A cager almost got me today.

[earlfor]

I was on a straight section of two lane blacktop with a speed limit of 55 mph.
There was little traffic and I was cruising along at 60-65 mph. Up ahead, I see a small pickup truck closely following a black SUV. I estimate their speed at about 55-60 since I am slowly catching up to them. I close the distance to my usual 10-12 car lengths and reduced my speed to match theirs since I'm in no big hurry and plan to turn off this road in another 1/2 mile or so.
Abruptly, the SUV jumps on his brakes, chopping a quick 30 mph off his speed, causing the pickup truck to lock up his brakes. The SUV pulls off the road onto the right shoulder still traveling about 30 mph. The pick up driver then gets off his brakes and swerves into the clear oncoming lane to go around the SUV. The moment the pick up truck's rear bumper passes the SUV, the SUV driver does an Immediate U-turn, turning left, which blocks the right shoulder and my lane. When the SUV first pulled off the highway, I had reduced throttle, but even so, I had no exit to the right, no path straight ahead, insufficient space to stop and was left with having to pass in front of the SUV on the left shoulder as he is in the process of T-boning me. It was another one of those instances of time stopping.
I knew his front bumper was close because I could see the whole front grill of the car while still looking where I wanted to go. At the point I expected impact, I knew I still wasnt clear. I dont know why, curiosity maybe, but at that instant, I looked under my right arm, and down towards my rear wheel. We were suspended in time and I clearly saw I had 18 inches between me and the bumper. At this point, I was already ten feet off the road and on the left shoulder grass. That was all the shoulder there was. I watched the bumper complete the U-turn, missing my rear wheel by 3 inches. I figure a 3" perpendicular miss at 55 mph is about a .0028 sec safety margin. Thats way too damn close. After clearing the SUV, my run off was through an orange orchard, but 55 mph through the sand and dodging trees was downright relaxing in comparison. I didnt drop the bike and rode back onto the road. The cager was long gone, but I expected that.

I could have followed farther back, but not having any idea the SUV was going to instantly do a U-turn or when, I do not think it would have helped and may have resulted in my not having been able to get around on the shoulder, or it could have resulted in my having the right shoulder open. I dont know. I'm still thinking about a better solution for this situation.
I know I dont like having to race them to the impact point. :-)

I continued on with my errand and a half hour later, while stopped at an intersection stop sign (two lane intersection), another cager turned left diagonally through the intersection, headed my way in my lane and I had to pull off on the right to get out of his way. He came through right where I had been stopped, never looking at anything.

I still had a couple of errands to do, so I continued on, but DAMN!!! this is getting really, REALLY annoying.

Earl

[mdole]

Glad you're still with us.

I've had a few close calls over the years and it always causes me to ride with an increased awareness for a while after I get over the mad/scared immediate reaction.

Mike

[seuadr]

wow. man. good thing your guardian angel is FAST huh?

i know what you mean, though, even in my CAR today i was almost hit twice by people doing idiotic things without looking.

glad you are ok.

[bryan]

Sorry to hear about the frightening situation. Glad it wasn't worse.

Not that they would have helped or you that you would have had time to hit 'em, but does your GS have air horns, too? I haven't installed the ones you sent me yet, but it's stories like these that made me take them off of your hands.

Of course, like someone here said, even if cagers hear a warning, you don't know which way they're gonna go.

[jbs80106]

what the hell is wrong with people!

:shock: Glad you escaped! Well done! Can't believe the SUV didn't even pause to see if you off-roaded okay after they missed you.

But then again, on local news last night they showed footage of an old man getting hit by a car in Conneticut along a downtown 2 lane street. People all around and cars driving by as he lay there in the street....NOBODY went to aid him and several cars just drove on by........

[spyug]

So glad to hear you are ok and that all your years of practice allowed your reactions to take over.

This sort of thing is getting out of control and I'm now reading incidents daily on the 3 boards I subscribe to. I just finished commenting on a similar incident on a local board here. Apparently the rider went down but wasn't seriously injured but the cager that caused it sped off and none of the bystanders helped until our forum member showed up. Some of the cagers even honked at the poor guy because his wreck was in the road and impeeding their ability to get to the coffe shop!

That the SUV didn't even stop to see you were ok is reprehensible and the bastard should be horsewhipped.They make me want to puke. Bastards everyone.

Keep riding safe brother.
Spyug.

[Dogma]

Nice job keeping it all together. Grass is tricky stuff on street tires.

In retrospect, is there anything you should have done differently? I mean, is there a specific tactical lesson to be learned? Obviously, you were aware that the situation was developing. How will this experience inform the next similar event?

I'm thinking that a vehicle suddenly slowing and pulling over with no obvious goal should be considered completely unpredictable, and given time and space to do it's thing. Was there time in your situation for that?

[Jimmy Hoffa]

I ride the same route to work every morning, only takes me about 15 minutes from door to door, but to get to work, I have to ride through a tollbooth, then a two-lane tunnel, (speed limit 35 but everyone does 50), then out and up through crowded morning Boston streets, over an open-grid bridge, then finally to my office.

I manage to pack in a good amount of pretty scary stuff. That said, most of the drivers tend to be pretty good - there are a few regulars every morning who you can count on to be total d-bags. I've made a habit of sort of "mental noting" these folks, so that the next day, I can be like "crazy Lindemeyer delivery driver, 11 o'clock" and give him a WIDE berth.

