The main reason for crashing?

[uber noob]

What are the main reasons for stacking your bike? Is it riding like a loon and not taking much notice of anything else or maybe the ignorance of some car drivers, or maybe both?

[GearboxGeezer]

I ant crashed yet, but Ive only nearly crashed by riding like a loon ( as looney as you can ride on a rs125 that is ) a couple of times, Ive nearly crashed loads of times by dick head car drivers.

[Silver]

Loss of balance, and/or interaction with another solid object.

Hope that helps!

[G]

On the road, it usually boils down to poor observation / not acting on what you do observe.


'Riding like a loon' depends very much on your idea of what a 'loon' is.

[Itchy]

people not looking be it yourself or somebody else there was a major hazard today , a very fit girl in a impossibly short skirt.

[Groove]

The wet drain cover came straigt at me!
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|| Past: 1991 Kawasaki ZXR 250 ~ 2003 Honda CBR 600 F Sport ~ 2004 Kawasaki ZX6R B1H 636 ~ 1999 Yamaha R1 ~ 1999 Kawasaki ZX6R J ~ 2004 Kawasaki ZX6R B1H 636 ~ 1998 Honda VTR1000F Firestorm ~ K1 GSXR 600 Track bike ~ K6 GSXR 1000 ~ 2006 Speed Triple 1050 || Current: 2005 R1 https://www.adrucore.co.uk

[stinkwheel]

Had a few crashes which can be attributed to:

Mechanical failure x1.
Someone elses dangerous driving x1
Black Ice x1
Gravel on road x lots when I was learning.
Unknown highside x1

The mechanical failure was totally unavoidable, a rigging screw moved on my sidecar setup and I have no idea how. They had been adjusted and tightened two days previously.

Again, I had no-chance with the car crash, the driver was charged with dangerous driving, 100% his fault.

I would have binned it on the black ice every time, as is the nature of the stuff, you can't see it is there. It could have been avoided by not going out when the temperature is below zero but that is hardly practical.

I am getting a lot better at avoiding/riding on gravel.

I have no idea what caused the highside (other than the rear wheel briefly losing traction for reasons unknown) so I can't really say if it was avoidable, I have done the same corner many times at higher speeds in similar conditions.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[extreme3d]

[colin1]

For me it was riding a bit carelessly, not concentrating and failing to react quickly when a situation developed.

So thats 2 low speed front wheel skids when the road was slippy, and one impact with a low flying pigeon that i could have avoided if i had slammed the anchors on hard enough. Although with the pigeon one I might have lost control of the bike that was new to me if i had braked too suddenly. As it was I stayed in control but the bike took the hit.

I had one close call on black ice on a road with standing water that I should have anticipated, but I reacted well and wasnt going very fast to start with.
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[stinkwheel]

I should give an honourable mention to Czech made 'Barum' tyres as being responsable for many of the offs that I earlier attributed to gravel.

They are an exact replica of 1960'sgroove-cut Avon speedmasters (aka 'slidemasters') but carved from a bakelite-like substance during the communist era in the former Czechoslovakia. I had them on my Jawa for 15k miles and they still had nibs on the main tread. When I think about it, the time when I stopped falling off all the time co-incides exactly with the time I fitted MT65s to that bike.
https://www.tiresunlimited.com/images/avon_tires/avon_speedmaster.gif
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[veeeffarr]

The only time I've come off is when I hit a patch of what I can only describe as black ice in a car park.

Only problem was it was about 3 degrees :S

I lost both the front and the back at the same time and went down so fast I was "coming out of the corner" in my head as I came to a stop on teh floor.

[steveh]

my main reason, cars thinking there in france.


Steve.
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Current : 06 Zx10r, 07 Wr450f SM, 74 850 norton commando, 63 bsa b40, 1962 Triton 650, 67 Triumph Tr6r, 1955 Triton 750, 1978 TY250E.

[Simple]

Unable to avoid a car that presented it'self slap bang in the middle of where I was 2metres from.

There is only so much last minute banking over you can do.

I also lacked confidence with a corner and my eyes got distracted from the road to a tree I was heading for with lots of flowers on it.

..I hit the tree, chucked the bike in a hedge and sat with legs and arms sprawled round the tree for several minutes.

Have gone past that corner/tree many times alot quicker than when I hedged it. I juct got all scardy on my 50cc.
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Insta - FemFeral

[spinglass]

I believe that the question isn’t exact. It’s an other thing crashing and an other falling.
From my experience (and I have allot of it) the most common reason for crashing is
“sorry I didn’t see you” or “where did you come from” and all these kind of stupid excuses .
Then there is falling, when this happens usually there is combination of reasons as wet road,
obstructions of any kind, mechanical frailer,…., but it all add up to believing you have a little bit of
“46” in you.

[Harold_Shand]

One very low speed off on ice.

To the mechanics in a garage in Southall who just stared at me blankly trying to lift the bike on an icy road.

A couple of skids which have been me following too close to the car infront and not having an escape route.

Filtering down a cycle lane and a car door opened to drop someone off. Lessons learned...
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BCF's 6th favourite poster 2009-2010

Harold_Shand's theory might be the best explanation.

[mattish]

Binding brakes, wet roads and a small patch of oil. As soon as the front wheel hit the small patch of oil (cd sized), the front wheel locked due to the binding brakes.

Completely my fault for riding a dodgy bike , So my theory is dodgy maintenance is a major cause of offs

[michaelryland]

I have not had the experience of crashing yet, touch wood. But the main reason for people coming off is meant to be just locking up the front wheel from panicking.

[the grim reaper]

There's a million and one different reasons for crashing, the vast majority of which you can predict. Every crash is different, no two are the same.

I've crashed five times, it's no co-incidence that four of them were before I passed my test and on the fifth I hadn't allowed enough margin for error when I hit diesel (I was too far cranked over for recovery).

I would say that 99.9% of crashes are due to human error, be it bad maintenance, poor riding or another human doing something stupid. Quite often it's a combination of all three.

Cheers

Grim
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Adverts don't always work: Remember that advert, where the army are running across the desert and they have a wounded man on a stretcher. They get to a ravine, the bridge is down and a caption pops up that says, 'What are you thinking?'. I don't know about you but I was thinking, 'Christ, I'm glad I'm not in the f***ing army'.

[thx1138]

Young and inexpereinced. Night time when a long dry summer came to an end, started drizzling ever so lightly.... didn't realise that the road would become like a skidpan....

[pjb120]

one crash so far - completely my fault. Tried overtaking a car whilst coming up to a roundabout junction. Completely misjudged it (going too fast), carrered across the roundabout (luckily no traffic coming) and ended up sprawled in the middle of the roundabout. Luckily no injuries to me or the bike except some bashed balls + dented pride.

[bish777]

Gravel/wet
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GSXR1100J

[map]

IMHO main reason for crashing on a bend is looking where you expect to crash and therefore going straight towards it (target fixation).
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...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?

[sickpup]

Staring at attractive women and crashing for their sympathy.

[SoND]

One time I fell off because I threw the bike into a tight corner far too fast and lost the front end. Lost it because I had a standard tyre on the front and a pirelli on the bike.

No it's not my fault.
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Go back to bed - You have no rights - "Streetfighters ~ Mainstream motorcycling's crackwhore sister."

[Silky]