Another ninjette rider gets hit by a car in the wet

[akima]

Link to original page on YouTube.

Deja vu

Did he observe there was a junction crossing his path? Did he observe the body-language of the oncoming car? Did he pick a speed that was safe for the road and the wet conditions?

The rider reports in the video description:

Happened Oct 2014, lady cut me off on my way home from work closing early. I work at a carwash. Im ok but my foot has some circulation problems now. thank god for my camera

He then reports in a comment on that video:

that day i was wearing my DC skate shoes and not my riding boots, that day at work was a non-uniform day

I wonder if his feet would have circulation problems if he had proper boots on.

I don't have the statistics at hand, but I have previously read that feet and ankle injuries are amoung the most common injuries a rider gets in a crash. I know that when I crashed the bike landed on my ankle. I was wearing boots. I was ok.

Alternative video link if the first video gets taken down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZL3FoZhO0
(seems to happen quite a bit)

[Hero Danny]

Yeah, he seemed to be moving a bit too quick for the rain. Also he was pushing the horn where he could of maybe swerved..

[akima]

I wonder if the self driving cars will be telling us "sorry mate, I didn't see you".

I hope the rider gets back to full health.

[Baron]

Rain always is a pain in the bottom. I'd rather be hanging upside down from an old mangled rotting tree over a cliff being beaten to death with stick like a bloody pinata than ride in the.....rain......well ..on second thought, I'd rather ride in the rain.
Nyhoo back to the video, if you open it up in youtube, crank the quality setting to max, put the speed to .25, there are few interesting things to be noticed.
1. He was going a bit fast for conditions like these.
2. At about 0:14 we see the car halt getting ready for a left turn, however I did not see any use of the turn signals by the car.
3. At 0:15 the car starts to take the turn, even though the rider had the right of way.
Could he have avoided it? Possibly. If he couldv'e gone a bit slower he would've have more time to maneuver around or stop.

Again, the video isn't that clear because of rain drops on the camera so I am not sure but it seems that way.

[jkv45]

Looks like the car figured it out at the last second. It seems it was braking and sliding when it crossed into his (left) lane.

Less speed would have helped, as would swerving to the right (in this case) as the car was not moving perpendicular to the rider's path significantly.

If he had been in the right lane chances are he would have made it through fine without doing much of anything.

Why was he waving at people and gripping the throttle like that? He should have been slowing and covering the front brake. He might have been a little too relaxed in that situation.

[Finesse]

ouch. cant believe he had the presence of mind to hit the horn.

[Sirref]

While I'm impressed he could hit the horn I don't think he'd have any injuries if he was wearing some boots. I'm guilty of wearing shoes while riding on a regular basis and I hate it but I'm also not wearing riding boots to work since I have trouble finding a place for my helmet and jacket as it is. Luckily it isn't too far and it's an easy ride. (dumbass justification, someday I'll work somewhere where I have my own office space and plenty of room for my gear to be stored. Maybe even work from home, which would really mean work while traveling)

I see three things from this:
1. Speed too quick for conditions
what is a speed that is too quick for the conditions? A speed that does not allow you to react to the situations forming around you in a manner that keeps the shiny side up and gets you where you're going uninjured. I have been guilty of riding at speeds borderline too quick for the conditions in the past which is just as bad except without the ending.
2. Not covering the front brake in traffic
Just a small and useful thing to do. His hand positioning is fine for riding when not in traffic especially considering that being relaxed on the bike is good when cornering. Covering the brake allows you to preload the brake if you see anything amiss and stop or slow the bike significantly quicker to avoid a potential situation like that one.
3. Using the horn instead of swerving
While I'm impressed he used the horn, something that I forget exists on my bike regularly, he did very little to actually react to the car in front of him. To swerve back into the right lane, which is likely open because he just left it, would avoid the situation. This is easier said than done though since not everyone has the kind of confidence it takes to do that in the rain. It can definitely be done though.

[subxero]

there was around 1 second from where you can definitively say "yes that car is turning" to where he makes contact.

No one is going to do much of anything in 1 second, the fact that he hit the horn was fairly impressive.

1 Second to scrub speed in the wet? not gonna happen, just a waste of time IMO, and worse you could wash out the front, go down and then take the brunt of the car with your body, or slide underneath it, using any brakes would have been a bad idea IMO in this situation it's a really tough call though. I just feel like once you start braking it is easy to get too committed to it and think mainly about stopping which wasn't going to help much or happen here and you never transition into "I should swerve" especially in that short amount of time.

I think he went with the best option, hit the horn and try to swerve the best you can (you can easily do both) and that is what it seems like he did.

