crashes, whos had them? how many and how spectacular?

[grr666]

Nice work on that front wheel Dave....
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Currently enjoying products from Ford, Mazda and Yamaha
Ste wrote: Avatars are fine, it's signatures that need turning off.

[Abaaba]

[dave001]

[DJP]

I fell off my moped on the first day I had it, aged 16. That was 37 years ago and I haven't crashed since.

I've had 2 non-fault claims though:

About 8 years ago a drunk pedestrian decided to run across a dual carriageway at night and ran into me from the side. I didn't even see him coming. I didn't come off (although it was a close run thing) and suffered only bruises (and a few scratches to the bike) but the pedestrian broke multiple bones and was apparently lucky to be alive.

And then 2 years ago I was hit from behind while waiting at the traffic lights. The bike was literally knocked out from under me. I landed on my arse (no real injuries) but the bike was punted down the road on its side and was written off. Fortunately, there was no dicking about from the third party insurers - they made a generous offer right off the bat and I took it.
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Suzuki Bandit 1250
https://deejayp999.atwebpages.com/index.html
That's http not https

[jeffyjeff]

Been riding since age 15. In that time, I've crashed a few times. Here is my contribution.

Year: 1971, Age 17, Riding Experience: 2 years - 6650 miles, Bike: 1970 Suzuki 350 Rebel
I was visiting a mate who lived a few miles outside of town on a two lane country road. We were discussing some stupid trivial shit as I pulled out of his driveway, and I forgot to stow the sidestand. This was back in the day before sidestand interlock. Sped off down the road; two right curves then a hard left…oops! Sidestand touched down and levered the rear wheel off the pavement. It was after dark, and the sparks coming off the bike as it skidded down the road were quite spectacular. My mom was pretty freaked out and my dad was perturbed, probably from mom's trauma more than anything else.

Year: 1974, Age 20, Experience 5 years - 46,200 miles, Bike: 1973 Honda CB 450
Three years later and I'm a young airman stationed at Norton AFB, CA. Shortly after upgrading my bike with some performance and suspension enhancements, I decided to find out how far I could lean over and still maintain control. They say you won't know your limits until you exceed them. Predictably, I found out. Fortunately, the damage was minimal; I don't recall even reporting it.

Year: 1981, Age 27, Experience 12 years - 71,900 miles, Bike: 1980 Harley FLH Electra Glide
My cursed Harley! I only had that bike for a year, it was a memorable experience for all the wrong reasons. On a sunny summer morning I was riding through a wildlife refuge on the Oregon-California border; 55 mph on a dead straight road. Kamikaze deer bounded into my path and split its guts open on my front fender. I lost balance and the bike went down on its right side. I slid on the tarmac behind it as it skidded down the road. The bike rocked over on its crash bar, sparks a flying; as it rocked back the tires contacted the pavement and it flipped over mid-skid and fucked up the left side for good measure. I was wearing combat boots, blue jeans, leather jacket, leather gloves, and helmet. The jeans shredded and left a fair part of my right ass cheek behind. The leather jacket held up. But I had a blister bigger than my hand on my right shoulder. Ditto for my gloved left hand. Miles from nowhere, I waited about half an hour until a cowboy came by in his pickup and called the Highway Patrol on his CB radio. Officer confirmed the deer was dead, then did his measurements for the accident report. I slid about 185 feet (56 meters), the bike 305 feet (93 meters).
"How could the bike skid so far?", I asked. "Low coefficient of friction." was his deadpan reply. "How big was the deer?" "About 85 pounds (39.6 kg)".
"What!! A deer that small did all this damage?" "Next time, watch where you're going." was his empathetic response. The officer took me to the nearest clinic where they treated my wounds. When I finished, a tow truck was waiting for me and we went back to the scene, picked up my bike, and continued back to my house.


