Originally Posted by
Salos Dafee
UrbanPoet,
Your post is short, but it urged me to think hard about something that puzzles me. I got my first motorcycle in July 1961. It was an underpowered hunkajunk.
Within two months, somebody drove out of a side street onto Avenue Road, right in front of me, and I could not avoid the T-bone crash. Speed was low, so I was not hurt, and damage was slight.
Within another two months, someone drove out of a side street onto Dundas Street, right in front of me. I had more time to stop, but lacked the skills to stay upright. Again, there were no injuries and damage was slight.
Then in March 1965, when I had ridden about 25000 miles (or 40000 kilometers) someone turned left across my path on Bayview Avenue. The weather was awful, and the road was covered in slush, so down I went, and I slid into the right side of the car. Again no injuries and hardly any damage.
In the 44 years since then, I have ridden at least as far as from here to the moon, in Toronto and Tampa and Vancouver and St. John's and Indianapolis and Memphis and Lansing and Ottawa and Columbia and Sault Ste. Maries (both of them) and Winnipeg and Denver and Fredericton and Bangor and Kitty Hawk and other places, and nobody has come out of a side street into my path and nobody has turned left across my path.
NOT ONE DRIVER in all that time.
Why do you suppose that is? I know the topic is "Why we crash", but I am wondering why three turkeys took a shot at me when I was a beginner, but now that my beard is white the turkeys leave me alone.
I think the idea of trying hard to be seen is paying off, for me. My bike has two headlights, and I play with them, running one light sometimes, and one bright and one dim (I just turn the 3-prong plug 90 degrees CW and it puts my two filaments in series in the low-beam circuit). Then I do something to change my appearance as I approach an intersection, as discussed above.
I think an asymmetric appearance makes a bike stand out. Maybe one yellow light up front, in addition to the white headlught(s), will make other drivers wonder "What the heck is THAT?" and then they will not jump into my path.
I hope your first few years in this fascinating world are not too painful or costly, UrbanPoet. (I almost said "Grasshopper".)