Can't imagine I could have or would have reacted much differently but I probably would have changed some things leading up to the accident... maybe speed? he was close to matching speed of vehicle in front of him he might have been doing 40? 45ish? hard to see But not sure why he switched to the left lane. I would have not been that far left for sure in those conditions on that road which would have given me a little more of a buffer zone to the left turning cars.

[Sirref]

True that he would have only had 1 second to react, give or take. Most of the things he could have done to help avoid the situation are things that would have been in anticipation of a potential scenario opening up as opposed to in reaction to.

[jkv45]

Originally Posted by Finesse

ouch. cant believe he had the presence of mind to hit the horn.

Using the horn, IMO, is a last-ditch effort to get someone to get out of your way. In that situation I don't think it's worth even trying. Use all of your concentration to figure out what evasive maneuver you want to do to avoid impact.

The car was out of shape and unable to stop, so I wouldn't expect any help avoiding you from its driver.

[allanoue]

Originally Posted by akima

I wonder if the self driving cars will be telling us "sorry mate, I didn't see you".

I hope the rider gets back to full health.

Self driving cars will not have a mental blind spot for bikes.

[akima]

Originally Posted by subxero

1 Second to scrub speed in the wet? not gonna happen, just a waste of time IMO, and worse you could wash out the front, go down and then take the brunt of the car with your body, or slide underneath it

Like @Sirref said: if he was covering the breaks and began preloading the suspension using the front break in anticipation of the car not seeing him, he could shave off a decent amount of speed even in a second.

As for washing out the front. If you really practice emergency breaking and train your lizard brain to react appropriately then you can teach yourself to apply smooth and gradual breaking force instead of snapping it on (like we want to do naturally).

Even if the breaking doesn't save you from hitting the car at least you will have taken some of the force out of the impact.

I think anticipation is the most important thing he could have done. If you're not surprised by the actions of a driver; if you're already expecting it; then you're not going to suddenly panic when the bad thing actually happens and perform a negative panic-reaction.

[alex.s]

he hit the horn and started to swerve at the same time, very quickly after realizing the car was going. i wouldn't have done any better i think except maybe wearing boots. if he had tried to turn much harder his rear would have kicked out for sure. if it didn't already. i think he did a pretty good job actually.

[jkv45]

All he would have had to do was move over a little more than a foot and he would have made it.

The car didn't make it into the other lane that was open to his right. The time and mental energy he wasted using the horn could have been better used to focus more effort into an evasive maneuver.

I bet the driver of the car didn't even hear the horn. Any available mental energy (it does take some) to activate a horn is better utilized elsewhere - unless you are expecting the person that caused the problem to fix it for you.

Obviously there's no way to completely stop in that amount of time/distance, your only option is avoidance.

I'm not trying to add insult-to-injury here, just discussing other options that may have avoided the collision - but hindsight (and video rewind) is 20/20.

[Sirref]

Re-watched, he didn't really attempt to swerve he tried to brake while hitting the horn. Watch his right hand. That wasn't a swerve so much as it was his hand moving the right bar forward while trying to grab the brake quickly.

[akima]

Originally Posted by jkv45

I'm not trying to add insult-to-injury here, just discussing other options that may have avoided the collision - but hindsight (and video rewind) is 20/20.

I think it's good to discuss it! Hopefully we can figure out how to be better riders this way.

I think it's always possible to improve knowledge and skill and become a better rider. To me: better = safer, faster & more mentally and physically relaxed.

[jkv45]

Originally Posted by akima

I think it's good to discuss it! Hopefully we can figure out how to be better riders this way.

I think it's always possible to improve knowledge and skill and become a better rider. To me: better = safer, faster & more mentally and physically relaxed.

I also think it's beneficial to watch a situation play-out that doesn't end well, then review it closely for early signs of what will develop. It gives you the ability to think objectively about what type of action could be used to avoid that outcome.

Then when you see a similar situation develop in front of you in real-life you will already have a better solution in-mind and be able to act on it much quicker.

[akima]

^ yeah. Totally agree. Our brains are really, really good at spotting patterns and we evolved over millions of years to be very sensitive and alert to danger. Critically watching a video like this is feeding our minds with useful information. As we ride our minds will be comparing the danger signs we've seen and thought about with our current situation and we will get instinctual feedback.

Some riders describe getting a "spidey sense" while out on the road. It's exactly this: our minds spotting an emerging pattern -- sometimes a very subtle one -- that signals to us an associated danger. It might be the way a car is moving, or the way a junction is laid out. Those instincts are really useful to hone and really good to listen to.

