Damn deer almost did me in..

[Dragonracer76]

So I have been able to swerve, duck and dodge every retard, college student, and hick in a truck since I started riding a couple months ago. I was safe, bought good gear, and didn't speed. ...well only on long straightaways on the freeway a few times. But seriously did my best to avoid an accident mostly to not look like the noob that I am but also cause I love my ninjette and all of it's highrevving coolness. Long story made kinda short...

I was on my way home from school Wensday night and came up on a deer in the middle of the lane. She came from the left and stopped on the line. I slowed down and she started back to the left then turned last second at me. I swerved right and didn't have enough room so locked the back up to dump speed and tried to ride it out but ended up getting highsided. The bike flipped hard I went airborne and Slid/flipped down into the ditch, breaking my left arm, cutting my right knee up down to the patella in a few places and pulling a lot of muscles and possibly breaking my thumb. I'm seeing Ortho on Monday about pins being put in or a plate and screws. They set it twice but think they can do better. Unfortunately my bike who sadly never got named was slammed harder than Pamela Anderson at a Viagra convention and declared a total loss. Now I have to find a new mistress and wife said it's ok as long I don't ride at night any more. haha


2012-03-22 20.09.50_Jacksonville_Arkansas_US by dragonracer76, on Flickr
such a sexy beast..

and after...

{2d4ac97f-eda5-4415-97ee-aa9cba830ab8} by dragonracer76, on Flickr


{f078dfe5-781c-42d3-a741-39c4c2fdfc1f} by dragonracer76, on Flickr


{d3c242dc-2062-47fa-be70-bc9c854058d8} by dragonracer76, on Flickr
I only got to put about 3500 or so miles on it..


{7aa526f6-cb40-452f-b90a-9cb4e1ec7fa9} by dragonracer76, on Flickr
glad that wasn't my leg..


{93f7c526-1ce7-404d-becc-fe66faab1fcd} by dragonracer76, on Flickr


{81dc4ef1-8d34-4e58-9f42-343f51791ee6} by dragonracer76, on Flickr
my nice exhaust and smoked tails... my dad said it probably has a flatter tone now.

[loz944]

Glad your ok

shame about the bike

new gen next time ?

[EthioKnight]

wow...effin' dumb ass deers! Perhaps it's time you got your ass out of the wilderness?
Learn and live bro, wish you a quick recovery

[Mocha Man]

Hope you heal up soon! Broken bones are no fun

Good luck with everything!

[Malicious Logic]

Sucks to hear but at least you're ok. Guessing you weren't wearing riding pants? Also, did you take the MSF?

[Jono]

Wow that sucks!!!


Glad you are alright. I hope you heal quickly so you can get back on the saddle.

[Dragonracer76]

No prospects for now but finding a new gen in my price range here in AR is gonna be hard. It'll more than likely be a 05-07 250. And no, no riding pants but I did have a helmet, gloves, jacket, and combat boots. Riding pants were sadly at the house since I was at school. I was wearing long pants since I never wear shorts when I ride but they're not the same I know.

[Dragonracer76]

I'm only getting 2400 or so from the insurance man and have to buy a new lid and jacket as well..

[itsa250bro]

Jason, sorry to hear about your crash - those friggin' deer are so unpredictable. I hit also hit one a few years ago now whenever I see one on the road - I go past it at a snail's pace - even to the point that I'm holding up traffic sometimes - better safe than sorry - you just never know what they are going to do.

Sounds like you're wife is pretty smart, my crash happened on my first night ride. They are just so hard to see at night - and of course the Ninja just sneeks up on them and scares the hell out of them.

[greg737]

We've already had two cases of death-by-deer in North Idaho this spring.

In both incidents it was Harley riders with no helmets on, riding near dawn or dusk which is the worst time for deer activity. One of the cases was two-up and the passenger survived with serious injury.

Here's the Spokane newspaper's text from one of the incidents:

A Harley-Davidson motorcycle rider died after hitting a deer early Thursday along U.S. Highway 2 in North Idaho.

The Idaho State Police reported Rodney C. Reed, 53, was westbound at milepost 17 at 4:52 a.m. when his motorcycle hit the deer.

The bike overturned and Reed was thrown off. The Priest River man was not wearing a helmet, according to the report.

Wonder if it would have been different if he'd been wearing a helmet and some good gear instead of jeans, a jacket and sunglasses?

Here's the other one:

MOYIE SPRINGS, Idaho (AP) -- The Idaho State Police say a 51-year-old northern Idaho man died and his passenger was injured when his Harley Davidson motorcycle hit a deer on U.S. Highway 2 near the Idaho-Montana border.

