Warning: The heat brings out dumb drivers (Skyline blvd. incident, 7/2)

[stunna]

I'm posting this as a warning to all my fellow riders. The heat brings out dumb drivers. Riders beware.

Here's my story:

I decided to take the long way back to the Peninsula from the Motor Cafe. I had to get some photos taken of my gas tank for a warranty repair. Seems that the paint ducati used, mixed with US fuel, causes bubbles to develop underneath the paint.

I'm digressing...So I decided to take the long way back home. Hwy 9 - 84 - sklyine - 101. I stroll up hwy 9, not a LEO in sight :cool. As I am coming down skyline, the 50 mph section, I turn into a blind right hander. At the end of the turn, I see an idiot cager in a bmw trying make a u-turn in the middle of the road. For those of you that don't know this road, it is a 2-lane road, 1-land in each direction, and a double yellow divider.

As I approach this idiot of a driver, I check off my options like a well planned itinerary (I think fast).

1. Do I have room to pass on the right?
2. If so, will the car stop or continue with their ILLEGAL u-turn.
3. Option 1 is too risky, so I consider passing over the double yellow on the left. But there's a car coming in the opposite direction and I don't have room to pass.
4. Option 4, grab some Brembos and hope I stop in time. Option 4 is my default and at the rate of speed I was traveling, 40-50 mph, I didn't think I had enough braking distance to stop in time.

I chose option 4. And came to a sliding halt and slammed/slid the right side of my bike/leg into the rear bumper of this idiot's car, a bmw. I managed to keep my bike upright, but I slammed my right leg and the right side of my duc pretty hard. The driver and I exchanged all of the necessary information. Took some photos. And I gave her a little driving lesson, "Don't make u-turns in double yellows, and especially right after a turn. You can kill somebody!" You guys can thank me later.

I hopped back on my duc and went home. The damages thus far:

Rashed right side fairing, the brackets supporting my right peg is bent inwards, and my steering lock won't engage. My right ankle is scratched (I should've worn my boots!), and my right leg feels a little stiff.

Moral of the story is, exactly what the title of the thread says. Heat = dumb drivers; especially on skyline, etc. So consider the risks next time you ride up the hill. You never know what those blind corners will yield on the other side.

btw, If anyone can offer up some other options to the ones above, I would be more than happy to entertain your thoughts.


Thanks for reading, and ride safe. :ride

 

[I'm OaklandLion]

glad you weren't seriously hurt.

I know this might sound like terrible advice, but sometimes the double yellow serves as a "motorcycle lane". Could you have used it?

(Sorry Enchanter)

 

[stunna]

glad you weren't seriously hurt.

I know this might sound like terrible advice, but sometimes the double yellow serves as a "motorcycle lane". Could you have used it?

(Sorry Enchanter)

Is that so? :shocker

I would've, but the cage was blocking most of it.

 

[DataDan]

It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.

Here's a similar crash from a Crash Analysis thread in spring '10. And it's the same kind of crash that disabled Sport Rider's Andrew Trevitt on Angeles Crest in fall '08. Unfortunately, while the U-turner is a relatively rare hazard--7 of 390 fatal Bay Area crashes 2005-2009 were this type--they do happen. Preventing them requires tactics to help us spot the threat in time to take effective evasive action.

What could you have done to identify the danger sooner, so less intense braking would have enabled you to avoid it?

 

[stunna]

It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.

Here's a similar crash from a Crash Analysis thread in spring '10. And it's the same kind of crash that disabled Sport Rider's Andrew Trevitt on Angeles Crest in fall '08. Unfortunately, while the U-turner is a relatively rare hazard--7 of 390 fatal Bay Area crashes 2005-2009 were this type--they do happen. Preventing them requires tactics to help us spot the threat in time to take effective evasive action.

What could you have done to identify the danger sooner, so less intense braking would have enabled you to avoid it?

Close call indeed. I came home and told my fiance that I could've died today.

What could I have done to avoid "intense braking?" Other than not riding on the road in the first place, or riding 50% of the posted speed limit, I'm not sure what I could've done.

What do other people do?

 

[Cali_RSV]

So from what I understand the BMW was an oncoming car making a U turn to go your direction is that correct?

