Our accident stories and lessons learned
 

Hi all,
I did the search but couldn't find anything like this on HUBB.

We all have some stories from the road, whether it was a small accident or something major. It would be great to share our stories and learn from each other.

I start. :)

Some years ago just 1 month after picking up my motorcycle license, I was crossing a big intersection. There was green light and I was turning left, following a car in front of me. As I was in the middle of the maneuver, I looked right to make sure nothing is coming my way. When I looked back, I realized that the car in front of me stopped pretty rapidly to let somebody cross the road so I had to slam on my brakes. I lost traction and slid right into the car's rear bumper. Luckily everything was happening pretty slowly so except pain in my foot I was OK. Picture included. ;)

http://www.motorcyclesafetyfirst.com...tersection.jpg

My lessons learned:
-to keep the distance to the car in front,
-looking to the side should be much faster - more like glancing,
-slamming on my brakes doesn't work well, especially when turning
-maybe wearing proper biking boots would have saved me a lot of pain (my foot was fractured)

Anyone else happy to share their story? :)

Kyrgyzstan, Summer 2012

http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/p...N6984oops2.jpg

Lessons learnt
1. It's not such a good idea to ride off a cliff :D
2. You find out who your real friends are when you do :(

Mongolia Summer 2012

How To Not Cross A River In Mongolia - YouTube



Lessons learnt
1. It's a good idea to check the speed and depth of the river before crossing :rofl:
2. Dropping a DRZ in the Corwen Carwash in N Wales helps you to know what to do when you drown a Honda Transalp in Mongolia :smartass:
3. Hondas are well built :scooter:

Maybe so, but it wouldn't look nowhere near as hilarious as in this video. LOL

How long did it take you to dry the bike?

The bike was under water for about 10 or 15 minutes. It took about 2 hours to get it running again. Plus an oil change the next morning. The level was way above maximum and rather milky. Wonder why? :innocent:

FWIW, I'm the bald bloke in the red/white helmet.

This one happened to a friend (yes, really!), not to me, but there's a lesson in it so it's worth relating. Exactly what the lesson is you'll have to work out for yourself. :confused1:

Firstly I'll set the scene. It's very late on a very cold mid winter night and my friend is returning to London on the A10 (a dual lane major road). He's cold and the bike isn't running too well but he hasn't got that far to go. The road (unusually) is empty other than one car about 1/4 mile ahead. A set of traffic lights turns red and the car stops. My friend pulls up behind him and waits with the clutch pulled in. After a while he puts the bike in neutral and lets the clutch out - except it's not in neutral and jumps forward hitting the rear of the car. The car driver gets out, finds there's no damage done and settles the matter with a few choice words. Somewhat sheepishly my friend sets off behind him when the lights go green.

Half a mile later there's another set of lights on red and the car stops again. My friend pulls up behind and waits, this time deciding not to find neutral and keep the clutch in. Except .... you can probably guess the next bit - the clutch cable snapped. The bike lurched forward straight into the back of the car. Again no damage done but this time the car driver wasn't quite so accommodating. A somewhat more physical response followed (and without a clutch he couldn't ride away!).

Moral of the story - I dunno, always leave a safety margin? Make sure you're bigger than the people you crash into? Buy decent cables? Or maybe, if you do something stupid like this keep quiet about it? :rofl:

If I listed all my spills, I'd be here for a while - although most happened in the first 5 years of passing my test and I learn quickly!

The first ever drop was just 1 week after getting a big bike. I was parking at work & attempted to give way to a car. Paddling backwards, I lost grip on a wet manhole cover & down I went. The car driver didn't bother to help.
- Lesson Learned: a) never give way to a lazy driver & b) don't paddle backwards when you have short legs. I just get off and push my bike about now.

Once ran out of petrol on a cold November evening. Contacted a friend via a nearby farmhouse (pre mobiles) then sat on my bike to wait. Friend arrived, petrol added to tank. We set off and just as I entered a corner, I flicked down the visor. It was completely misted up & I rode straight into the embankment. Had to ride home with twisted bars.
Lesson Learned - never set off before ensuring visibility is good & try to remember when it went onto reserve!

My 'dumbest' motorcycle accident happened about 12 years ago in France.

I pulled over to the side of the road to take a closer look at the map on my tankbag. I didn't pull over very far... only a few inches off the pavement. So far, so good.

But... when I stuck out my right foot to reach the ground and keep the motorcycle steady, there was no ground there! The moto slowly tipped over and fell down into a rather deep ditch. I jumped off it (to the left) as it rolled over, and I was unhurt. The moto suffered some cosmetic damage - busted windscreen, busted mirror, etc., but no serious structural damage.

Lesson learned: Make darn sure there is solid ground underneath where you plan to put your foot down... tall grass and vegetation at the side of a road can be very deceiving.

Michael

Lesson learned...
http://i979.photobucket.com/albums/a...psbdf9dddf.jpg

1981 - I was 15 years old and not legal to ride on raod :nono: - mate was selling his Suzuki ER 50 so I rode it home via local dirt track to show my parents and see if they would buy it. They said no chance. Decided to ride it the short distance back via the road but as I turned out of our street I hit a car head on and catapulted over bars. Car driver bribbed parents out of lots of cash not to go to police and they had to fork out for bike as well.

