I ONCE was driving across town. Wasn’t even tired and it wasn’t dark nor was I going through a divorce or losing my job or anything bad like that. Hell, I wasn’t even remotely old for that matter. Never done drugs and back then I didn’t drink period. Didn’t even have a darn car radio. Or AC so the windows were down.
Next thing I know I am on the other side of town with NO memory of how I got there :eek: I actually checked the car for damage/blood and kept a close eye on the local paper for hit/runs/weird car accidents for the next few days.
Human brains can do weird shit in the “right” circumstances.
I didn’t think about his family, first it was ‘how did this happen?’ Risk to life and limb is an ongoing thread and understood danger for bikers, so the thought process is more about understanding the risks and about stopping that happening again, impacting another family.
One thing to bear in mind is, without showing any outward reaction, he likely didn’t register the impact. With the possibility of sounding indelicate he was (hugely) enjoying riding his bike and then that just stopped, without any pain or suffering. There are many other worse ways to go. His family may benefit from hearing your account, Dinsdale, if you were willing to discuss it with them. Or just give a report to the police and have them notify the next of kin. That may sound heartless but it isn’t; riding a motorbike is fraught with danger and his nearest and dearest will likely be readily prepared for news of a bad accident.
It seems like I hear some horrible way that a motorcyclist bit it a couple times a week. I can’t even fathom the attraction of driving one, especially on the highway.
Sad thing, and yeah, distractions can happen, I had never had an accident on the road, just the typical fender benders in parking lots, but just last week, at dusk, I almost ran into a SUV that had the exact color as the pebbles and the exterior wall on one of those buildings on a mall. Somehow my reflexes saved me because something told me to turn left hard and then I fully noticed the SUV coming from my right, I missed it by inches.
I really do hope that the new driving technology becomes cheap enough so we do not depend on miracle saves from our reflexes when our focus is distracted.
In Chicago, (and parts of TX and Sheriff Joe’s AZ, I can easily imagine the folks thinking
"Lets teach em a real good lesson - we’ll put up a brick wall to stop the bastards.
In CA, the trucks carry sandboxes - about 8’ x 8’ x 3’ high on the rear-most truck in the work crew - it is carried vertically for transit (probably center-of-gravity to keep the front wheels firmly on the road) and lowered into horizontal position once in final position.
The first thing a fool running past the final “Land Closed” sign is a box of sand 8’thick - the plastic case shatters, and the sand absorbs the impact.
Similarly, barrels of sand are permanently installed in front of bridge piers, guardrail ends, and other fixed objects where cars can be reasonably expected to hit.
Show of hands!
How many of you live where the DOT people will kill anybody who tries to enter their workspace?
If you live somewhere where the idiots just get sand in their air intakes, nevermind.
I can’t believe we have a black president, legal gay marriages, and even the GOP acknowledges Global Warming (a REAL hell-freezes-over event!), and we still have this “Kill 'em” mentality on the part of people who patch potholes.
I hate people who make excuses. You know what obscures your vision? Death. Death REALLY does a number on your vision. As another said, it’s a bullshit excuse.
A former coworker’s fiance dropped his bike and smashed his head, died instantly. My then-boss seemed bothered, but still rides without a helmet, even got ape-hanger bars which I imagine do NOT help with maneuvering. Another former coworker was telling people about her boyfriend dumping his bike. She sounded annoyed rather than concerned. I mean, really?!
I only ride a bicycle and still wear a helmet. I mean, lay on your back on the sidewalk (safely!) and lift your head an inch off the ground. Now just let it drop, no resistance. Fucking smarts, doesn’t it? Now imagine falling a few feet while at speed without a helmet. If it doesn’t kill you, you’ll wish you were dead.
Stupid humans, never concerned until it’s too damn late.
Sorry for the rant. I just get so disturbed by such callous disregard for oneself and ones family.
Dinsdale, I’m really sorry you had to see that. Obviously a helmet didn’t help in this case. I applaud you for acting as you did and making sure to notify authorities. I hope you get help if you need it. Best wishes.
