What/how to fall?

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mimico_polak

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Hey guys,
As I was reading the thread posted earlier about having an oncoming vehicle in your lane, I was wondering when all fails and there's nothing left to do and you're going to hit the damn thing...what can one do to minimize injury? Obviously if you hit a tall vehicle not much you can do...but in other cases during slides, or getting launched over a vehicle...what can one do? If anything? Most likely nothing as it happens very quickly...but if there's a chance of being able to minimize injury what is it?

Not sure if the question makes much sense but I'm curious about your experiences and thoughts on this topic.
 
From all the reading I've done (luckily no actual experience, touch wood), the smartest/safest thing is to brake like hell until the last instant.

The slower you are going at impact the better. Period.
And nothing will slow you down faster than your brakes.
 
MOST of the time, the best thing is to scrub off as much speed as possible, by using front brake HARD right up until the moment of impact. Your tires against the asphalt have more traction than you tumbling down the road.

I've had a car turn left in front of me really close. I knew I was going to hit it. I hit the car with the front wheel locked, the rear wheel in the air, and in the process of tucking the front end. But in the process of doing so, I got my speed down from about 60 km/h to perhaps 20ish, and my only injury was a sore wrist. (Full leathers, gloves, boots, full face helmet, for what it's worth.)

I have heard of cases where the rider jumped straight up at the last moment and more-or-less cleared the car. Without disputing the possibility that this can happen, the question of the moment is whether the time and thought process that it took in order to do this would have been better than just staying on the brakes and reducing the speed of impact. Any time that you spend jumping straight up is time that you are not spending braking. Most of the time when there is a collision like this, there is not enough time between when it becomes apparent that the collision is inevitable, and the collision itself.

I do not think about this. I think about what can be done to prevent these situations from happening in the first place.
 
If you are lucky, you can try something like this:
[video=youtube;zoT7nNsv9wI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoT7nNsv9wI[/video]
 
What Jolo and Brian said.And buy the best gear you can afford, And wear it!
 
If you even think about how you want to fall, you've just wasted precious time on avoiding a collision or reducing the impact.

As mentioned by others in the thread, do what you can to scrub off speed. If theres an impact or if you fall, it will likely be much better than if you were to bail from the bike without scrubbing off speed. By that time, you're at the mercy of physics.
 
In this situation if you have the presence of mind and the time to make a conscious decision to dump it or jump or "lay it down"........ you have time to brake to, or almost to, a stop to minimise the impact or you can just ride around the car and avoid the collision.
 
Obviously brake as much as you can without going over the front (front brake slows you faster then the rear).

And as anyone who has been in any type of accident will tell you, NEVER tense up (don't think about crashing).

The sad fact is, thats how so many drunks survive the wrecks that they are involved in. They don't have time to tense their muscles. Same as the guy in the video that hit the truck and went over the top. He had no time to even think about reacting. His body was limp, look at the video.

Again, if you have the time, you can definatly "prepare" for what might happen, just be smart, and don't panic, as when you panic you freeze, and then really bad stuff happens
 
What they said - hammer that front brake till it bleeds - you might fall over, but you might stop and any reduction in impact is worth while.

That said - having some dirt experience might take away some of the fear of falling. Hadn't dumped a bike in decades until the KLR fell over twice at zero speed on a muddy hill in Australia.
Wrong tires, slick mud - out of practice rider ( me )
Three big strong guys to lift a 500 lb bike off my leg.
Armour worked - never felt a thing so at 64 was good fall off and get up and ride on ( with the clutch lever dangling - made it.......interesting...... )
 
Bear in mind, if you're moving at 60km/h and another car is moving in an opposite directiion at 60km/h, the impact would equivalent to you hitting a stationary object at 120km/h.

My attempts would be to ditch the bike if braking fails and avoid the car at all costs.

If a car is turning in front of me and is stationary, I'll plunge into the car. Making sure I get as much contact of my body onto the car and spread your weight. Stuntmen & WWE wrestlers know what I'm talking about
 
Not really sure you can stay on the binders and do that - Much better to use the bike front end as a crumple zone and let the shocks and tupperware take the impact instead of you.

only if you were actually in the air would your approach work and you'd need an awfully good body spatial sense to sort it out in milliseconds.

But for sure avoid the other vehicle in any way possible.
 
