in conclusion:
One more idiot driver into the books and tons super luck on my side that I didn’t get hurt nor did I hurt anyone else, I’m super impressed with my ability to make such drastic decision in such short time and that it totally worked. Gear works!!!! So to all riders please wear it!!! My bike I’m mean wow I rode it back home! And I think that I convinced another two riders that they should wear helmet all the time! (as they didn’t in CT riding part) so maybe in a long time I might have save someone.
I decided not to call police as it would not accomplish anything, there were no collision and that’s what NY law requires in order so I can charge his insurance, so what’s the point?
And that would be it for this part lol
See and be safe

Ps. I didn’t take any pictures of the accident scene as the only crush memories I want to retain is from my own stupidity lol
Cheers



Crush bar did its work, nice job BMW :)

srapes here and there

on whindshield as well ( wow this thing is strong)


the strongest case ever, I mean look at those scrapes and I had my camera and loptop inside GOOOO Pelican :)


the only damage on me


My gear


Bike is ready to work on















1 comment:

  1. Glad that you are Okay. Hope that all learn valuable lessons from your experience.

    ReplyDelete