Police say Wayne W. Williams of Moyie Springs died Saturday and 48-year-old Kelli S. Williams was injured when the motorcycle collided with the deer about 6:30 p.m. and went off the road.

Police say Kelli Williams was taken to Boundary Community Hospital.

[EthioKnight]

^damn...they ought to dub that portion of highway 'death lane' or something and declare an all year round, all you can kill, most kills gets a reward, deer hunting fiesta!

[akima]

Sh*t: horrible crash. Wish you a quick recovery. Sorry to hear about your ninjette. Not so many deer over here, so thankfully that's one less problem for riders to deal with.

[Dragonracer76]

They are just so hard to see at night - and of course the Ninja just sneeks up on them and scares the hell out of them.[/QUOTE]

I hear Ninjas are like that.. haha

[Dragonracer76]

Originally Posted by akima

Sh*t: horrible crash. Wish you a quick recovery. Sorry to hear about your ninjette. Not so many deer over here, so thankfully that's one less problem for riders to deal with.

Yeah, but you have sheep and cobblestones..

[drac]

Glad to hear it wasn't worse than it was.

I live in the woods and the thought of a deer jumping out in front of me scares me to death. I have lived down here 8 years and have already hit 3 in my truck. The woods line most of the roads down here and there is only like 3-10 feet of clearing between the woods and road. All 3 deer I hit happened so fast I never even had time to hit the brakes.

[Alex]

Deer suck. Thankfully many potential accidents are avoidable. Unfortunately, of those that are not, deer seem to often be involved. Hope you heal up and your bike is encouraged to heal up as well.

I focused in on just one part of your post:

Originally Posted by Dragonracer76

I swerved right and didn't have enough room so locked the back up to dump speed and tried to ride it out but ended up getting highsided.

It sounds like you didn't actually hit the deer, but locked the rear and got thrown, right? How hard were you on the front brake at the time, was it almost locked as well? How do you decide how much front/rear to apply in situations like this?

[Dragonracer76]

Originally Posted by Alex

It sounds like you didn't actually hit the deer, but locked the rear and got thrown, right? How hard were you on the front brake at the time, was it almost locked as well? How do you decide how much front/rear to apply in situations like this?

I was pretty hard down on both and had just backed off when it moved away. But when I got close to passing and came at me I knew there wasn't enough room for both of us on the roadside so I straightened up as much as I could and grabbed more front and slammed on the back to slow down as much as I could as I went off in a desperate hope I would be able to save it.. don't think I was really thinking it all out but seemed the right thing to do at the time. I already had my left ass cheeck off the seat trying to get a better angle on the corner around the right side of the deer. ( i had straightened alot from the first braking) I think that spared my leg from being crushed when the rear caught on the grass and slammedf the right side down.

[akima]

Originally Posted by drac

Glad to hear it wasn't worse than it was.

I live in the woods and the thought of a deer jumping out in front of me scares me to death. I have lived down here 8 years and have already hit 3 in my truck. The woods line most of the roads down here and there is only like 3-10 feet of clearing between the woods and road. All 3 deer I hit happened so fast I never even had time to hit the brakes.

Strange that in an area known to have lots of deer, the people that build the roads didn't think to leave a larger clearing either side of the road.

[Dragonracer76]

Originally Posted by Alex

How do you decide how much front/rear to apply in situations like this?

Oh yeah.. as far as how much to apply, I've found that when using heavy front and back I had more issues with being close to bottoming out the front shocks and so I normally don't take the to the limit unless I have no other choice. I'd rather lock the back and keep my balance than lose absorbtion and steering control. That was learned from all my close calls with being cut off or turned in front of in town. I had practiced some high speed stopping on the highway and some corner stopping on the state highway I wrecked on but not enough apparently. haha Guess it's always different when your ass (or a deer) is on the line.

[TnNinjaGirl]

Deer are more important than people.
Posted via Mobile Device

[blink]

Glad your okay!

They should make deer rams for bikes =p

even tho they'd be useless and look retarted and un-efficient

[Dragonracer76]

Originally Posted by akima

Strange that in an area known to have lots of deer, the people that build the roads didn't think to leave a larger clearing either side of the road.

Yeah.. It's about the same here too.. I think I'll just keep my ass away from backcountry highways at night from now on.

[Dragonracer76]

Originally Posted by blink

Glad your okay!