^ That is predicated on having enough time to react. Normally, there isn't.

There may be time for one snap decision "brake" or "avoid" but then commit to that decision and DO it. In fact, in your analysis of the traffic situation, you should already have that decision made and the preparatory actions already taken before the car even starts doing the wrong thing. Those of us who have been around for a while have ALL had these situations.

In the situation that I already described, I knew there was oncoming traffic and when the car started turning, I already knew there was no better choice than hit "emergency stop". I had already slowed down to the posted speed limit (35 mph in USA) and I already had a finger or two on that front brake lever. When the car started turning in front, I was already on it.

In another situation last summer, I had right of way through an intersection and a car approaching from the right had a stop sign. I saw it and I always prepare for car drivers blowing the stop sign by subtly speeding up or slowing down so as to time my arrival at the intersection either before they get there or after they stop. In this case, I slowed down a little and this was successful. But ... the car started moving as if I wasn't there! I already knew that there was no oncoming traffic and was already towards the left side of my lane. One hard countersteer shove put me in the left (oncoming) lane further from that car. I heard the brakes lock up as I passed by the front of the car. He had no knowledge of my existence until I was right in front of him. (There was a car at the opposing stop sign - that driver stayed put, probably freaked out at seeing this - OH CRAP - hey, he made it!) In this case I turned around and chased after the offending car; the driver was very apologetic and I stressed the point that he needs to use his eyes better.
 
MacDoc said:
Not really sure you can stay on the binders and do that - Much better to use the bike front end as a crumple zone and let the shocks and tupperware take the impact instead of you.

only if you were actually in the air would your approach work and you'd need an awfully good body spatial sense to sort it out in milliseconds.

But for sure avoid the other vehicle in any way possible.
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To each their own, I've heard riders going over the handlebars with the windscreen chopping off their knee-caps.

My objective would be to avoid any obstacle that would give u a sudden stop. A slide is always a good option if possible
 
I would stick to just braking and praying that i would not hit the car, or emergency maneuver around the car if at all possible. Even if you drop the bike at a lower speed, that would be much more merciful than hitting anything or the ground at full speed. I had my bike for 3 weeks before I dropped it on the DVP due to noob mistake of locking my rear brakes, given the speed I had on impact, it was like 10 km/h, I did not have scratch, a peg and a shift pedal had to be replaced for me to ride again 10 days later, and few ugly tank dents (really ugly). I am not sure what would have happened had I fell at 60 km/h when I first locked the brakes.
 
mimico_polak said:
Hey guys,
As I was reading the thread posted earlier about having an oncoming vehicle in your lane, I was wondering when all fails and there's nothing left to do and you're going to hit the damn thing...what can one do to minimize injury?
Click to expand...

Many of the responders have misread oncoming and emphasized heavy braking. Heavy braking into an oncoming vehicle :eek:. In this situation you will want to be as far to the right as possible and ride the narrow paved shoulder to allow this oncoming vehicle to pass by. I have been in this situation a few times where a car is passing and has no time to get back into his lane. This tit for tat. As this has happen to me, I am prepared to ride the yellow line between the car I am passing and the oncoming car if the car I am passing is a dick and speeds up as cars often do when being passed.
 
If someone is turning in front of me and I know I can't stop the bike, I'd slam the front brake and try to jump off the bike before impact.. the dude who crashed at nielson and finch lost a testicle in his accident, and hurt his arms. I'm gonna assume that he didnt jump off the bike. The last thing i want is the momentum of the 400 lb bike pulling me into a car.
 
DOHC1 said:
If someone is turning in front of me and I know I can't stop the bike, I'd slam the front brake and try to jump off the bike before impact.. the dude who crashed at nielson and finch lost a testicle in his accident, and hurt his arms. I'm gonna assume that he didnt jump off the bike. The last thing i want is the momentum of the 400 lb bike pulling me into a car.
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If you know regardless of how hard you brake an impact is going to happen, I agree jump away. However, on a busy highway or road this course of action could lead to being run over. No absolutes, really.
 
Think about how you're going to land, after you've cleared the light standards.

If I was on the Gardiner, I might consider leaving the bike early, but not on a normal street.
 
If you were attempting to minimize damage in an accident by ditching the bike and the bike happens to collide with a pedestrian, would you be the one responsible for the pedestrian's cause of injury or death?
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