Boxflyer
Active member
Hello All,
On 8/7/21, I was doing a 5 day ride with the ChromeHeads Group up in So. VT. (https://tinyurl.com/29zajxzs)
It was a Sat afternoon, clear skies, roads dry, nothing unusual, single lane opposing traffic. Heading SW on VT 11 from Springfield, VT towards Chester, VT my single riding buddy and I came upon a line up of about 20 cars parked on the right-hand shoulder of the road before a driveway to a house hosting a birthday party, then another 20 cars parked past the driveway on the shoulder of the road.
Ahead of us, beyond the row of parked cars (about 500ft long), a car was pulling off the right side of the road in order to park . Two cars traveling in the same direction as we were had stopped in the travel lane so that the car parking on the side of the road could get off past the white line. Our 2 bikes were at the end of this 4 vehicle string of stopped traffic. Every car in front of us had brake lights on, and the 2 of us riders had either bright yellow or white helmets as well as we both had HiViz Yellow jackets or vests on. My bike has the latest model of Skene P3 lights and the bottom of my 49L top case has a pattern of white reflective tape to make it more visible both day and night. None of this would have made a difference in our case, inasmuch as the driver was distracted and never slowed down from highway speeds for the whole distance of the cars parked at the side of the road. The driver went into a panic stop/full skidding of tires up until impact. I later paced off 30 normal strides to the beginning of the skid marks on the pavement from the impact point.
After hearing screeching tires for what seemed like more than just a few seconds, the impact took me by surprise. I hadn't tensed up, and had not processed what was about to happen, so maybe that's a good thing.
A Toyota Rav4 hit my bike as I sat with both feet on the ground and the bike in 1st gear, holding the front hand brake. The point of impact on the front of the car was only a few inches to the left of center.
The bike lurched forward from underneath me and I obviously lost my grip on both sides of the handle bars. The engine must have stalled from dropping the clutch while stopped, because it was not running at any point that I can remember from then on. (It subsequently started right up when I tried that a couple of days later)
My riding gear: (prices of new gear)
Sidi Road boots-$365
MotoPort Mesh Kevlar 2 piece suit with Quad Armor-$2100
Cortech Impulse ST gloves-$59
Shoei Neotec2 helmet-$700
Helite Turtle2 Airbag vest size LL-$679 (100cc CO2 cylinder) https://helitemoto.com/helite-turtle-2-airbag-vest-hi-viz-yellow/
Total---$3903
Earlier in the day, we had been riding on some hard packed gravel roads. I decided to ride "GS style" and stood on the pegs for awhile, mostly to see if I had the Helite vest tether adjustment cleat still correctly positioned. I could feel about 2 inches of elastic slack still in the tether, so it was just as I had installed it when new about 3 months prior. When the bike moved forward, my relative motion was backwards towards my 49L top case. The actuating tether of the vest pulled out the ball that holds the piercing pin cocked and ready, initiating inflation, just before my back or head made contact with ANYTHING!
At this point, I heard LOTS of noise...whether that was impact crunching of the front of the Rav4, the back of my bike, or the sound of the inflating air vest, or a combination of all 3...it was pretty loud!
The Helite Turtle2 Airbag Vest has 2 parallel vertical tubes that filled with CO2 so rapidly that my body had NO contact with the top case at all. It completely inflates in a fraction of a second and that was what was needed to keep my already backward tilted body from taking a potentially spine injuring smack on the front top edge of the 49L case. The Turtle2 also has 2 collar inflating rings around the top neck opening of the vest that TOTALLY stabilize and protect your neck inside your helmet. I most certainly would have had some degree of whiplash to my neck without these stabilizing collar rings. The upward stabilizing neck rings, did cause my chin strap to pull tight on my lower jaw, but that's what is needed to keep it on your head, and why it's there.
The RT spun around to the left and almost flipped on its top as scratches to the top of my LH pannier showed lots of road rash. It was also evidence that my body had dislodged the top case earlier and now the pannier was the point of contact with the road. There were scratches on the top LH edge of the windshield and LH mirror.
When all the motion had stopped, I was about 15ft in front of the Rav4 and my left boot was slightly wedged under the left side of the tank/seat junction. I was flat on my back, but my helmet never made contact with the pavement. I think my riding buddy and a couple of other pedestrians lifted the bike up and off my boot and I was able to stand up easily and to my surprise, with no pain or discomfort anywhere on my body!
One of the fortunate findings of this set of riding gear that I have is that my preference for modular helmets allowed me to easily raise the chin bar on the Shoei Neotec2. I had upgraded to the Neotech2 for a couple of reasons, like sound reduction, and especially the bayonet style chin strap fitting vs. the conventional DD, (double d), ring type of chin strap attachment. This allowed me to pull on the release lanyard on the bayonet fitting and the helmet was easily removed.
