Fallen Riders/In Memory of - COMMENTS | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Fallen Riders/In Memory of - COMMENTS

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sharkmotorcycle said:
FULLY AGREED....

Speed Thrills, but it kills many..
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So, in a nut shell,

1) ABS, anticipate braking situations; I really do love the recommendations for and suggestions on how to practice braking, but you all realise that the motivation to develop those skills are lost on the "just grab a hand full" ABS generation riders yes? One can practice threshold braking coming to any stop almost any time. No need to make a special trip to a parking lot, not that that's not a great idea.

2) Set-up for corners, i.e. speed/gearing/braking, before steering. Seems easy to do but considering the SVA percentages, it seems it can present challenges. "In too hot" is probably the main culprit for running wide in even familiar corner let alone a new, blind one, but I find if one is distracted for even a milisecond the line is lost and sometimes can't be recovered, like for instance getting into the sand and grit etc on the outside of a corner. Distractions should be kept to a minimum IMO, no GPS, no tunes etc. There's enough stimuli on the road to deal with already.

3) Ride defensively. Ride like you anticipate every driver out there is an idiot, or distracted and can't see you or doesn't know the rules of right of way. Right of way is given not taken. Don't ride in blind spots. At stops, check you 6 constantly..flash your brake lights.

4) Make yourself visible. Sure, you look cool in your Darth Vader monochromatic black bike, leathers and helmet but you're also even less visible in traffic. Brighten up.

5) Pick your spots. "Have fun" in the right paces, at the right time.
 
I find it interesting that so many riders are so concerned about being rear ended. in 35 years of riding I have been rear ended once, (on my cruiser, by a sport bike on the 401). Yes it is a POTENTIAL danger but I think riders tend to over play it as an excuse to justify:

Their poor riding capabilities,
That lane filtering should be legalized,
That lane spitting should be legalized.

A couple of weeks ago there was a thread created asking who had been rear ended. With the great amount of concern over it happening I expected the thread to be several dozen pages long, with stories of riders experiences. Instead it was perhaps 2 pages and not all the posts were riders who HAD been hit.

That doesn't mean it should be dismissed as a potential danger. but it is a relatively small percentage of collisions involving bikes. With 40% of collisions being single vehicle, rear end collisions are far from the percieved threat.

I always slow at intersections, but then I am aware of what is being me. I am also not decerating substanitally, just getting slightly off the throttle, (so perhaps a 5 km reduction. I cover my clutch and brakes. If I have another vehicle in the lane beside me I use that as a blocker. If there is no blocker vehicle, but I see a vehicle approaching to turn ither left r right I ALWAYS do the SMIDSY move.

But then again I only rarely ride a sport bike. For me the enjoyment of the ride is the fresh air and scenery not how fast I can get there.
 
I think that most people have no clue that going through a Yellow is an infraction, unless it is unsafe to stop....
 
I agree. As somebody who commutes everyday on their bike I rarely feel threatened about getting rear ended. The opposite of being cut off is always imminent though. You want to leave your self space for the the vehicle ahead of you, but it's a big invitation for a-hole motorists to cut you off at any time...


hedo2002 said:
I find it interesting that so many riders are so concerned about being rear ended. in 35 years of riding I have been rear ended once, (on my cruiser, by a sport bike on the 401). Yes it is a POTENTIAL danger but I think riders tend to over play it as an excuse to justify:

Their poor riding capabilities,
That lane filtering should be legalized,
That lane spitting should be legalized.

A couple of weeks ago there was a thread created asking who had been rear ended. With the great amount of concern over it happening I expected the thread to be several dozen pages long, with stories of riders experiences. Instead it was perhaps 2 pages and not all the posts were riders who HAD been hit.

That doesn't mean it should be dismissed as a potential danger. but it is a relatively small percentage of collisions involving bikes. With 40% of collisions being single vehicle, rear end collisions are far from the percieved threat.

I always slow at intersections, but then I am aware of what is being me. I am also not decerating substanitally, just getting slightly off the throttle, (so perhaps a 5 km reduction. I cover my clutch and brakes. If I have another vehicle in the lane beside me I use that as a blocker. If there is no blocker vehicle, but I see a vehicle approaching to turn ither left r right I ALWAYS do the SMIDSY move.