Year: 1983, Age 29, Experience 14 years - 74,600 miles, Bike: 1962 BMW R60/2
Out for a spirited ride (well, as spirited as you can get on a 30 hp, four speed lump) I was riding a winding country road past some picturesque farm houses. Rounding a left-hand sweeper at a pretty good clip, maybe 50 mph; I had the bike leaned over and was committed to my line. Out of corner of my eye I spot a mongrel dog, teeth bared, attack mode, on a collision course. What am I gonna do? My speed and lean angle pretty much limit any evasive action I might otherwise take. So I loosen up as best I can and prepare for the hit. I recall the sound of his skull caving in as he launched into my right header pipe. He knocked me into a wobble, but I never went down. We collided with so much force that he bent my header and damaged the cylinder head. I sent the head to Portland to have the head repaired and fitted a new header pipe.

Year: 1987, Age 33, Experience 18 years - 77,800 miles, Bike: 1980 Yamaha DT175
I was working in the Atlas mountains in Morocco as a Field Engineer with the US Peace Corps. One of our projects was to enhance potable water sanitation in a remote village. I was to obtain certain critical parts and tooling and deliver them to the construction team on my gov't issue DT175. I was running late and trying to make up time, running the Yamaha flat out (80 kph) on the paved portion of the route. I rounded a curve and got into a full tuck, peaking over the instrument cluster to view the road ahead. I looked up from the speedometer, and to my shock there was an 11 year old Berber boy right in my path, his eyes wide as saucers. Wham! I hit him at nearly full speed, breaking his left arm. The bike went down, sliding into a ditch; I did not slide as far and wound up on the gravel shoulder. I looked up and saw six turban clad men running toward me. "Oh God!" I thought to myself, "this is the end." To my surprise, they ran right past me to the kid and began wailing on him. WTF? This kid is really having a bad day. The Royal Gendarmes showed up, questioned me about what happened, took their measurements, questioned the boy, and left. A tow truck showed up and took the bike and dropped me off at the village clinic. The Doctor looks me over and decides some sort of precautionary injection would be appropriate. As he finishes up, I notice that he is saving the needle. "Do re-use the injection needles?" I ask him. "All the time," he replied. "Here in rural Morocco, supplies are precious, we have to conserve resources wherever we can." "Look, we sterilize the needles under this special light!" He put the needle in a white box with what appeared to be a black light in it. It looked like it came out of a head shop in San Francisco. I could easily imagine black light posters of Jimi Hendrix and Iron Butterfly adorning the walls of his office.
Long story short, they called me into court to account for my part in the accident. The boy had a history of encounters with traffic on that road in that particular area, and had been warned to stay out of the roadway. They let me off with an admonishment to be a more careful driver.


Year: 2016, Age 62, Experience 47 years - 281,000 miles, Bike: 2000 Honda VFR 800Fi
This one hurts to write about. It's about road rage, and illustrates that when provoked, I became my own worst enemy. Heading to the hardware store on my fifth gen VFR. A few blocks into the trip I get cut off by an asshole in a 10 year old Accord. We come to a traffic light and Mr. A-hole is provoking me with weird hand gestures. No idea what his problem was. I'm normally a pretty level headed guy, but on this occasion, my fight or flight condition was triggered; I became angered and aggressive. Signal turned green and I tucked in behind Mr. Hole. He tried to speed up, but I was easily faster than him. He tried a few weak-ass evasive maneuvers; I had no problem staying on his tail. He pulled onto the motorway, merged over two lanes, then he hit his brakes, hard. I grabbed a big handful and managed to avoid rear-ending him. I remember marveling at how far my fork springs appeared to be compressing, then….lights out.

I woke up to a field of vision filled with brown. Like brown tweed suit fabric, but I couldn't seem to focus…WTF? A CHP officer was tapping on my helmet. "Hello, anybody home?" I turned my head 90 degrees and everything sharpened into focus. I had an ant's view of Interstate 880 at the CA 92 offramp; all lanes were stopped, and backed up for as far as I could see. The officer helped me off the road and I sat down with my back against the concrete divider. He questioned me to determine if I had a concussion; "What's your name? What day is it? Who is the governor of California?" He took my statement regarding the accident - Mr. A-hole was long gone. CHP officer called an ambulance and a tow truck. As we parted, he said, "You were born-again today, man."

