Two mistakes almost cost me my life...

[Adeeber]

Came mighty close to a real bad accident coming home tonight. I'll set the scene a little bit: Dark, some street lighting. Two lanes each direction with one turn lane in the middle. Road is wet, but not raining at the time, light traffic, cars a couple hundred yards ahead and some behind me but no one right around me.

I'm traveling east in the left lane, so I have one lane to my right. To my left is the constant turn lane and two lanes traveling in the opposite direction. I'm going about 60 mph in a 50 mph zone.

Up to this point I'm having a perfectly fine ride, it's chilly (43 degrees) but I've got my colder weather gear on so I'm nice and comfy. I have been having some fine-detail issues with my thick gloves though...

I notice a big truck in the middle turn lane, I don't know what exactly the term is, box truck, big death machine, about the size of 17' uhaul moving truck.

All of a sudden, when I'm about 50 yds away the sucker starts turning left in from of me (mistake one)! I started to swerve right and then - for some reason - hit the brakes (mistake two).

The truck - and I thank God for this - stops, 2/3 of the way into my lane. As I sit here typing I can close my eyes see truck's grill only a few feet away from me...

Meanwhile I've locked up the back brake and my back wheel's skidding out to my right. Once I've passed the truck I start to relax a little, inadvertently releasing the back brake. My knees slap the tank for one more tense second before I regain control and bring the bike to a stop.

Notes:
Should not have been going quite so fast
Should not have swerved and braked
Should not have released the rear brake while in a skid
Should have expected cuzzo to do something so daggum stupid as to pull out in front of me at the last frickin' second
I feel the need to add semi truck lighting onto my bike...e

[SkullCrusher]

Panic braking is a really hard habit to brake, glad you came out ok. Consider getting a horn off a '78 caddy and bolting it on your bike, it will get their attention. Also when you have drivers oncoming in a turn lane its a good idea to give em a safety wiggle, it also gets their attention.

[Hondaguy]

Headlight modulator eliminated all of those situations for me a long time ago. Lots of start /Stops now

[xrayr]

Glad you're OK...........

[adlowe]

Originally Posted by Hondaguy

Headlight modulator eliminated all of those situations for me a long time ago. Lots of start /Stops now

Ditto.

Originally Posted by Adeeber

Should not have swerved and braked

Why not? Both can be done together safely. It's a whole lot better than slamming into the side of a semi that's moving in front of you!

Originally Posted by Adeeber

Should not have released the rear brake while in a skid

Why not? It can be done safely. It's a whole lot better than riding the skid into the ground or off the road.

What you should NOT have done is locked the rear wheel.

[jpr1968]

Why did you swerve in the same direction as the truck?

[vzshadow]

Glad you're safe. We all make mistakes, learn from them.

[newshadow]

Originally Posted by jpr1968

Why did you swerve in the same direction as the truck?

Every driving course, and I've taken about ten, pounded into us never, ever swerve left to avoid an incident. Sure, swerving right into the path of a dork in a truck may seem dumb, but swerving left puts you into oncoming traffic. Which one would you prefer to hit.

Mike

[John Hopkins]

We can all offer advice from the safety of our chair in front of a computer, but there is one other thing to consider in this situation, the truck in front of you cannot see you unless you can see his mirrors..he would have been watching the oncoming traffic for a space to turn or stop, the time he spends looking in his mirror is a split second and if you are not in sight then he misses you, then his attention is back on the turn and the traffic flow..these situations will continue to come up and we must be prepared for them..motorways with slip roads, no traffic lights and no roundabouts are the best places to speed and always remember it takes twice as long for a motorbike to stop than a car or truck..Another good reason not to go over the speed limit at night is that those lights in your rear view morror might belong to a traffic cop..

John.

[adlowe]

Originally Posted by John Hopkins

We can all offer advice from the safety of our chair in front of a computer, but there is one other thing to consider in this situation, the truck in front of you cannot see you unless you can see his mirrors..

Maybe I read it wrong but I got the idea that the truck was going in the opposite direction and therefore could not see the bike in his mirrors until after the bike went by.