What stupid manuever others have done on the road!

[bobg3723]

Tell us your experiences:

Here's mine:

The other day we were headed back to the Twin Cities after a day of riding along the Mississippi down by Red Wing. 92 degrees in the middle of May. Hot and humid. So little did we expect that the Metro would be recieving a freakin' hail storm! We eventually made our way along Hwy 100 as we were getting pelted by marble sized hail with occasional golf ball sized bruisers when there appeared a goddamn blockade of cars under the overpass occupying all the lanes save one! Fukin' A???? One of the cagers under the overpass decided to get to a better spot under there and darted out into the one unobstructed lane nearly side swiping the other biker I was with. I had to start beeping my horn getting through there as if I were rounding a single lane mountain blind curve. Total idiots for them to sand bag the entire highway in exchange for not getting a few dents that insurance would cover anyway. What morons!

 

[stew71]

It wouldn't have gotten me killed, but I watched a young squid come to a stop at the light near our office...while riding a wheelie. He then proceeded to do a front wheel stand....

....all witnessed by the officer in the patrol car around the corner.

He got to watch the flatbed haul his Ninja away. :clapping:

 

[Aasland]

I've done a few dumb things.

Like fall asleep one cold morning heading into Grand Marais, MN. I was only out for a couple seconds, but enough to scare the crap out of me. I've dozed off behind the handlebars once or twice since then ... always scares me when I realize it happens.

Was on the VFR one day and a guy in a car asks if it is faster than a Buell .. .duh ... this was back in 2002 or so when Buell's sucked. Anyway, to prove, I took off through the intersection on a tear. Problem is, it was raining, and I took a left ... and proceeded to lose traction and fishtail 2-3 times before the bike figured itself out and went straight. Whew!

Another time in the Columbia River Gorge on SR-14 stuck behind a row of cars I see a passing opportunity albight a short distance before the next corner, but I go for it anyway. Then opposing traffic appears around the bend, and instead of pulling back into traffic I'm eking every last RPM out to clear the cars ... end up lane-splitting between oncoming traffic and my own lane. At 120-130mph. Thought I was a goner.

There are the ones I readily remember and worth retelling. I like to think I'm smarter now.

 

[FJRBluesman]

I don't think I'd put anything in print of dumb things done, just sayin'. :blink:

 

[bigtallguy]

I was riding back from Nashville once and passed through what I'm pretty sure was a tornado. It was rain, then really bad rain that I couldn't see more than 10 feet through. Cars were all pulling over but my dumb ass kept going, topping out at about 10mph with rain coming from every direction, making the face shield mist up on both sides. I would open the shield to wipe off the inside and experience what I imagine water-boarding feels like. Then the hail started, pelting me through the gear. Then the eerie calm, branches and stuff all over the road. Then the reverse of the above until I passed through it. Probably the worst weather I've ridden through and I'm lucky I didn't run off the road or hit/get hit by someone else.

My problem recently is trying to break speed records on the commute to/from work. It's kinda like crack, I know it's bad for me but I can't seem to quit...

 

[kolonial72]

Wild72, Roadstar and I are on a ride through...I don't remember where. Wild leading, me at the tail. Our road had a 45 or 50 mph speed limit, and we were close to that if not actually at it. Another kinda-major road intersected our road on the right at an angle so that a vehicle coming through makes an obtuse angle left turn onto our road going the other way. That road had a stop sign. Well the minvan driver (that's right, minivan - it gets better) did not stop or even slow down at the stop sign. She (that's right, she - it gets better) blew right through the sign. Wild got a chance to exercise the ABS and Roady did most of a fine e-stop. I was far enough away that I used solid but not emergency braking to avoid any potential mess. Had Wild not seen the minivan mom blow the sign, he - and possibly Road - would have been road pizza. Oh, the third part where it gets better still? She was blabbing away to her passenger. Hey, at least she wasn't on a cell phone!

(On a side not, I had a test of nerves and skill with an elderly female Asian driving a minivan a week ago. Say what you want about stereotyping, but I'm calling that a quad-fecta!)

 

[Checkswrecks]

Pete probably saw the minivan and was just "testing" you all.

B)

As I was slowly cruising the white line through stopped traffic yesterday my mirror whacked one on a SUV. Heard the driver yell, the mirror didn't fold or even change position (no damage), and there was nowhere to pull over so kept moving. Haven't done that since living in Cali and splitting lanes is less than legal in DC, so double dang!

Now I have to watch for an irate SUV driver on my commute every day. Triple-dang!

 

[Bustanut joker]

Sheep in the front seat is about as crazy as it gets for me....

 

[HotRodZilla]

Sheep in the front seat in my lap is about as crazy as it gets for me when I'm not wearing pants....

Fixed it for you jackass sheep-boy.

 

[zenwhipper]

My dumbness gene comes out usually when I get cut off by a cager. I get pissed, game on and engage the moron. :angry:

I did it about 8 years ago on my VFR. A guy cut me off on hwy 99 here in Seattle and I got around him gave him the big bird :****: and proceeded to shake my fist. Yah that was the way to handle it. Funny thing - my wife was in the car behind me and she really read me the riot act when I got home! She just didn't get it, I was trying to impress her. :wub:

A month ago - on the FJR I got squeezed out by an idiot in a old Dodge K car as I was trying to merge onto the highway. I ended up in the emergency lane and was steamed. Got in behind him and he started driving through the traffic and lanes quite aggressively. I stayed right with him :aggressive: . After about 3-4 minutes of this I said to myself - this is frickin' stoopid, silly and unsafe. I backed off and took the next exit. I few traffic lights later - a gal rear ended me while I was stopped! :weirdsmiley: Nothing major, bent my exhaust and I kept the bike up - but nerve racking all the same. After it was all said and done and I was riding home - I realized the rear ender was a lesson from G O D :shades: , dutifully sent to me after I chased that idiot cager, to keep it safe out there and always realize I'm not in a cage, quite vulnerable and have stoopid, macho, I'm gonna kick you ass for cutting me off genes! :gun:

