GAH!!
I’m pissed off.
I just had my very first motorcycle accident. Before y’all panic (or cheer, I dunno): it was nothing major. No one got hurt, and damage was minimal.
Here’s the story.
I need some motorbike stuff. Chain spray, winter gloves, thermal tights, ya know - all that macho stuff. Especially the tights.
So, I put on my leathers when I get home from work, and head outside to fire up my Yamaha Diversion, which I purchased not two weeks ago from a friend. The engine starts purring, and I let it run in while I put on my helmet and gloves. Woohoo, a nice evening ride! What more can a guy ask for?
After a short trip over the freeway, I take the exit near the bike shop. On the bottom of the offramp, you basically pass one lane, then a median, and then turn left onto the road again, which then passes underneath the freeway you just left (I’m hoping that makes sense). I’m following an old Suzuki Swift (an '85 or thereabouts) down the offramp. He stops for the first road, and so do I. He accelerates when traffic clears, and drives across the median part. I follow him, noticing from the corner of my eye that no fucking traffic whatsoever is approach from the right. There is no stop sign here, which means there is no reason for anyone to stop if they don’t have to yield to any traffic. The driver in front of me appears to think the same, and starts accelerating.
I quickly glance over to the right to re-verify there’s really nothing coming, whilst rolling forward at approximately 5 kilometers per hour.
When I look forward again (which is maybe 0.5 seconds after I quickly glanced to the right), the Suzuki’s right there. For some reason unbeknownst to me, and the rest of the world with a functioning brain, the driver of the Suzuki decided to slam on the brakes right after accelerating, coming to a full stop in front of a completely empty road, with no traffic anywhere within a 500 meter radius.
I hit the Suzuki’s bumper with my front wheel, slide forward over the tank of my bike, and -of course- drop it.
Fucking hell. Just my luck. Isn’t the insurance company gonna LOOOOOOVE this? Two weeks insured, first crash. In the back of my mind, frantic premium re-calculations take place.
Brainiac and his girlfriend exit the puke-green Suzuki.
“Are you OK sir?”, asks the girl.
“Yeah, I’m fine”, says I. “Why the hell do you stop before A COMPLETELY DESERTED INTERSECTION??”
“Deserted?? There’s tons of cars! Look!!”
Sure enough, there were cars now. Sheesh.
I sighed, and apologised for yelling at him. After all, I hit him from the back. There’s not much room for discussion there: I’m at fault, period.
Turns out he was a nice enough guy, and a car mechanic to boot. We decided to leave the insurance company out of it (his bumper had shifted slightly, and he had a dent in his trunk lid), and exchanged phone numbers and whatnot. FWIW, the total value of that car can NEVER be more than a thousand Guilders or so (USD 400). Could have been worse, I could have hit a Bentley. 
He’s gonna get back to me with an estimate of the cost, and if it’s fair enough, I’ll just pay him of course.
So now part of me is pissed off at myself for assuming he was gonna continue. Rule number one: NEVER ASSUME. Especially not while riding a motorbike.
Then again, I probably would have had the same accident by car, or on a bicycle for that matter.
And part of me is still kinda pissed off at this guy for stopping without any necessity whatsoever. The rest is poor timing.
Ah well, no one got hurt, and the damage was minimal. I’ll have the front of the bike checked out Saturday (you never know what even a 5 km/h shunt can do), although the bike handled fine afterwards.
I carried on towards the bike shop which was closed for some ungodly reason. :mad:
So I spend another 45 minutes taking the long way home, and to make sure I wouldn’t be scared of getting on that thing again. Back home, I checked the damage in some better light. Minor scratches on the right exhaust, some scratches on the metal grip-end next to the throttle handle, a slightly bent right front indicator (I could push it right back), and a headlight that for some reason keeps flicking back and forth between hi and low beam at stationary revs. So if the fork’s OK, I’m probably looking at just a new light switch, and whatever astronomical figure mr. BrakeHappy will bollocks up for his crappy Suzuki. Could have been worse.
Oh, technicians? The bike leaked some fuel while it was down. I’m assuming this is normal when a carburetor isn’t approximately horizontal? FWIW, it started right up again, and ran fine for the rest of the ride.
Oh, as we were chatting away, the Suzuki driver mentioned he had only had his drivers license for 3 months. “And it fucking shows”, I thought. Boy, biting your tongue really hurts.
Wow, this is an amazingly incoherent post. Then again, a lot of rants are. Just needed to vent. Thanks.