I wonder if being from out-of-town had something to do with it. So he might not have been on the lookout for any weirdness caused by construction on the El, which locals would know about, or the signage or appearance of trucks could be different from what he was used to, or something. I’ve noticed being in LA this year that the accepted distance at which you start putting up signs to warn motorists of lane closures ahead seems much shorter than what I’m used to: all of a sudden the cones or utility truck is RIGHT THERE and you’re doing 70 and space is running out.
He may have put the brakes on and tried to stop, but motorcycles have a very small traction contact patch. The point where the rubber meets the road. They can need a lot more space to stop.
Motorcycle riders learn to be aware of people who might pull out in front of them leaving not enough distance to stop. At high speed you need much more stopping distance than a car. The car he was following distracted him.
It sounds to me like the rider was not aware that the lane was going to end, and when he did, he ran out of stopping distance. And time.
It may have only looked like he didn’t try to stop.
Sounds like an accident. The motorcyclist probably was looking at the truck instead of where to merge and ran into the truck. The same phenomenon applies in cars, but to a lesser extent. Basically the motorcycle goes where the drivers eyes are looking and not where his brain is telling him it should go. If he was focused on the upcoming truck and not the lane, he was going to crash, let alone ignoring his speed or wet pavement.
I know of one suicide-by-bike (confirmed - he left a note before going for a ride). This sounds nothing like that. It sounds a lot more like a brain-fart / moment of inattention / target fixation / tunnel vision that had a horrible ending.
I’m really sorry you had to see that. It hits hard, doesn’t it
Where is he supposed to stop, exactly, on a divided highway where he’s on the left and the shoulder is blocked off by construction? By the time he can get to the right through merged and more crowded traffic, he’s a half mile away. Then what? Back up?
I’m more interested in the Trib article that says the construction vehicle was on the shoulder, when Dindsale’s account sets it clearly in the far left lane. A bit of CYA on the construction’s part?
Where ever he could. At the very least it would be very helpful for the police to have an eyewitness account of the accident.. And a half mile is not that far.
Even after nearly a decade out of California, it’s very hard not to split lanes when traffic slows. After so many years and miles of legal lane-splitting, the space between lanes looks to me like a perfectly good ‘escape hatch’ if I need to avoid a collision. (Of course I try to leave enough space in front of me. But my recent collisions have all come from behind.)
It wouldn’t have mattered in the occurrence in the OP; the rider was already doing 80 and there’s no reason for him to split lanes at that speed. It also sounds as if he was in the left part of his lane. (I tend to ride in the right part, in case I need to use the ‘escape hatch’.) But I wonder if being allowed to split lanes instills an awareness in motorcyclists, that there is another way out of a situation.
Another vote for not seeing the barrier until too late. If the black sedan was driving aggressively and the bike had been “engaged” with the sedan for the past mile or so, he might have been overly focused on the movements of that car (for good reason) while, say, thinking about his morning meetings at work. The sedan jumps out of the way, the biker looks up and sees a wall, and the biker says “Oh.”
His visibility wouldn’t even need to be blocked. Distraction or misfocused attention is a blinder all its own. I feel sad for the guy. I’m certain that, for a moment, he knew exactly how badly he just messed up.
This is a night shot and looking at traffic oncoming, but this is similar to what the OP was driving up to, this is 87th street Red Line construction and a good example of what the Dan Ryan is like when traffic is pretty darned light. Stopping here is really not an option.
I’ll put in my gripe about how dangerous it is for smaller vehicles to drive around so many large, view-blocking vehicles. Construction crews* have to be very aware that you need A LOT of notice for lane closures now, because if you’re driving behind a huge minivan, chances are you won’t see anything until the minivan moves out of your way, and then it’s, “HOLY FUCK MY LANE IS ENDING!”.
*Calgary road construction crews are wretched with their signage - they put up signs when they aren’t needed, they don’t take signs down after the work is done, they don’t put up signs when they actually should, etc. I think they’re just messing with us, frankly.
We were driving home today on I-75 with heavy traffic. Someone had been transporting a full kitchen garbage bag full of aluminum cans because one minute we were driving along, and within seconds the car in front of us swerved into the left lane and we ran directly over the bag. The car in front of us saw it in time to move out of the way, but obscured us from seeing it until it was too late. I imagine this is what happened here.
OPer, you might want to call the non-emergency police number to let them know you witnessed the accident. They may or may not need it for their official police report, which might impact life insurance payouts, etc.
