Ever watched someone wreck on the street?

[SacDuc]

I know we all like to point and laugh at the youtube videos of idiots crashing. But is way different when you actually see it happen right in front of you. The track is one thing, people are pushing their limits, but f you're gonna crash there's no better place to do it. On the street witnessing any little hiccup is scary. Hopefully this doesn't stir up too many horrible memories for people, I just wanted to relate a strange experience I had on my commute home yesterday.

I was in my car and just getting frustrated with this kid walking his bike through the turns of what is generally a very nice commute. Two lane road, lots of sweepers, nothing challenging other that a couple of spots where your visibility is reduced quite a bit. The scenery (mountain and ocean views) is beautiful. All in all it is a nice easy ride that is twisty enough to keep you from getting totally bored.

And here is this kid in front of me on what appeared to be an 80's Night Hawk just limping it around the turns. I would have driven my car around these turns 20mph faster than what this kid was doing on his bike. We're talking 10mph under the recommended corner speed. Very very slow.

My frustration quickly gave way to concern after watching this kid ride through a few turns though. He was doing nothing right. Double apexing every turn, leaning the wrong way, lots of braking mid turn. Name a poor riding technique and this guy was doing it.

I backed waaaay off. But sure enough, I come around one corner just in time to see the kid panic mid-turn (perhaps he was spooked by the disabled turtle with the walker passing him on the inside). He hit the brakes hard and stood it up and off the road he went. Good for him he was going so slow, by the time he dumped it he basically fell over going 5 mph. Luckily this was in an area where there was a mountain in front of him and not a cliff.

I put my hazards on and parked the car in the road hoping some inattentive jackass wouldn't come screaming around the corner and ram me. By the time I got out of the car he had already stood the bike up. I made sure he was okay. He was fine as far as I could tell. I suggested that would pull my car to the nearest turn out (probably 1/2 mile down the road, there were no actual shoulders wide enough for a car in this stretch) an I'd walk back to help him out. He insisted he we fine. It seemed my car in the middle of the road was more of a hazard at that point so off I went.

That's the second time I've seen someone crash in front of me. Its a very weird feeling.

The end.

sac

[DCXCV]

They don't really qualify as wrecks, but I've seen two happen and the aftermath of a third.  Fortunately all were slow speed.  The two  I saw happen were both near the same downtown intersection and both due to improper navigation of trolly tracks.  They were both funny since one rider was doing about 1 mph and the other about 5-10 mph (and actually crashed because she was looking at my parked motorcycle) and neither got hurt.

The other was one where I came upon a female rider just dusting herself off after (I'm guessing) target fixating on a sign on the outside of a corner and plowing over it on a big cruiser.  Another cruiser, probably her riding partner, had stopped and she looked fine, but the road sign and probably the bike were damaged.  Good thing she did it there and not on the top of the hill where there was an even sharper blind curve over a hill.

[pennyrobber]

I have seen three crashes on the street in front of me.

The first was on a group ride organized by a local shop. We had just got to the first set of twisties along the route. I was behind a guy on an ST2 somewhere mid group. We were approaching a 30mph (posted) left hander with plenty of positive camber. We were doing no more than 5 over at the time and the guy starts to enter the corner, not looking through, body crossed up and then he freaks and grabs a handful of front break and down he goes. He actually left a skid mark on the tarmac. He lowsided and went for a slide in his jeans and mesh coat, getting quite a good bit of rash. I completed the corner, stopped and went back to help. Luckily he was just scraped up and the bike was ridable. This was the first time I had been behind someone who crashed in a corner and I was glad that I maintained concentration.

The second was in the city. Three of us were riding to go grab some food and we were sitting at an intersection. A guy on a ratted out streetfighter (old GSXR stunter conversion) was making a left from the cross street. He looked at us while he was going through the corner and drifted way wide and hit the curb. He and the bike popped up onto the sidewalk. Before we could go make sure he was ok, his embarassment took over and he jumped right up and took off just as fast as he fell over. I was suprised the bike was ridable.

The last one was on another group ride organized by the same local dealer. Needless to say, I don't go on these rides anymore. The group was on a strait section of highway that had some rolling hills. The group had been split in half by a traffic light but there was an designated sweep so it was no big deal. A guy on an older speedtriple was riding like a total jackass and started passing people in the group to work his way to the front of what was now the second group. He got to the front and attemted to pass a truck that was between the two groups. He took off doing maybe 90 over the top of one of the hills. To the best we could see, the front end must have got light and he lost it. This was the scarriest to see by far. The bike was destroyed and he tumbled and slid a long way. He ended up being taken away in the medi-vac copter.