The ambulance ride was excruciating, seemed to take hours. The attendant was a chatty lad who also rides. They took me to a trauma center. As I was delivered into custody of the ER staff, the attendant turned to me and said, "You were born-again today, man."

I called my wife from the hospital to tell her what happened; an hour later my son shows up. The doctor was a cranky young guy in his early 30's. Probably seen enough busted up bikers to last a lifetime. They checked me out, ordered some x-rays, and determined that I had a broken shoulder blade. Doctor gave me a lecture about the dangers of motorcycling, adding, "aren't you a little old to be out raising hell on a motorcycle?" Having got that off his chest, he lightened up considerably. As I was being discharged, he came up to me and said, "You were born-again today, man." There you go. 06 March 2016, the day I was born again.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52913054228_2845cbd7de_n.jpg

To my best estimation, I have logged 321,505 miles on motorcycles in 54 years of riding.
The longest span of time between crashes was 29 years, 1 month.
It has been 7 years 2 months 14 days and 40,505 miles since my last crash. Hope it never happens again. Inshallah.
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History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men - BOC

[Mr Hammers]

[Mr Hammers]

[Ste]

Contact White Dalton and see if they can be more helpful than the current claims people you're dealing with are?

[Bhud]

Hammers, I'm late to the party and just read your post. But as Ste says, White Dalton (or any good solicitor) will be able to help. Having been through this before (with a recalcitrant 3rd party, and 4th D), etc. If you have an injury it actually helps you, because the law stipulates that personal injury is the crux which determines whether legal costs are recoverable from the other side. In short, solicitors will be willing to help if you had any kind of injury or needed medical attention, because they know they'll get their costs paid in full. Important to note that White Dalton are just like any other law firm, although they have a good reputation and are famous for motorcycle accident compo, and 4th D are just like any other accident management company. This is how the cookie crumbles. If you have (either) legal cover or a personal injury, in the event of an accident, you'll get good advice/representation and it will work out. Otherwise I don't know...

[Fat Angry Scotsman]

[PotatoHead202...]

Get onto ceoemailaddress.com and start harassing the shit out of the other drivers/cars insurers. PM me if you want some help with the wording or finding the email, i've helped out a fair few before.

1st: Coming home on my RS50 from 6th form (to get my earphones ffs) on a bitterly cold November morning. Slipped on black ice as I was turning into the driveway. Went down like a sack of shit. IIRC I stood up and kicked the bike seat! Must have been late 2007. Just a few minor scratches.

2nd: Coming home from work (Uni Placement) in late 2011 on my pretty immaculate Triumph Speed Four. Was in a row of traffic considering whether to filter across the hatched lines, bit of a combination of me either locking the rear or and hitting an oily manhole cover in torrential rain. Snaked into the middle of the A329 in Winnersh and stacked it. Was incredibly lucky the hashed lines had been there otherwise I'd have been in the path of oncoming traffic. Sat there for a minute or two in shock and embarassment before I pulled myself out and got the bike upright. No fucker bothered to get out and help me though. Crash bungs took the brunt, only other damage was a mirror and a sore knee.

3rd: Setting off to the 2022 Dragon Rally (my first Dragon) on my CBF500. For some reason I had decided to load it up that morning and then put a disc lock on it - having never put a lock on in the daytime at home before. Said goodbye to the GF and dogs, went to pull away and CLUNK, went down like a sack of shit. Had to partially unload it to get to the grab handles to pick it up again. Damaged mirror and banana shape clutch lever was all I thought - until I got to the end of the road and realised I couldn't change gear. Back home to bend that back into position. GF wasn't happy at that point and worried about me until I got home!
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Honda VFR1200F, Honda CBF500 ABS, CZ125 now CZ175

[TheInternet]