The 3 clips that hold the Turtle2 together on the front of the vest were pretty tight when the vest was fully inflated, but could be unclipped and the vest was easy to slip off my shoulders and I just laid it on the ground on the side of the road. I observed that the inflated vest was fully deflated in about 15 minutes.
This collision occurred along the row of parked cars and there were 3 or 4 people standing right beside the point of impact. They were excellent witnesses to what had happened and also provided statements to the police. In addition, the bystanders were wonderfully helpful to me and the folks in the car.
As I said, with all the protective gear I ALWAYS wear, and the perfect alignment of the stars, I was not injured...not a scratch, bump, bruise,...ANYTHING...even after several days. I'm sure there are plenty of lawyers ready for me to claim an injury, but that's not my way of life.
It was a VERY traumatic event for the 72yr old driver of the car. He was not on the phone or doing anything else that I could observe which might have caused his distraction...maybe the flags, banners, and balloons at the driveway of the birthday party in the middle of the 500ft of cars off the side of the road. I was able to talk to him and console him but he got more and more distraught to the point that the EMT's at the scene transported him to the hospital. Meanwhile I was up walking around, cleaning up the debris from the wreck and helping load my bike on the flatbed wrecker.
I have had plenty of time to think about this event, and considered lots of options for my future, including hanging up riding altogether.
Ultimately, this accident was not something that was a result of my diminished skills or capabilities, nor due to an error on my part. The "6 P's" (Prior Planning Prevents Pi$$ Poor Performance) have come up over and over in various aspects of my life, but especially with respect to the choice of my riding equipment. As a result, I have decided to get another bike and keep on enjoying what I do...and that is lots of riding both solo and with my many friends and continuing to wrench and try to share my experiences via BMW forums like this and on my YouTube Channel.
I hope this recap of my experience will help you as you re-evaluate your riding safety gear.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Helite Turtle2 Airbag Vest and have talked to the principals there about my accident.
The are offering a 10% DISCOUNT CODE at checkout when purchasing one of these vests.
UBSAFE is the code to enter during checkout.
Sizing is broken into 2 groups.
XS/S/M/L/XL are one basic group that use the 60cc CO2 cylinder, and LL/XLL are LONG sizes that use the 100cc CO2 cylinder.
Anything worth doing, is worth over-doing, and safety is at the top of that list.
If you want to see this Helite Turtle2 AirBag Vest in action FortNine has an excellent review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2jZryt607U
Boxflyer
On 8/7/21, I was doing a 5 day ride with the ChromeHeads Group up in So. VT. (https://tinyurl.com/29zajxzs)
It was a Sat afternoon, clear skies, roads dry, nothing unusual, single lane opposing traffic. Heading SW on VT 11 from Springfield, VT towards Chester, VT my single riding buddy and I came upon a line up of about 20 cars parked on the right-hand shoulder of the road before a driveway to a house hosting a birthday party, then another 20 cars parked past the driveway on the shoulder of the road.
Ahead of us, beyond the row of parked cars (about 500ft long), a car was pulling off the right side of the road in order to park . Two cars traveling in the same direction as we were had stopped in the travel lane so that the car parking on the side of the road could get off past the white line. Our 2 bikes were at the end of this 4 vehicle string of stopped traffic. Every car in front of us had brake lights on, and the 2 of us riders had either bright yellow or white helmets as well as we both had HiViz Yellow jackets or vests on. My bike has the latest model of Skene P3 lights and the bottom of my 49L top case has a pattern of white reflective tape to make it more visible both day and night. None of this would have made a difference in our case, inasmuch as the driver was distracted and never slowed down from highway speeds for the whole distance of the cars parked at the side of the road. The driver went into a panic stop/full skidding of tires up until impact. I later paced off 30 normal strides to the beginning of the skid marks on the pavement from the impact point.
After hearing screeching tires for what seemed like more than just a few seconds, the impact took me by surprise. I hadn't tensed up, and had not processed what was about to happen, so maybe that's a good thing.
A Toyota Rav4 hit my bike as I sat with both feet on the ground and the bike in 1st gear, holding the front hand brake. The point of impact on the front of the car was only a few inches to the left of center.
The bike lurched forward from underneath me and I obviously lost my grip on both sides of the handle bars. The engine must have stalled from dropping the clutch while stopped, because it was not running at any point that I can remember from then on. (It subsequently started right up when I tried that a couple of days later)
My riding gear: (prices of new gear)
Sidi Road boots-$365
MotoPort Mesh Kevlar 2 piece suit with Quad Armor-$2100
Cortech Impulse ST gloves-$59
Shoei Neotec2 helmet-$700
Helite Turtle2 Airbag vest size LL-$679 (100cc CO2 cylinder) https://helitemoto.com/helite-turtle-2-airbag-vest-hi-viz-yellow/
Total---$3903
Earlier in the day, we had been riding on some hard packed gravel roads. I decided to ride "GS style" and stood on the pegs for awhile, mostly to see if I had the Helite vest tether adjustment cleat still correctly positioned. I could feel about 2 inches of elastic slack still in the tether, so it was just as I had installed it when new about 3 months prior. When the bike moved forward, my relative motion was backwards towards my 49L top case. The actuating tether of the vest pulled out the ball that holds the piercing pin cocked and ready, initiating inflation, just before my back or head made contact with ANYTHING!