[JEFF_H]

Guy in front of me ate it turn 3 at Laguna Seca.

On the fan parade lap 

[Grampa]

Guy in front of me ate it turn 3 at Laguna Seca.

On the fan parade lap 

was he drunk?  imagine what would have hapened had he made it to the corkscrew

[Triple J]

(perhaps he was spooked by the disabled turtle with the walker passing him on the inside)

[cyrus buelton]

I've never seen a street crash per se, but seen plenty of squids on what was referred to earlier as "converted stunters."

They are pretty funny wrecks because the morons have on jeans, t-shirt, and an I-Pod in.

The best was this douche that hopped off the back and his I-Pod hit the ground and broke.

I thought it was funny.

[ducpainter]

I've seen a few street crashes.

They were me.

[krolik]

I was following a guy on a Ninja 650 on Hwy 504 in Washington, Mt St Helens. I watched him bite it on a sweeping left hander. It looked like he hit one of the center divider dots while leaned over and it freaked him and he grabbed a handful of brakes and stood the Ninja up and lost it when he hit the dirt shoulder. He was okay, he had full gear on, although his face shield was pretty scratched up. He was able to ride it out of there.

[Duck-Stew]

Saw a larger woman riding a Bergman (or the ilk...) in AZ w/o a helmet dump the thing in a parking lot at 5 because the rider in front of her stopped and she wasn't looking...  Hystetical!!!  She basically grabbed all the front brake and then did a hop type dismount and stood there as the glorified scooter slid to a stop.

Another one was a returning rider at the Yamaha dealership I worked at who bought a full chrome dresser and pulled out into the street at too low of a speed.....and just went with the bike as it toppled over due to low speed...  I felt kinda bad as I couldn't stop laughing....

Saw an HD squid w/ape-hangers drop his ride in a parking lot at 1mph in slow-motion b/c he couldn't leverage it up due to his handlebar choice...  Again, this was funny to me...

The higher speed street crashes I've witnessed however...  Not funny.  But those were my own.

[GAAN]

I watched the Hooligan Plumber

or whatever he is going by these days

eat shit on a lazy right hander

I was so baffled by why he crashed that I damn near ran him over

he broke some ribs

but managed to keep his helmet off the blacktop

priorities 

[RAT900]

worst I saw was when I was like 14 and a guy in High school left his gray-matter in a pile at the base of a tree he ran his bike into...literally.....

it was in ancient times before helmet laws...

very "Stand-by-Me" creepy...

needless to say it did not dissuade me from wanting to ride

saw another guy I knew take his friend's brand new Triumph 650 side-pipe scrambles bike .....swearing he knew how to ride.....

twisted the throttle back, popped the clutch and the bike got away from him....

50 yards later they both were a pile of rubble at a concrete wall....the idiot spent a year in rehab learning how to spell his name again with wooden alphabet blocks

there are many more than I feel like writing about....including 2 dead friends killed riding....

59 years later a lot of lists get long

[herm]

i had a guy crash in front of me last spring. he was in the oncoming lane, coming around a sweeping turn right on the yellow line...saw me coming the other way, jumped on the brakes and high sided it....about a yard from my bumper.

thank all the pagan motorcycle gods that i was able to stop as fast as i did.

[Drjones]

Have never seen the actual blunder, but have seen more aftermaths than I'd like; some more severe than others.  First ever and most prominent moto accident scene I witnessed was a road pirate cruiser type splayed out on the road mid-intersection not moving much and a big pool of blood around his head.  Needless to say I have always worn a helmet when finally getting on a road bike.

[LA]

I've witnessed more crashes than I'd like to have seen. Like DP - a couple up close and personal.

But on the way out to the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant one morning about 50 miles west of Phoenix I witnessed a bad one.  Two friends and I had stopped at a little store just a short distance from the plant.  As we left I noticed a guy on a Honda 750 pull off right in front of us with his lick stand still down.

I told the guys with me that if they wanted to see a motorcycle crash just watch the guy up in front of us a ways. They asked how I would know this. I said, just watch.  We were coming into a long pretty deep left hand sweeper. The road was full of cars all going about 70 mph.  As the rider bent further and further to the left to make the turn, the kick  stand finally hit the road.

The bike high sided and slammed down onto the road beginning what seemed to be an endless series of end over ends out into the desert with the rider doing the same.  How he lived through it I don't know, but it wasn't pretty to watch and he was seriously injured.  It was a helpless feeling knowing what was about to occur and having no way to stop it.

LA