 

[GAJ]

Do you take blind right handers slower than blind left handers?

Do you try to maintain 4 seconds of vision while riding by slowing down when your vision is compromised?

Started a thread on this very subject just last week in General that you might be interested in:

http://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=372091&highlight=gps

 

[Abunai]

Good to know you picked #4, I picked #3 and got half at fault and a hell of trouble arguing with the insurance. I was going right around the same speed. I guess 40-50mph on that road is not asking for ER but will be tougher to avoid dumb drivers.

As you already said, the warm season does bring dumb drivers on vacation to these roads. Many will get lost and at the heat of the moment will make a mistake, like u-turn at the blinds.

 

[monkeythumpa]

What line do you take around blind corners? Do you start on the outside, cut in and drift out, ie. race line? Or do you start outside and stay outside, ie the sight line? It only gives you an extra 6 or 7 feet of time to react, but since you are riding the sight line you already have the mindset that there might be something around the bend and ready to react.

The heat does not bring out the stupidity, it is always there. The heat just means you are riding more. I see just as much stupidity in the cold, or the rain, or the sun.

 

[R1-Limited]

What line do you take around blind corners? Do you start on the outside, cut in and drift out, ie. race line? Or do you start outside and stay outside, ie the sight line? It only gives you an extra 6 or 7 feet of time to react, but since you are riding the sight line you already have the mindset that there might be something around the bend and ready to react.

The heat does not bring out the stupidity, it is always there. The heat just means you are riding more. I see just as much stupidity in the cold, or the rain, or the sun.

I was just thinking of this Post The Street is not a racetrack

 

[DataDan]

Good advice from GAJ and monkeythumpa. Entering a blind right-hander stay wide until you can see the geometric apex of the turn. And slow down so you have a 4-second sightline interval to where the pavement disappears around the inside of the turn. This will keep speeds lower in blind right-handers than in left-handers so you have the time you need to react to an unpleasant surprise. For more info see the 1Rider thread The Vanishing Point and this post in the thread Good Speed / Bad Speed.

Following this advice, you'll feel slow in blind turns, especially right-handers. That's because the limit isn't your skill or the motorcycle's capabilities, but the environment. It's just an accommodation that must be made in street sport riding if you want to get home safely and ride again tomorrow.

 

[Thateguhate]

The response to this makes sense.. Although realistically many don't ride this way on the backroads. Hopefully this doesn't mean more accidents will be happening out there this summer.

 

[stunna]

So from what I understand the BMW was an oncoming car making a U turn to go your direction is that correct?

Correct.

I have to eat some crow...It is not ILLEGAL to make a u-turn unless there are two sets of double yellows. However, the driver made a u-turn when she had an obstructed view 200 feet in both directions.

 

[stunna]

Great replies...I'll try taking the "straight line" when entering blind corners, and I usually slow down on right handers. I've seen far too many accidents when riders blow a right hand turn and end up face to face with the front grill of a cager.

I was riding the speed limit, +/- 5 mph the whole way down skyline.

I went back out today to take some photos for my insurance company and this incident happened a lot closer than I remembered. My skid marks were started as soon as the curve straightened out. The cage was within 50 feet of the exit of this corner. I can count my lucky stars today (no pun intended).

Happy 4th everyone.

 

[DucatiHoney]

So if you were doing around the speed limit then that equates to about 73 feet per second. You said you had about 50 feet between you and her when you came out of the corner. That works out to .7 of a second to make a decision....not a lot of time to be sure.

Grabbing the brakes is what most of us do when things get icky. It's easy and it's intuitive. The problem is that the brain in that situation is thinking that you're running or something and that you can stop on a dime--it's not really aware that you're on a machine. So the brain thinks, "STOP! and it'll all be OK" and doesn't process the repercussions of 500 lbs. of bike and rider trying to come to an unexpected halt. What usually happens is that Newton's 1st Law of Motion tends to come into play and you don't stop--what you do is slide. And a sliding bike is a tough to control bike. So now you've really befuddled your brain and the Stopping Plan really hasn't panned out the way that your brain thought it would, plus the whole reason you were stopping is now a whole heckaofalot closer than it was .3 of a second ago. Brain really hadn't developed a Plan B, so it just goes, "Fuggit" and sends out a bunch of juice to make the hit it knows is coming not hurt so much.