They should make deer rams for bikes =p

even tho they'd be useless and look retarted and un-efficient

Kinda like cow catchers on a locomotive.. haha nice mad max scene in my head,,

[drac]

What I can't figure out is the speed. You saw the deer in the road and it sounds like you had more than enough time to slow down to a crawl. Am I wrong?

Not trying to be an A-hole here but was it just bad judgement? What I have pictured is you come up on a deer already in the road.....you start to slow down but when the deer starts to move out of the road you let off the brakes to pass by the deer.....the deer changes direction in front of you and you are now in a panic braking situation.

[Jiggles]

Originally Posted by Dragonracer76

I'd rather lock the back and keep my balance than lose absorbtion and steering control.

That is a terrible idea. Locking the back offers you hardly any stopping power and you lose the momentum of a turning wheel which makes the bike harder to steer. Honestly, I'd suggest that you stop using the rear brake until you can 100% prevent locking it up.

Oh, and

[akima]

Originally Posted by drac

What I can't figure out is the speed. You saw the deer in the road and it sounds like you had more than enough time to slow down to a crawl. Am I wrong?

Not trying to be an A-hole here but was it just bad judgement? What I have pictured is you come up on a deer already in the road.....you start to slow down but when the deer starts to move out of the road you let off the brakes to pass by the deer.....the deer changes direction in front of you and you are now in a panic braking situation.

I had that same thought. Perhaps in hindsight it would have been better to slow down to ~10 MPH and puttered by the deer until you were safely past it. They sound like unpredictable creatures (like squirrels!).

Originally Posted by Jiggles

That is a terrible idea. Locking the back offers you hardly any stopping power and you lose the momentum of a turning wheel which makes the bike harder to steer. Honestly, I'd suggest that you stop using the rear brake until you can 100% prevent locking it up.

Oh, and welcome to club **** my life

I agree with Jiggles here.

The front break provides the vast majority of your stopping force. If you lock up your rear brake you risk high siding.

My policy during emergency braking is to not touch the rear brake at all. I [try to] slowly and progressively pull in the lever causing the front suspension to gradually compress to the point where it will go no further.

The rear brake has tons of uses, but it's physically impossible to stop your ninjette anywhere near as quickly using just the rear brake as opposed to using just the front brake.

[Dragonracer76]

Originally Posted by drac

What I can't figure out is the speed. You saw the deer in the road and it sounds like you had more than enough time to slow down to a crawl. Am I wrong?

Not trying to be an A-hole here but was it just bad judgement? What I have pictured is you come up on a deer already in the road.....you start to slow down but when the deer starts to move out of the road you let off the brakes to pass by the deer.....the deer changes direction in front of you and you are now in a panic braking situation.

Nah. I was doing about 50-60 in a corner and saw it after I was about a third the way through. I stared to slow by letting off the throttle and grabbed the brakes but let off almost at the same time since it immediately turned away. But as I came closer it jumped back at me and had no room to stop so In speed dumped as much as I could because less speed into a ditch is better than more. This is no wide sweeping turn, we're talking backwoods Arkansas here. If anything I should have simply just been driving slower. No worries about being an a-hole. I think all wrecks are pretty much had to be there types of things for them to make sense. What i'm taking away from it all is a new set of scars and knowing that if I ever end up in that situation again to just drive a shitton slower.. and maybe install a cow catcher. hahaha

[Dragonracer76]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

Oh, and welcome to club **** my life

Haha! thanks. at least you got better pain meds. my doctors were being stingy. and think the walker is sharp. i've been using a broken office chair.

[Jiggles]

You can still walk right?

<--- Jealous

[drac]

If I see a deer anywhere near the road I slow down immediately to 25mph or less until I am a good 50 yards past were I saw it/them. Even if they run off/across the road in front of me into the woods. They are very unpredictable and almost never travel alone. If you see one then count on more being very near.

As far as the panic braking......Always use both brakes during a panic stop. You need every foot of distance you can gain in those situations. More friction = faster stopping......Locking up the rear wheel is certainly never optimum but it is pretty common during panic stops. Soooooo much weight gets transferred to the front tire and the rear gets so light it is hard NOT to lock it up. Panic braking is a skill that needs to be practiced constantly throughout ones riding career.

Like my old man told me......"You know what mistakes people never make twice?......The ones that leave scars!".....

Chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. Heal up quick and get back out there.

[Jiggles]

Originally Posted by drac

=

As far as the panic braking......Always use both brakes during a panic stop. You need every foot of distance you can gain in those situations. More friction = faster stopping......Locking up the rear wheel is certainly never optimum but it is pretty common during panic stops. Soooooo much weight gets transferred to the front tire and the rear gets so light it is hard NOT to lock it up. Panic braking is a skill that needs to be practiced constantly throughout ones riding career.

