Search box

Monday, January 09, 2006

Car vs. Motorcycle and it was a draw

I get to give the safety tip for our monthly Mountain Shadow Riders meeting on Saturday. It’s been my assignment for the last two months, but between the holidays and election of our officers, it just got pushed to the wayside. Living in Colorado, I was planning on talking about cold weather riding and recognizing the symptoms of hypothermia.

After last week, the subject matter has changed. I got hit on my bike last Monday. I normally don’t take Academy due to the number of cars on the road, but I was headed out that way and didn’t feel like cutting across to Powers. I’ll do it next time, for sure.

It was a lane change collision—the driver simply didn’t see me. I saw him coming over and braked and swerved to get around him, but I couldn’t get over far enough. I was in the far left lane of a 3 lane road, there was a turn lane to my left, but there were cars in the lane. He had to have seen me when he hit me because his driver’s side rear mirror hit my right grip. Hello, I was right there!! Had it been a few seconds/inches more or less, he’d either have hooked my brake lever or my grip. Both would have resulted in a pretty bad crash for me. I was very fortunate that I did not fall!!!

He did not stop either. For the record, neither did I. There was simply too much traffic. I was momentarily stunned and all I was concentrating on was to get away from the traffic.

Even if he didn’t stop, I hope he did see me and scared the beegeebers out of him. He did for me. I'd like to beat the living daylights out of him for scaring me. If I do see him, he'll get an earful for sure.

I have yet to ride and I’ll get back on since I do want to ride the Star, but that incident still sits in the back of my mind.

Keep the shiny side up!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When I received your voicemail message...it SCARED the crap out of me! "Car" - "motorcycle" - "hit" - "Academy" was what I heard. All I could imagine was road rash and a hospital room. But 'Thanks' to the "M/C Gods" you are alright. Shaken up, yes, but in one piece. And thanks to your motorcycle safety/riding training, you handled the situation as best you could. One more notch in the leather belt and chalk it up to 'experience'.

You'll be back on "Cranky" when the time is right. When you are mentally ready. And when that time comes - you just let me know and I'll be there right beside ya.