Now someone who's practiced not listening to Brain's first instincts might think to swerve onto the shoulder. Not hitting the brakes is super-tough, but in a lot of situations it's the safer thing to do. You don't put extra forces on the bike and you can control the direction you're going to go. Aiming for a dirt shoulder that's only a couple of feet wide probably ranked #27 of things your brain wanted you to do at that point, but it might have been the best thing to do. I'm certainly not saying that I could have done any better in the same situation, but once or twice I've forced myself to swerve instead of brake, where normally I would brake, and it's worked out a whole lot better. (e.g. getting around a car illegally turning in front of me in a busy intersection--swerving got me away from the car and out of the intersection. Had I safely braked and avoided the turning car, which I'm not sure I had the time for, I still would have been sitting there in a busy intersection at a stop.)

Really glad you're OK, but I definitely would try practicing other maneuvers to keep yourself out of harm's way. Chalking it up to "dumb drivers and heat" isn't gonna cut the mustard if you want to stay in one piece. Cold, hot, drivers, deer, turkeys, oil, gravel etc. is always out there, and the more tricks you have up your sleeve the better off you'll be for it.

 

[BMK]

And slow down so you have a 4-second sightline interval to where the pavement disappears around the inside of the turn

I think this and the similar suggestions are really the take-home message for this analysis.

There are obviously many reasons why you might find a stopped or very slow-moving vehicle in your lane around blind corners, but sometimes you have to see and experience some of these to believe it. Just in the last week I've found an oncoming car all the way into my lane (because they were going around a cyclist), a pair of cyclists riding next to each other instead of single file (and covering the entire lane), and on Friday morning I came around a blind right on Skyline and found a front loader :wow crawling along at about 5 mph in my lane. I had to swerve to avoid hitting it, because there wasn't enough time to brake.

Until these events, I was probably only allowing a 2-second sightline, at best, around blind corners, but I've really started to slow down because of these experiences.

Glad you are mostly OK and best of luck with your repairs.

 

[11B]

I agree with the people saying expect the unexpected and make a late apex the norm, especially on blind corners so you have better vision.

I'd also throw in I think its a good idea to ride with a couple fingers covering the brake in any circumstance you think has danger potential. Other than that, maybe immediately start emergency braking and as your getting closer to the car weigh your options as your slowing down.

 

[stunna]

...500 lbs.

Not hitting the brakes is super-tough, but in a lot of situations it's the safer thing to do. You don't put extra forces on the bike and you can control the direction you're going to go. Aiming for a dirt shoulder that's only a couple of feet wide probably ranked #27 of things your brain wanted you to do at that point, but it might have been the best thing to do.

First off! Are you trying to say that I'm a light weight?!? j/k 500 - 389 lbs (for the bike) = 119 lbs. More like 550 lbs.

I did consider the shoulder, but it was literally a white line, a jagged bit of concrete, and a ditch. I wouldn't have made it. But #27 was #2 in my head at the time. I guess I could've James Bonded it and rolled up the hillside and dropped back down on the other side of the car... :ride

 

[DucatiHoney]

First off! Are you trying to say that I'm a light weight?!? j/k 500 - 389 lbs (for the bike) = 119 lbs. More like 550 lbs.

I did consider the shoulder, but it was literally a white line, a jagged bit of concrete, and a ditch. I wouldn't have made it. But #27 was #2 in my head at the time. I guess I could've James Bonded it and rolled up the hillside and dropped back down on the other side of the car... :ride

Fair enough. I just noticed that you're a Founding Member and have probably been riding way longer than I have! Anyway, I didn't mean to sound condescending--only wanted to make sure all options were considered. Sometimes I ask someone why they didn't use the shoulder and they go, "Well, it was only 6' wide, completely clear and it, it was over there," basically meaning that they'd never considered it.

Ride safe!

 

[GAJ]

Great replies...I'll try taking the "straight line" when entering blind corners, and I usually slow down on right handers. I've seen far too many accidents when riders blow a right hand turn and end up face to face with the front grill of a cager.

Not sure what you mean by "straight line"?

A slow in/fast out late apex line is actually the least straight line, no?