This is why a lot of people on this site don't use the rear brake when panic stopping. It's just not worth risking a high side; a skidding tire doesn't help slow you down.

[drac]

The fastest way to stop a motorcycle is by using both brakes.

A skidding tire applies more friction than a tire that does not have the brake applied.

Friction = deceleration

[akima]

Originally Posted by Dragonracer76

Nah. I was doing about 50-60 in a corner and saw it after I was about a third the way through.

Eeep!! Tough situation.

[Jiggles]

I would argue that engine braking on the back tire would offer more stopping power than a skidding tire. Regardless, skidding the back tire is the worst thing you can do and the vast majority of people are not skilled enough in a panic situation to prevent. Advocating doing anything to lock the rear is an idiotic statement. Use the front brake, or get ABS

[Dragonracer76]

I have more a bent over hobble with holding on to stuff when the meds are really kicked in but mostly do a one legged foot scoot with the broken chair for pee trips, but i'm working on it. As far as the whole rear braking issue goes, I had about 15 feet to decide so I went with I knew. I'll just let it go at that.

[akima]

Originally Posted by drac

The fastest way to stop a motorcycle is by using both brakes.

A skidding tire applies more friction than a tire that does not have the brake applied.

Friction = deceleration

I imagine that a skidding rear tyre offers a very small amount of braking force (relative to the braking provided by the front wheel). In my mind, that very small amount of additional braking force simply isn't worth the risk of high siding. In an emergency situation you only have seconds (in Jiggles recent accident only 2 seconds!) to react. I'm training myself to only use the front brake, because that brake alone requires lots of attention. You have to ensure that you don't grab a handfull of front brake. You have to progressively squeeze it feeling what the front wheel is doing. You have to be ready to really quickly ease off the front brake the instant you feel the front wheel loosing traction... or you'll end up like this guy:

Link to original page on YouTube.

You also have to be remain aware of your surroundings and be ready to transfer from heavy braking to a controlled swerve in the event you don't think you're going to stop in time.

To be able to do all of the above and still be able to apply the rear brake gently enough that you wont lock up the rear wheel seems near impossible to me. I want to give 100% of my focus to the front brake (where the vast majority of braking comes from) and my surroundings.

[Dragonracer76]

Originally Posted by TnNinjaGirl

Deer are more important than people.
Posted via Mobile Device

nah.. they just taste better.

[drac]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

I would argue that engine braking on the back tire would offer more stopping power than a skidding tire. Regardless, skidding the back tire is the worst thing you can do and the vast majority of people are not skilled enough in a panic situation to prevent. Advocating doing anything to lock the rear is an idiotic statement. Use the front brake, or get ABS

Therein lies the problem doesn't it?.... By your statement you infer that I am correct that using using both brakes is the fastest way to stop. That is why i said people need to constantly practice panic stops.

I don't advocate locking up the rear wheel. I clearly stated that was not what you want to do. But I would never be foolish enough as to tell someone NOT to use 10% of their stopping potential.

As far as the dreaded highside you seem concerned with....Simple, if you have highsided then you have f-ed up.

By the way did you ever post the full video of your accident? Wouldn't mind seeing it.

[drac]

Originally Posted by akima

To be able to do all of the above and still be able to apply the rear brake gently enough that you wont lock up the rear wheel seems near impossible to me. I want to give 100% of my focus to the front brake (where the vast majority of braking comes from) and my surroundings.

It is mostly impossible. I can't tell you how many panic situations I have been in and in almost every case I locked up the rear at some point during the stop/slow down. When the rear locks you have to release then reapply. It should not be something you think about. It should be second nature. It takes years of practice.

[akima]

Originally Posted by drac

It is mostly impossible. I can't tell you how many panic situations I have been in and in almost every case I locked up the rear at some point during the stop/slow down. When the rear locks you have to release then reapply. It should not be something you think about. It should be second nature. It takes years of practice.

I see your points. There are plenty of arguments for both emergency braking with and without the rear brake. During my compulsory motorcycle training they trained us to use both brakes and required that we use both during the emergency brake test. So there is definitely a well-established school of thought that encourages rear brake use in that scenario. Personally though I've seen far more compelling arguments for not using the rear brake. The risk vs reward ratio of rear braking during an emergency stop seems to me stacked to far towards risk.

I respect your choice though and hope it serves you well