At this point, I heard LOTS of noise...whether that was impact crunching of the front of the Rav4, the back of my bike, or the sound of the inflating air vest, or a combination of all 3...it was pretty loud!
The Helite Turtle2 Airbag Vest has 2 parallel vertical tubes that filled with CO2 so rapidly that my body had NO contact with the top case at all. It completely inflates in a fraction of a second and that was what was needed to keep my already backward tilted body from taking a potentially spine injuring smack on the front top edge of the 49L case. The Turtle2 also has 2 collar inflating rings around the top neck opening of the vest that TOTALLY stabilize and protect your neck inside your helmet. I most certainly would have had some degree of whiplash to my neck without these stabilizing collar rings. The upward stabilizing neck rings, did cause my chin strap to pull tight on my lower jaw, but that's what is needed to keep it on your head, and why it's there.
The RT spun around to the left and almost flipped on its top as scratches to the top of my LH pannier showed lots of road rash. It was also evidence that my body had dislodged the top case earlier and now the pannier was the point of contact with the road. There were scratches on the top LH edge of the windshield and LH mirror.
When all the motion had stopped, I was about 15ft in front of the Rav4 and my left boot was slightly wedged under the left side of the tank/seat junction. I was flat on my back, but my helmet never made contact with the pavement. I think my riding buddy and a couple of other pedestrians lifted the bike up and off my boot and I was able to stand up easily and to my surprise, with no pain or discomfort anywhere on my body!
One of the fortunate findings of this set of riding gear that I have is that my preference for modular helmets allowed me to easily raise the chin bar on the Shoei Neotec2. I had upgraded to the Neotech2 for a couple of reasons, like sound reduction, and especially the bayonet style chin strap fitting vs. the conventional DD, (double d), ring type of chin strap attachment. This allowed me to pull on the release lanyard on the bayonet fitting and the helmet was easily removed.
The 3 clips that hold the Turtle2 together on the front of the vest were pretty tight when the vest was fully inflated, but could be unclipped and the vest was easy to slip off my shoulders and I just laid it on the ground on the side of the road. I observed that the inflated vest was fully deflated in about 15 minutes.
This collision occurred along the row of parked cars and there were 3 or 4 people standing right beside the point of impact. They were excellent witnesses to what had happened and also provided statements to the police. In addition, the bystanders were wonderfully helpful to me and the folks in the car.
As I said, with all the protective gear I ALWAYS wear, and the perfect alignment of the stars, I was not injured...not a scratch, bump, bruise,...ANYTHING...even after several days. I'm sure there are plenty of lawyers ready for me to claim an injury, but that's not my way of life.
It was a VERY traumatic event for the 72yr old driver of the car. He was not on the phone or doing anything else that I could observe which might have caused his distraction...maybe the flags, banners, and balloons at the driveway of the birthday party in the middle of the 500ft of cars off the side of the road. I was able to talk to him and console him but he got more and more distraught to the point that the EMT's at the scene transported him to the hospital. Meanwhile I was up walking around, cleaning up the debris from the wreck and helping load my bike on the flatbed wrecker.
I have had plenty of time to think about this event, and considered lots of options for my future, including hanging up riding altogether.
Ultimately, this accident was not something that was a result of my diminished skills or capabilities, nor due to an error on my part. The "6 P's" (Prior Planning Prevents Pi$$ Poor Performance) have come up over and over in various aspects of my life, but especially with respect to the choice of my riding equipment. As a result, I have decided to get another bike and keep on enjoying what I do...and that is lots of riding both solo and with my many friends and continuing to wrench and try to share my experiences via BMW forums like this and on my YouTube Channel.
I hope this recap of my experience will help you as you re-evaluate your riding safety gear.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Helite Turtle2 Airbag Vest and have talked to the principals there about my accident.
The are offering a 10% DISCOUNT CODE at checkout when purchasing one of these vests.
UBSAFE is the code to enter during checkout.
Sizing is broken into 2 groups.
XS/S/M/L/XL are one basic group that use the 60cc CO2 cylinder, and LL/XLL are LONG sizes that use the 100cc CO2 cylinder.
Anything worth doing, is worth over-doing, and safety is at the top of that list.
If you want to see this Helite Turtle2 AirBag Vest in action FortNine has an excellent review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2jZryt607U
Boxflyer
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