So long as our focus while riding remains on the positive; thinking about ways of riding safer, thinking about safe routes and positive action you can take, then this kind of information can be very useful. It would be bad if I watched a video like this one and became focused on all the things that can go wrong, all the ways I can feel hurt and all the bad moves I could make. That would be like target fixation: staring at the thing you don't want to hit and finding yourself riding at it.

[jkv45]

Originally Posted by akima

(SNIP)
So long as our focus while riding remains on the positive; thinking about ways of riding safer, thinking about safe routes and positive action you can take, then this kind of information can be very useful. It would be bad if I watched a video like this one and became focused on all the things that can go wrong, all the ways I can feel hurt and all the bad moves I could make. That would be like target fixation: staring at the thing you don't want to hit and finding yourself riding at it.

One note on that thought -

Our skills are stored in our subconscious mind. Things we do well are done in an "automatic" way by our subconscious mind. When we are learning a new skill we operate consciously, and clumsily, until we have developed to a high enough level to operate subconsciously.

Your subconscious mind can not think in the negative, meaning telling yourself "...don't hit the car...don't hit the car..." doesn't work. Your subconscious hears"...____ hit the car...____hit the car...". You will act on whatever your subconscious mind is envisioning ("hit the car"). That's basically how target fixation works.

That's why you always need to give yourself direction in the positive, as in "...avoid the car...avoid the car...". That way your subconscious mind has a positive image to use to direct your movements.

I didn't make this up. I used it for years as a shooting competitor and coach - and it works. It was partially developed by World and Olympic Shooting Champion Lanny Bassham as "Mental Management", and their are many uses in other sporting activities as well as daily life.

His website is - http://mentalmanagement.com/ if you want to learn more. He has a book and a video.

[akima]

Thanks for the link.

Originally Posted by jkv45

Our skills are stored in out subconscious mind. Things we do well are done in an "automatic" way by our subconscious mind. When we are learning a new skill we operate consciously, and clumsily, until we have developed to a high enough level to operate subconsciously.

I remember when I first started riding; it was so weird, having to juggle all these levers and buttons and twisty things! Now I find myself indicating, shifting, rolling off the throttle and braking all at once and it barely registers consciously.

(I'm actually still struggling a little with the braking while down shifting thing, but I'm cutting myself some slack on that because of a throttle related issue I've been having for some time now )

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by Baron

Rain always is a pain in the bottom. I'd rather be hanging upside down from an old mangled rotting tree over a cliff being beaten to death with stick like a bloody pinata than ride in the.....rain......well ..on second thought, I'd rather ride in the rain............

If you ride long enough, you will ride in the rain.

You should practice emergency braking and swerving on wet pavement.
Doing it correctly and progressively, you will be amazed of how much grip your tires still have.

Many accidents in rainy conditions happen because the rider firmly believes that the road is much more slippery than it really is.

Yes, just after the rain starts, the road is a mess of dirt, water and oil.
If you cannot skip those first 15~20 minutes, simply go as slow as possible.

Anytime after those first minutes, ride confident that you have at least 70~80% of dry traction, more if you release some pressure of the tires (the rubber remains cold in the rain and low pressure heats it up).
You still may be able to brake and swerve hard enough to save your bacon.

Please, read these:
https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=162183

https://ninja250forum.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=136773

https://www.ninjette.org/forums/show...2&postcount=25

[Baron]

Originally Posted by Motofool

If you ride long enough, you will ride in the rain.

You should practice emergency braking and swerving on wet pavement.
Doing it correctly and progressively, you will be amazed of how much grip your tires still have.

Many accidents in rainy conditions happen because the rider firmly believes that the road is much more slippery than it really is.

Yes, just after the rain starts, the road is a mess of dirt, water and oil.
If you cannot skip those first 15~20 minutes, simply go as slow as possible.

Anytime after those first minutes, ride confident that you have at least 70~80% of dry traction, more if you release some pressure of the tires (the rubber remains cold in the rain and low pressure heats it up).
You still may be able to brake and swerve hard enough to save your bacon.

Please, read these:
https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=162183

https://ninja250forum.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=136773

https://www.ninjette.org/forums/show...2&postcount=25

Thanks. I actually didn't mind riding in the rain. I did so, if not a lot then quite some times, in the "summer" we just had. It's just that the only slip I've had was in the rain because of oil in the middle of the road, and ever since if I think of riding in the rain, it just makes me a bit nervous.
I'l probably get over it next season :P

[xorbe]

There's no way in heck I could hit the horn in that situation. I only use the horn to encourage people to put down the darn phone, and start moving at green lights.

[indomie]

dang , hope the rider is safe. i use the horn for everything haha.

[jkv45]

Some worthwhile reading on the subject of safety via the Ninjette Newsbot -

http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/ne...-riding-safety

http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/bl...ire-code-break