saw a nasty off

[spitfire]

Last Sunday evening I was driving back from the South West in the car, we got caught in traffic on the M4 outside London, think it was around J6 -J7, when we finally got to the head of the queue there was a mangled bike (from what I could work out some kind of BMW) in the road with bits of it stuck under the car.

Looked like the bike had gone into the back of the car at some speed, or the car had pulled out in front of the bike, either way it didn’t look very good for the rider. Rider had been taken away by this time.

Seeing the wreckage in the road is a chilling reminder of what can happen, it wont put me off but it does make you think !

[map]

As said by a wise man....shit happens! get over it and move on

On a practical level though I've had a few "there but for the grace of god go I..." thoughts/moments. Just makes me appreciate what I've got and try to make the most of it.

However, there will be some who couldn't give a stuff about another biker being killed/injured. Attitude is didn't know them, not my friends, not my problem. Takes all sorts to make a world so they say
____________________
...and the whirlwind is in the thorn trees, it's hard for thee to kick against the pricks...
Gibbs, what did Duckie look like when he was younger?

[spitfire]

I'm not the type to get upset at that sort of thing, as you say shite happens.

It was looking at the twisted frame, wiring loom hanging out of, what was moments before an expensive bike and thinking "what a fucking mess, bet some poor fucker might had died "

I've never seen a bike like that before except in a breakers.

[akaDAVE]

Seeing a bike mangled out of shape is a disturbing reminder about just how vunerable we are as lumps of meat.

It's like seeing a corpse and realising your own mortality.

Just don't fall off.

[spitfire]

[GearboxGeezer]

I saw a really big crash involing a big sports bike, couldnt tell what it was couse it was wrecked.

Anyway, was driving along down the M4 I think and this bike whizzed pass me at atleast 120mph but i wouldnt be surprised if it was alot faster, anyway, I car pulled out into his lane and whack, he went straight into the back, rider flew over the front of the car and luckily the car manged to stop intime before the rider did and the rider didnt slide into any other traffic, the bike was complete wrecked, probly as wrecked as the bike you saw, I was expecting the rider to be dead but amazingly he was up and walking, he had a limp yea but that was pretty amazing, At least he wasnt stupid enough not to wear proper leathers. He did go in the back of an ambulance but it was mainly for acheck up, I think he was a bit shocked to ( I had pulled over at the time and helped sort out the carnage.. )

The driver was shocken up to but was alright once he new the biker was ok.

It will suprise you how lucky some people are, hopfully the owner of the bike you saw is ok.

[spitfire]

what amazed me was the fact that sunday night traffic on the M4 is always really heavy so Im surprised the bike managed to get the sort of speed differential to cause that much damage. Unless maybe the bike was dropped off a flyover or maybe BMW's are actually really badly put together and it fell to bits even though it was a low speed impact !

[Andy C]

sometimes its scary how a speed that you class as slow can do a lot of damage, sometimes a think 60mph is slow but when you think people die at less scares the shit out of me.
____________________
99 RS125 --> 02 SV650s --> 03 Speed Four --> 92 RXS100 --> 93 CB400sf --> 01 CB600f Hornet

[lilredmachine]

lets face it, on a really fast bike you don't need much time at WOT to get to stupid speeds. Worst bike crash i saw on the Island was a V-max lodged in the side of a tractor. didn't look nice.
____________________
Bikes: too many, too much for one man to maintain anyway.

[Kickstart]

[Andy C]