Continuing on from the previous article….

Two cars and a motorcycle meet on the street

My riding buddy and I were heading out to dinner and a movie, traveling northwest on Coon Rapids Boulevard NW in Coon Rapid MN. This is a four lane road, two in each direction, with the occasional lane additions for things like left or right turns. We were heading NW here:

I happened to get hit just under the bridge. Here’s the intersection with lines added that I think pretty closely show what’s actually there.

So, setting the scene: It was daylight, around 1715 (yes, I use 24 hour time). It’s rush hour, and traffic is heavy. Cat (my riding buddy) and I were riding NW in the left lane behind a Honda CRV. Cat’s leading, so riding in lane position 1 (LP1) and I’m in LP3 behind her. Cars were backed up beyond where the left turn lane starts under the MN610 overpass, with cars something like this.

In that image, I’m D1, the first car that hit me is D2, and the second car that hit me is D3. D2 came to a stop in front of us and we mostly collapsed up behind that car, but I left room for Cat to get around D2 to the right. I told Cat to make her move, reminding her to be careful of traffic in the lane to our right (relatively light at that moment, but definitely moving at speed). Cat made her move and I immediately moved to follow. That’s when D2 made a rapid and unexpected move right to get around the car in front of her, and ran into me.

I think normally when something (like a car) runs into you, the instinct is to turn away from it, to lessen the impact. In this case I remember very clearly steering hard back into D2 (a Honda CR-V) because I knew I didn’t want to get forced into the other lane. As it turned out, D3 (moving at 50mph, the speed limit, according to the police report) just barely clipped my bike. My handlebar ripped a pretty big hole in the door, and the impact spun the bike 90° to the left, putting me in the middle of the right lane on my right side facing to the left of the lane.

Once again, instinct said to get up, because I knew there was other traffic in the lane and I didn’t want another vehicle to run over me. However, I stayed put on the bike on the ground for three reasons:

1. I didn’t want to stand up only to be run over. That would not only have been excruciatingly painful, but embarrassing. I mean, get hit by yet another car in the same accident? C’mon!
2. By staying on the ground, I had the bike between me and oncoming traffic. If I was going to get run over, at least the bike might slow whatever’s hitting me enough that I could escape severe damage.
3. Speaking of damage, I also hadn’t checked myself to see what might be broken. I’ve done this in other crashes: I go through the major things (arms, legs, back, head, heads, etc.) to see what feels intact or not. This usually takes a few seconds, which sometimes seem like an eternity. For me, though, I think it’s worth it because attempting to stand up on a broken leg probably wouldn’t help things.

Once I had an inventory of my own damage, I stood up and checked again. By this time the driver of D2 was out of her car and practically in tears. She repeatedly asked if I was OK and, after checking myself over a couple times, I tried to reassure her that, although I was definitely sore, I probably was generally OK. She also expressed concern about my bike. “Don’t worry about that. That’s why we have insurance,” I told her.

The driver of D3 (a brand new Ford Edge?) was out about this point, too, and it turned out that she was similarly (and understandably) freaked out. She had a couple kids riding with her and I think the kids were both initially upset because they thought they’d just seen a motorcyclist get killed. I reassured them I was very much alive.

It turned out there was also a witness who stopped other traffic from running me over while I was on the ground. A guy driving a full sized Ford pickup had stopped well short of my bike, and he used his vehicle to continue to block traffic in that lane. He ended up voluntarily staying with me until I had a ride show up to take me home.

Yes, the bike was not safely ridable at this point. I picked up my bike (very easy to do with the adrenalin running!), moved it out of the way, and began a quick assessment of it. The righthand controls (thottle, front brake, etc.) were broken loose, and something felt off about the front brake’s application. No noticeable fluid leaks. The right case had definitely taken a beating, much more than the left side of the bike which took the initial (but relatively low speed) hit.