Lesson learnt - Not the best way to persuade parents to let you have a bike and easy way to lose a friend after smashing his pride and joy


1982 - Riding my first road bike a Suzuki ER50 but not the one above! (parents fed up with taking me to college so bought me a bike in the end). Riding along flat out at a whopping 40mph and saw a girl I knew stood at bus stop. Showing off a bit I swerved into bus lane but slipped on deisel and ploughed into side of bus shelter :oops2:

Lesson learnt - Not a good way to impress a girl

1982 - Same bike as above, riding off road on local council estate when police turn up. Did a runner as I spotted a gap between 2 concreat fence posts that were missing the metal cris cross wire between them. Didnt notice the top wire was still attached though and nearly capacitated myself. Was hurled off bike which continued into garage door opposite.

Lesson learnt - open your eyes and look for the dangers. Laccerations to the neck from rusty wire hurt a lot.

2003 - commuting home from work filtering at about 10mph past traffic when car pulls out from left and t-bones me. Tried to stand up in shock but collapsed when left lef bent in wrong directioin and foot was pointing backwards. Took 5 months before I could walk again and found out the lovely illegal immegrant lady who hit me was not insured, no MOT or licence.

Lesson learnt - always be alert when filtering and can't say I support illegal immegrants in our country either. :eek3:

Our accident stories and lessons learned
 

In France, bad planning and a noisy couple in the adjacent room to mine (I'll leave what was so noisy to your imagination. I'm sure you can add two and two) resulted in me getting little sleep. The next day, a Sunday, it rained, I got cold and wet. There were few places open to buy food, so tired, hungry and cold, I got fixated on reaching a destination that was, with hindsight, well out of my range under the circumstances. So I started riding quicker than I ought. I did realise this was a mistake and slowed... But then fell asleep mid-hairpin bend. I awoke to find the bike sliding slowly towards the Armco with me following along a little afterwards. A few minutes earlier the outcome might have proven painful, as it was I slid to a graceful halt alongside the bike, with just a scratch on my knee, though my leathers did look a little woes for wear.

Lesson. Don't ride knackered, and if you need to, ride slowly.

Its all about where your foot goes, so far for me;

Banana peel (in front of about 200 people) :blushing:
Pothole .. covered in muddy water so you could not see how deep it was doh think I've done this twice? :rofl: Different places...

I got such a laugh off PanEuropeans photo that I thought I'd add my own.


Did this to my bike at around 4000m up in the Pamirs..

Lesson learned: Don't buy Chinese when your bike is nicked and you have thousands of kilometres of all kinds of awful roads ahead of you!

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...0-img-9758.jpg

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...1-img-9759.jpg

Lesson learned: Dont ride to fast at steep trails:

http://adventure-travel-experience.d...dition_046.jpg

http://adventure-travel-experience.d...dition_047.jpg

http://adventure-travel-experience.d...en_transafrika

So far :

1. (Most embarrassing) - Dropped bike taking off stand.......... in front of a CBT class and workshop full of mechanics at a Honda dealer.

Lesson learned - don't drop your bike in front of teenagers.

2. In a village in Turkey outside a coffee shop - drove around a dead dog in the road. It got up and walked the wrong way, then it was dead.

Lesson learned - just because a dead animal looks dead doesn't mean they can't run. Turkish villager's get very angry when you run over their dogs.

3. In another village in Turkey up a steep "wrong turn" fell over trying to turn around two up. Wife on back was fine, fractured my ankle.

Three lessons learnt - don't try turning around in tight spots two up. Always sit on the back in tight spots as it's much safer ! It really hurts changing gear with a broken ankle.

It was Martin Luther King Day in 2011, the weather finally broke from fog, rain and cold..the was clear and cold..I had a Honda 1100 shadow ACE and decided to winterize it before the next front came in (it was due the next day..). After deciding to wear the "cruiser Leathers" (my modular helmet, jacket, chaps, boots, gloves) because it was cold and didn't want to hassle with the tourmaster liners.

I idea was 'suppose' to be simple: go fill the tank, add sta-bil, close the cock run the carb float bowl dry, trickle charger, cover...hour tops.

stated to pull out of my car park and up to the corner..a whopping 40feet or so. And when I started to pull out...I was face to face with my neighbor in her jeep grand Cherokee, she 'cut the corner' (turning left in front of me) while chatting with her sister..I the bike was push back a bit, I wasn't though, and forward and over I went (to the right)....resulting in a very painful and 9 months stay in medical facilities and conpletely non-weight bearing under going two surgeries, combating an infection for a Tibial Plateau fracture and dislocation to my right knee...now it hadn't healed correctly and I'm facing Knee replacement.

All the while my office was moving 40 miles outside the city to another town, my stuff was in storage, my place for sale and when I finally got out discovered my parents where living in shambles with my mom bed ridden and getting malnourished and Dad helpless as to what to do (she had late stage Parkinson's). Even though every visit to the hospital they kept telling me they where fine and doing OK I had to jump in and help them as well as finish selling and moving myself...ultimately, moving to them new town with me and getting them out of debt and established with a care/doctor/etc near so I can keep and eye on things...them in 2013, they both got sick and passed, mom on christmas day, Dad the day before memorial day.

What did I learn?

1.HARD ARMOR! each and every time out..
2.Family comes first, you only get one set of parents, They gave you life, raised you, taught you, when its time....return the favor and never stop the love.
3. Stress is a bitch
4. You find out real fast who your friends really are when things go south...
5. Moving when your lamed up, alone and in pain...SUCKS!

6. Most important of all.......NEVER, EVER GIVE UP!