But then again I only rarely ride a sport bike. For me the enjoyment of the ride is the fresh air and scenery not how fast I can get there.
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"Also learning the demographics for certain car owners helps. For example, if I see an older gold or champagne coloured Toyota following me, I will ALWAYS get out of their way if I'm on a bike. That particular knowledge alone has likely saved my life at least once already and while I was driving a big car no less"


Lol. You can also ad to that list any minivan/SUV or any car with a "Dean Myers Chev/olds" Badge lol
 
DDean said:
I was going the speed limit and there was a car beside me in a 4 lane road. Light turns yellow but the car beside me proceeds, and its not that yellow. There's a car waiting to turn left but I have a car beside me, and I should have known what exactly was happening behind me, but I didn't know forsure, so I felt it safest to go with the car through the yellow. Turns out the car beside me didn't see that yellow and slammed on its brakes as we were about to enter the intersection. This left me with nothing but poor choices to make as I enter the intersection exposed, under yellow with a left turner who may not see me.
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So, the car beside you could defer braking and still make the stop, but you, who immediately saw the yellow when the light changed, couldn't make a safe, reasonable stop for that same yellow??? Sorry, does not compute. You're safest response is to stop for the yellow if you can, even if the car next to you chooses to blow through the light.
 
Learn the basics before going up to abs. Op is correct I scan the intersection well in advance. Think of how visible you are especially of there's a large vehicle in the left turn lane. If you can't see them, what makes you think they can see you?

If you are stopping on a yellow. Do a mirror check to make sure the vehicle behind you can stop too..... I've nearly been run into by another motorcyclist because of this. Turned out to be my brother who just started riding. Which is why the more experienced riders go in the back.....
 
malim said:
How do you guys see what's behind you ? Is everyone here using bar mirrors ? Because when I position my regular mirrors to partially see what's behind me, I loose a huge chunk of the field of vision to see to the left/right of my lane which I feel beats the purpose.
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Generally, you move your arms out of the way to see what's behind you. When you're coming up on an intersection, check your mirrors again. Always know what's beside you, behind you and infront. This should all be second nature. Situational awareness can save your life.
 
meester_jamie said:
that is why traffic circles.. round abouts... work ... well, should work to stop the left turn for sure.. and the rear enders ......
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The area around me is adapting to roundabouts. They do make sense, but still have rear-enders from people approaching the roundabout and suddenly stopping when they see another car coming around, and dimwits charging into the roundabout without looking left. Also, I've seen lots of dropped Harleys trying to do the radius too fast and touching down.
 
Kuro said:
Generally, you move your arms out of the way to see what's behind you.
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It's amazing how many people don't get this. The media loves to criticize mirrors with "you can only see your elbows", but when you tuck in those elbows, you see behind you.
Not sure what portion of accidents are rear-enders on bikes. ~10% are bikes rear-ending cars.

Generally speaking, a car these days will stop faster than most bikes.
 
CafeRay said:
Generally speaking, a car these days will stop faster than most bikes.
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According to some instrumented tests I've seen, a modern bike with a competent rider should be able to stop significantly quicker than a car. ABS or not.
 
mudmojo said:
According to some instrumented tests I've seen, a modern bike with a competent rider should be able to stop significantly quicker than a car. ABS or not.
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... only if the rider has practiced the stop previously and the surface is consistent and predictable AND the rider does not panic and grab a handful.

That is an exceptional set of requirements. Most riders will either under-brake (and take longer to stop), or over-brake (and lock a front tire and go down). It really doesn't help matters if the theoretical possibility that an ideal stop could be made 1% of the time if you hit the thing in front of you the other 99% of the time.

In a car, even without ABS, you can hammer the brake pedal arbitrarily and will not fall down. Bike without ABS ... Not so much.

Remember that your mindset when you have a car directly across your path is very different from what it is when you have open pavement in front of you but only a challenge to "stop as fast as possible". That car directly across your path puts 99.99% of people into panic mode, where they will either freeze and do nothing (and hit it), or lock wheels and go down (and hit it).