Around this point an ambulance showed up to evaluate me as well. After talking with the crew, I declined transport to a hospital. None of us could detect any injuries that looked like they might warrant a closer look: no broken or malfunctioning bones or joints, no sign of a head injury (other than a somewhat battered helmet), no severe bleeding. The only visible injuries were a couple spots of road rash on my right arm where my jacket burned through from being ground against the asphalt.

It took a week or so, but the insurance company covering D2 accepted fault in this accident. They were very helpful in paying for repairs to the bike, with no resistance when presented with legitimate and reasonable cost estimates. Their inspector looked over the bike and I think generally agreed with the assessment Starr Cycle made. (Side note: I bought this bike from them. While I haven’t been very happy with the bike because of numerous mechanical and electronics problems with it, that’s on KTM. Starr Cycle has been FANTASTIC at working on getting the bike running again, including regular communication with me about where parts are with respect to backorder, estimates on repair timing, and pretty much everything you’d expect from an organization that prioritizes their customers. A+++. Would DEFINITELY do business with them again. KTM? Maybe not so much.)

Once they had the parts, Starr got the bike back up and running quickly. I got reimbursed by the insurance company for my helmet and riding gear, and I was back on the bike about as soon as I could be… just in time to be rear-ended in that hit-and-run two weeks after getting the bike back.

Lessons learned

Training pays

I am certain that, had I not trained to pay attention to the circumstances in which I ride, I would’ve been much more seriously injured because I wouldn’t have worked so hard to resist being pushed into the right lane. I wasn’t really consciously aware of the reasoning behind that, just consumed by an overwhelming thought that I DID NOT want to wind up in that other lane.

I think I also didn’t panic. The moment that first car hit me, Cat heard me swearing about in on our intercom, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still trying to stay safe. Also, staying on the ground and making the conscious decision to keep the bike between me and another possible impact wasn’t a panic move. Like Cat, I tend to game these in my head while I ride (she calls it the “what if?” game), and I think that has helped me stay safer than I might otherwise be.

Rookie move? “I had to lay ‘er down.” You might hear that a lot from some riders, and it’s rarely (ever?) the whole story. Usually it’s “I had to lay ‘er down because I didn’t know what else to do and had never practiced any sort of emergency maneuver.” In my case I was deliberately doing what I could to keep the motorcycle upright and out of the most dangerous areas I could see at the time.

Not everybody out there is a blind jerkwad

Several people have asked if I’m angry at either of the drivers that hit me. In this case, no. The driver of D3 didn’t really have much of an alternative; from her perspective it probably looked like someone was trying to shove a large motorcycle in front of her unexpectedly. I think she did what she could to avoid me, but I’m not convinced she had enough time to react in any meaningful way.

I also don’t hold a grudge against the driver of D2. She was clearly concerned for my wellbeing, and she stated very clearly that she just didn’t see me. While someone might point to that as evidence that she wasn’t looking, I beg to differ. She admitted she saw Cat go by, then started moving because she didn’t see me. She was in a Honda CR-V, though, and that sort of vehicle isn’t exactly known for its outstanding side and rear views. I suspect what happened is she saw Cat move (because Cat actually had to move left-to-right across the rear of the vehicle to get around), and missed me because of where I started from. I was probably somewhere to the right-rear of her vehicle when she planned to start moving, and by the time she saw me her car was already in motion and I was about even with the front-right quarter panel.

She also said she has family who ride regularly, and because of that she actually tries to keep an eye out for riders. Again, her whole attitude was lightyears different from the guy who rear-ended me more recently, if only because she did NOT just get in her car and drive off.

Safety gear for the win

Without my jacket and probably pants (both armored!), I likely would have had a lot more road rash. Without my helmet, I probably wouldn’t be writing this. The police report states D3 was going the speed limit, and that’s a lot of kinetic energy to throw at someone with zero real armor. Make no mistake: if I’d been T-boned, i.e., if I’d turned away from D2 instead of steering into it to stay out of the way of D3 as best I could, I probably wouldn’t have survied, with or without armor.