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Old September 19th, 2011, 07:17 AM   #11
DerTeufel
ninjette.org member
 
Name: Aaron
Location: Wildomar
Join Date: May 2009

Motorcycle(s): 2008 Kawasaki Ninja 250R, 2009 KTM 690 SMC, 2001 Suzuki GSX-R 750 (track bike)

Posts: 172
I've been riding for 26 years (dirt and street combined). Dirt crashes don't count, because crashing on a dirt bike is expected

I've crashed four times on the street. The first was on my first street bike, a 1989 GS 500. I was coming back to the base after picking up my uniforms and the road surface was wet, as it had just finished raining. I was rounding a rather sharp bend in the road, and the front end lost grip. I low sided, at a pretty low speed. I suffered no injuries, except wounded pride, and the bike suffered a broken headlight.

The second time was shortly after I got a TL1000S. By the time that I got that bike, I had been riding on the street for 12 years. I was coming home from work, and at the time we lived in an apartment complex that did not allow motorcycles of any type on the property, so I had to park my bike on the street. There was a storm drain near where I parked my bike, and there was usually a thin layer of muck in the area of the storm drain. I turned in to pull my bike in perpendicular to the curb, hit the thin layer of muck, and was promptly delivered to the asphalt. Thankfully, all that happened to the bike was a broken rear brake pedal. I was wearing textile gear at the time and didn't suffer any injury.

Crash number three was one of those situations of where I knew better, but I ignored all the warnings. It happened shortly after the 2007 California wild fires. I had decided to go up Palomar mountain to see the aftermath of what had happened up there. I knew that work crews have been on the mountain already and had replaced a great number of guard rails and signs. What I didn't count on was the number of remnants left in the roadway. My ascent of the mountain started at a slow pace, but as I got higher up, my pace began to quicken. I came around a corner and felt the front end slide, then the rear, and now I am on the ground, on my belly, sliding into the dirt (about 20-30 feet). My bike came to a rest about 5 feet away from me, still running. I got up, shut the bike off, and quickly picked the bike up. I looked at where I laid the bike down at, and saw a bunch of nuts and bolts in the roadway. The left side of the fairing got rashed, broke the left mirror, both left turn signals. I got a sprained wrist, a ruined helmet, and ruined gloves.
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After:


Crash #4 involved another vehicle. It was also three weeks after my Palomar crash. I was riding into work, and spotted a Jeep Wrangler coming the opposite direction. I was traveling at the speed limit and had slowed slightly since there was a lot of side roads that emptied into the main, and people liked to dart out. The Jeep, without warning (or turn signals) turned left to go onto one of the side roads in front of me. I grabbed the binders and tried to go around the Jeep. For some inexplicable reason, the driver of the Jeep halted, rather than proceeded forward. Had he done that, I wouldn't have made contact with the Jeep. Trying to avoid further damage to my bike (I had just repaired the crash damage from the Palomar crash), I body checked the Jeep. In doing so, I lost grip on the bike and it fell, damaging the already tweaked radiator. The driver of the Jeep got out, looked at me, and in very broken english said that his turn signal was on. I yelled at him telling him that no, they weren't! I then asked for his information, to which he gave me a sheepish grin and shrugged. This guy didn't have a license or insurance, and there was a high probability of him being an illegal alien as well. I briefly considered calling CHP, but being that I was late to work, I decided against it. I looked at the driver of the Jeep, got on my bike, told him something very derogatory in Spanish, and took off. The only damage to the bike was the radiator, nothing happened to me.
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