I've been there. Car turned across my path IMMEDIATELY in front. I knew I was going to hit it. I locked the front tire and was in the process of low-siding. And at the time, I had nearly 20 years of riding experience and a fair bit of track experience.

I *just* acquired the first bike with ABS that I've ever owned.

The other thing is which car you are comparing it to. There's a huge difference between an old Cavalier and something modern that actually has good brakes. My little econobox daily driver has stunningly good brakes (with ABS/ESP) despite being a pretty ordinary-looking single-caliper front disk and rear drum setup - and it has good high-performance tires on it. My bike-hauler van has 4-wheel disks (manufactured by Brembo!) with ABS, and stops incredibly hard.
 
dieselxx said:
"Also learning the demographics for certain car owners helps. For example, if I see an older gold or champagne coloured Toyota following me, I will ALWAYS get out of their way if I'm on a bike. That particular knowledge alone has likely saved my life at least once already and while I was driving a big car no less"


Lol. You can also ad to that list any minivan/SUV or any car with a "Dean Myers Chev/olds" Badge lol
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Nice one, I've actually made a similar comment to people in my hood. 4 door silver sedans.... watch out, cuz they apparently don't! Don't mean to stereotype/profile or generalize on the subject, but it is what it is.... If you are in Vaughan, watch out for the 4 door silver sedans. Oh, and don't forget about the people wearing those huge sunglasses, driving their mercedes suv's.... NIGHTMARE on Jane street for sure. The sequel... Nightmare in Woodbridge!
 
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The most dangerous car in the road is a gold Corolla. 2nd most dangerous is any other gold or beige vehicle.
 
Artois said:
I think that most people have no clue that going through a Yellow is an infraction, unless it is unsafe to stop....
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I've had people just blare their horns and litteraly scream at me because I stopped at amber lights
 
Brian P said:
... only if the rider has practiced the stop previously and the surface is consistent and predictable AND the rider does not panic and grab a handful.

That is an exceptional set of requirements. Most riders will either under-brake (and take longer to stop), or over-brake (and lock a front tire and go down). It really doesn't help matters if the theoretical possibility that an ideal stop could be made 1% of the time if you hit the thing in front of you the other 99% of the time.
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I tend to agree with you more often than not in the real world. Everything from a road imperfection to a slight kink in the road may lead to significant increases in stopping distance for a bike.


In this test between a meh car and bike duo, the bike seemed to easily outbrake the car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loaJVp4ARZA

If practising more could help you leverage a somewhat inaccessible braking advantage to avoid a potential accident, would you embrace it?

Which reminds me... I need to practice to get better at this.
 
Venom01 said:
I've had people just blare their horns and litteraly scream at me because I stopped at amber lights
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Don't forget getting honked at for not proceeding through a left-hander and mowing down a legally crossing pedestrian (or colliding with oncoming traffic). This despite them being in a taller vehicle at a large, well-lit intersection.
 
Flywheel said:
Don't forget getting honked at for not proceeding through a left-hander and mowing down a legally crossing pedestrian (or colliding with oncoming traffic). This despite them being in a taller vehicle at a large, well-lit intersection.
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I wont/can't forget about that. Especially the time I was signaling to make a left while waiting for
Flywheel said:
Don't forget getting honked at for not proceeding through a left-hander and mowing down a legally crossing pedestrian (or colliding with oncoming traffic). This despite them being in a taller vehicle at a large, well-lit intersection.
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I wont/can't forget about that. Especially the time I was signaling to make a left while waiting for a pedestrian to cross. The lady behind me blare the horn, pulls around me on the right, flips me off and SMOKES the woman crossing the road.

Then tells the cops afterwards it was my fault

The woman who got hit said she didn't she how it happened but told the cops I was stopped waiting for her to cross when she got hit by the other car.
 
Venom01 said:
I wont/can't forget about that. Especially the time I was signaling to make a left while waiting for

I wont/can't forget about that. Especially the time I was signaling to make a left while waiting for a pedestrian to cross. The lady behind me blare the horn, pulls around me on the right, flips me off and SMOKES the woman crossing the road.

Then tells the cops afterwards it was my fault

The woman who got hit said she didn't she how it happened but told the cops I was stopped waiting for her to cross when she got hit by the other car.
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I hope you laughed in that bitches face.
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