Today, for the first time in years, I saw a motorcycle crash on city streets. I'm intentionally not posting this in "Fallen Riders" and I'm intentionally leaving out the intersection at which it happened ... because this crash was nothing but the rider's fault. The rider will be fine (appears to be broken collarbone or some such thing); his driver's license probably won't be, and I'll be first to say that he deserves whatever damage is going to be done to his license for the stunt that he pulled.
I was walking across a parking lot to my company car after having lunch. Heard the high rev wail of a 4 cylinder bike approaching ... given that some people have a way of riding around in 2nd gear in town, that doesn't always mean high speed, but this one got my attention. Silver early-2000's GSXR came into view approaching stopped traffic at the intersection (red traffic light) and my first thought was that there was no way he was going to be able to stop in time. My direct view of the crash was blocked by a tree and a cube van.
From what other drivers were saying, it seems that the rider was going at high speed (their estimate: 120 km/h, speed limit: 60 km/h) and overtook at least one driver between the right lane and the curb. (Car in right lane ... bike squeezed between car and curb.) Approaching the intersection, it seems that the rider tried that again but caught the edge of the curb and went down. The rider was lying down (squirming in agony) in the middle of the right-turn lane. The bike had slid on its side over the concrete island between the right turn lane and the main part of the intersection and ended up in the middle of the second lane of the cross street. The right signal was on ... I suspect that the rider was trying to take that right turn lane but cut it too close when squeezing between the stopped traffic and the curb. This was a single vehicle collision - he did not actually hit anyone in the right lane.
Cops were on the scene almost right away - a moto officer came in the same direction as the bike in question had come from within a minute or two. Makes me wonder ...
And there were PLENTY of witnesses who were telling that cop what they saw, and telling the next cop who showed up. I did not stick around because I did not have as direct a view of the collision as the driver of the car who was the last one he passed before the collision.
You. Dumb. Idiot. You are giving the rest of us a bad name.
In city traffic ... just follow the traffic.
Overtaking between the traffic and the curb ... is just plain dumb.
I was walking across a parking lot to my company car after having lunch. Heard the high rev wail of a 4 cylinder bike approaching ... given that some people have a way of riding around in 2nd gear in town, that doesn't always mean high speed, but this one got my attention. Silver early-2000's GSXR came into view approaching stopped traffic at the intersection (red traffic light) and my first thought was that there was no way he was going to be able to stop in time. My direct view of the crash was blocked by a tree and a cube van.
From what other drivers were saying, it seems that the rider was going at high speed (their estimate: 120 km/h, speed limit: 60 km/h) and overtook at least one driver between the right lane and the curb. (Car in right lane ... bike squeezed between car and curb.) Approaching the intersection, it seems that the rider tried that again but caught the edge of the curb and went down. The rider was lying down (squirming in agony) in the middle of the right-turn lane. The bike had slid on its side over the concrete island between the right turn lane and the main part of the intersection and ended up in the middle of the second lane of the cross street. The right signal was on ... I suspect that the rider was trying to take that right turn lane but cut it too close when squeezing between the stopped traffic and the curb. This was a single vehicle collision - he did not actually hit anyone in the right lane.
Cops were on the scene almost right away - a moto officer came in the same direction as the bike in question had come from within a minute or two. Makes me wonder ...
And there were PLENTY of witnesses who were telling that cop what they saw, and telling the next cop who showed up. I did not stick around because I did not have as direct a view of the collision as the driver of the car who was the last one he passed before the collision.
You. Dumb. Idiot. You are giving the rest of us a bad name.
In city traffic ... just follow the traffic.
Overtaking between the traffic and the curb ... is just plain dumb.