Obviously this only works if you travel a regular route at a regular time of day, and is only one of a million things to do to keep yourself safe, but it's worked for me so far. That truck driver makes "Crazy Ivan" turns without looking that would squash me like a bug.

[duaneage]

It wasn't your time, so take that as a clue there is something important for you to do still.

[lecroy]

It is incredible how fast the human brain/mind can process data when the sht hits the fan.

[earlfor]

In the few scary close encounters I have had, there never is time to spare for pushing a horn button. Horns are only useful when there is time for someone to react after hearing them.

Earl

Sorry to hear about the frightening situation. Glad it wasn't worse.

Not that they would have helped or you that you would have had time to hit 'em, but does your GS have air horns, too? I haven't installed the ones you sent me yet, but it's stories like these that made me take them off of your hands.

Of course, like someone here said, even if cagers hear a warning, you don't know which way they're gonna go.

[DanTheMan]

I would say "move out to the country" like where I live, but the crazies (old farmers, farmer's wives, etc.) were and stil are here (only ones on the road), and add to that the Metro crazies that just have to get to their cabin on the lake and to the store to stock up before their neighbor does, so they can fish and catch more than their daily limit,and probably yearly limit, talking on the cell phone while driving, parking, etc.....(Hey, Bro, we're up in God's country here, y'know, the Lakes, Man???? You're gonna be so jealous when you see all the fish we caught up here...:-D)

[earlfor]

That is the difficult part I dont have a good answer for. Whenever something like this happens, I analyze it and try to learn from it.
There is always a question of whether there was a better solution and I see riding as having the same type of problems as would be faced by a combat fighter pilot. It only takes one mistake to get you dead.

In retrospect, the SUV braking and pulling onto the shoulder told me that driver was irritated with the pick up truck tailgating him. Initially, I thought he would simply pull off the road and let the truck go by. That part covered about 1/2 second between his jumping on the brakes and pulling off, and the pick up braking and swerving into the oncoming lane to go around. At this stage, the SUV was completely off the road on the right shoulder. I had changed my position to riding the yellow centerline to have space between the SUV and myself. Another 1/4 second goes by and the SUV in starting to re-enter the roadway. My expectation was that he would continue straight as before. Perhaps another 1/4 second and it was obvious by his increasing angle to the roadway, that he did not intend to go straight. It was at this stage that I realized I was facing a U-turning SUV and a collision was imminent. So, the whole scenario unfolded in about 1 second. Between 1.0 and 1.25 sec, I used the time to survey the possibilities, make a choice and put it into effect. I Immediately went off road onto the left shoulder approximately three feet onto the grass. The SUV is now crossing the centerline and on a 90 degree intersect with my path and coming around to meet me head on. 1.5 seconds, I realize he still has never looked, doesnt see me (no braking) and my being 3 feet off the road projects an impact in the driver's door. 1.75 seconds, I decide to use all the shoulder up to the tree line of the orange orchard (about 10 feet width) At this point, I know it is going to be so close, I cannot predict whether I will hit the SUV or get away free. It is at this point, I look under my right arm to see how many inches of space I still have left between his bumper and my rear wheel. An odd thing I have noted is that without conscious thought, from the moment I left the highway and went for the grass shoulder, I have added throttle. My exit speed from the confrontation was 12 mph faster than when things started happening. At 2 seconds, I clear the SUV by 3" and go into the orange orchard.

So its about 2 seconds from the time the SUV first jammed on his brakes, until the end of the confrontation.

I would heartily welcome any suggestions on how to manage this type of situation. I'm kind of out of ideas. I dont know what else would have worked.

Earl

Nice job keeping it all together. Grass is tricky stuff on street tires.

In retrospect, is there anything you should have done differently? I mean, is there a specific tactical lesson to be learned? Obviously, you were aware that the situation was developing. How will this experience inform the next similar event?

I'm thinking that a vehicle suddenly slowing and pulling over with no obvious goal should be considered completely unpredictable, and given time and space to do it's thing. Was there time in your situation for that?

[earlfor]

There is one small complication to that solution. I already live in the country and the incident occurred on a rural road. LOL

Earl

I would say "move out to the country" like where I live, but the crazies (old farmers, farmer's wives, etc.) were and stil are here (only ones on the road), and add to that the Metro crazies that just have to get to their cabin on the lake and to the store to stock up before their neighbor does, so they can fish and catch more than their daily limit,and probably yearly limit, talking on the cell phone while driving, parking, etc.....(Hey, Bro, we're up in God's country here, y'know, the Lakes, Man???? You're gonna be so jealous when you see all the fish we caught up here...:-D)

[Dogma]

I would heartily welcome any suggestions on how to manage this type of situation. I'm kind of out of ideas. I dont know what else would have worked.

Earl

All I can think of is to assume that any time a vehicle leaves the road like that, it may do a u-turn. If you had begun a quick stop when he suddenly pulled off, do you think you would you have had time to stop or would you have hit him? All I can think of is that the sudden move to the berm should have raised the idiot flag.

At any rate, that's what will go through my head if I see a similar situation. Reading and digesting these stories is borrowed experience. A while back there was a story of a close call with a left-turner when a bike passed a stopped car on the right. I've already had a chance to put that story to use. I didn't get the left-turner, but I was ready.

Good thing you weren't in a cage yourself that day. There would have been two totaled vehicles. The other driver might have paid for his stupidity with his life, and you'd have air-bag burns and messed up limbs.