FWIW :lol:

Scott

 

[FastSpy]

Tell us your experiences:

Here's mine:

The other day we were headed back to the Twin Cities after a day of riding along the Mississippi down by Red Wing. 92 degrees in the middle of May. Hot and humid. So little did we expect that the Metro would be recieving a freakin' hail storm! We eventually made our way along Hwy 100 as we were getting pelted by marble sized hail with occasional golf ball sized bruisers when there appeared a goddamn blockade of cars under the overpass occupying all the lanes save one! Fukin' A???? One of the cagers under the overpass decided to get to a better spot under there and darted out into the one unobstructed lane nearly side swiping the other biker I was with. I had to start beeping my horn getting through there as if I were rounding a single lane mountain blind curve. Total idiots for them to sand bag the entire highway in exchange for not getting a few dents that insurance would cover anyway. What morons!

I saw those idiots too. I was going northbound on 100 and between 62 and 7 they were accupying all but two lanes of the freeway, but this was when the hail had allready stopped. They just sat there scared to drive off. Complete idots to pull over and block freeway traffic which when I was approaching was 60 mph. As I peered over onto the southbound lane all the dimwits were also doing the same thing under the bridges even after the hail had stopped.

That must have been a nightmare on the bike. Fortunately I was in a cage.

 

[rmcobb]

Good Lessons to be learned by all this.

Mine was just last week. Wife on the back coming back from Santa Rosa visiting my brother. Decided to take a detour after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and take the beach route. Well, we had 30-40 mph winds that day that created sand drifts on the road right at the beach area. As I approached one of the drifts that was piling up in the left lane I figured I could ride thru it on the end of the drift that I figured was probably only an inch deep.......well, it turned out to be more like 2-3 inches deep. I hit it going 20-25 mph and it grabbed the front wheel and twisted it, yanking the bars almost out of my hands. I managed to keep it from going to far, just barely, and made it through. One little bit more and we would have been slammed to the ground as the front wheel went sideways.....VERY lucky. If that happened we would have ended up in the other lane to our right where a car in that lane a bit further back than us probably would have hit us. Could have easily drove around the drift and what made me decide to ride thru the one end I can't tell you.

 

[allrider]

Need to change the title of this thread to lessons learned.

I read a good article in MCN one time about riding mad, or something like that, it talked about how accidents happen when your pissed off; at another driver or the wife or whatever. I thought about it after reading the article and all of the worst situations i have been in i was either pissed off or distracted for some reason, like too tired, or thinking about something other than the job at hand.

That idea made me give up chasing cars because they did me wrong.

Now i play a game i call reverse pinball, where i'm the ball and i have to try not to hit the bumpers, and of course all the bumpers are all out to get me. It keeps me smiling instead.

 

[bobg3723]

Yeah the best lessons learned are the one's you can talk about later, for sure.

Frame of mind was one of the things we touched upon in the BRC classroom. A couple of examples illustrate the point.

During practice on the range this one gal was doing her slow speed U-Turn maneuver in the "box" when she for only moment averted her eyes and head direction to smile at me as I waited my turn for her to clear the box. Well, now there was the one and only bike I saw dropped during the whole 2-day course. :lol:

Other than the occasional daydreaming lane changers, clueless cloverleaf mergers, a parking lot bad maneuver and the original post I've had no "oh shit" moments to speak of except for this very recent event that took place on the way home from attending this past CFO in La Crosse.

I was following the leader on our way to sample some of the Alphabet roads. There was this car or pickup (gawd I couldn't even recall it happened so fast) waiting at a two-way stop sign intersection. We had the right of way. The leader made a left and I followed suit about a couple of seconds behind getting around this guy waiting at the sign. He was rubbernecking his head eyeballing the leader and just as I was entering the intersection he started to proceed through the stop sign! mg:

So I veered to avoid this road menace and I'd have to say I was almost proud for correcting my wheel direction and even managing a little hockey-stop tail slide before nearly getting a taste of some Wisconsin ditch surfing on the far side of the road. Thankfully this local yokel put the brakes on.

Upon reflection I can't deny I had my share of blame for not using the horse sense I normally maintain back home. Normally I would have slowed my entry speed instead of gunning the turn. But here I was all psyched up for some more spirited riding the rest of that day and I did in the end learn something about frame of mind.

 

[Monty]

I think more bikers have been killed by cagers turning in front of them or changing lanes with no warning. However, I was in Houston awhile back in my cage and witnessed a woman rear end a biker at a red light for what appeared to be, no reason. The biker was rammed into the car in front of him and did a complete somersalt over it. Luckily, he wasn't killed but had to be hauled away by an ambulance with unknown injuries. The bike appeared to be totaled. :angry:

 

[Crash Cash]

Hm, I'll keep my mouth shut, I have a nickname for a reason... anyways, the scariest I saw was a BMW car tailgating the living hell out of a Ford box-van. They came up to an intersection and the van darted left into the turn lane, leaving the BMW to plow into the laneful of cars at about 60mph.

And two of my friends and I have all hit the "sudden left-turner"

I had a friend on a brand new GSXR do the "WOW LOOKIT THAT TACH GO!!" right into the back of a city bus at quite the rate of knots. He had bone fixators sticking out of both arms and a leg for months.