|
You've gotten yourself into a crash situation, and you are going down.
You are thinking in that split second as you are already out of control about how to minimize the damage to yourself and your bike.
Sometimes you have no time to think at all, and it just happens.
I know.
I was riding down Rt. 6A in Sandwich, Ma. when a car pulled into the road in front of me.
Although it had just stopped raining, the road was wet from the rain and I was proceeding the go down the road a bit too close to the car in front of me.
For some reason, the people in the car were arguing, and he just stopped right there.
I hadn't left enough room for a total stop, thinking as most of us do, that no one just stops dead in the middle of a highway.
Wrong! I went down.
I went forward over the left front of the fairing, landed on my head, rolled head over heels twice and did the superman dive onto the road in the oncoming traffic lane.
I didn't get killed - amazing.
My Goldwing survived with some damage, but I barely did.
I had some pretty bad muscle tears and severe bruising.
The helmet saved my life without a doubt.
My leather jacket was shredded, and my gloves were torn.
Without them, I would have been out of commission for much longer.
So stay back and always have a way out on one side or the other.
Do what you have to do to be able to avoid a collision.
Slow down in high urban traffic areas and pay attention to what is going on well ahead of you. Your life depends on it.
Below are some great tips as organized by the Smith System available as a free printable file of 2 pages.
|
