Hit hole in road, fall down, go boom, need advice.

pffog said:

I am a real late apexer on the street, and use the whole lane, the with line is my friend, as it is far away from oncoming traffic. Looking at the pics, I am sure I went outside of it, but it still concerns me that I didn't recognize it.

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well, that's just it, I am a late apexer, too, but just outside of the crop on this picture the road takes a very sharp right (> 90?? with decreasing radius) so I was actually setting up for that.

too close to the left edge? maybe... but i could see what is just outside of the left picture crop and had planned to be right on the center line in prep for moving ouside-in across the lane to the apex for that hard right.

Visian said:

well, that's just it, I am a late apexer, too, but just outside of the crop on this picture the road takes a very sharp right (> 90?? with decreasing radius) so I was actually setting up for that.

too close to the left edge? maybe... but i could see what is just outside of the left picture crop and had planned to be right on the center line in prep for moving ouside-in across the lane to the apex for that hard right.

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Bottom line is glad you are relativity OK, and it shows that even the skilled are not exempt from surprises.

I just hope you have contacted the proper agency, before this takes a larger tool on a rider.

Heal quickly

I am curious about two things.

1.) How fast were you going?
2.) Was the sun in front of you?

ultracyclist said:

I am curious about two things.

1.) How fast were you going?
2.) Was the sun in front of you?

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I was going 3-4 on a scale of 10... within the speed limit. this section of road is very tight/twisty... lots of 1st and 2nd gear corners with steep lean angles. the reason i fell is that i was leaned over quite a bit.

The road is carved into a mountainside, with deeps woods all around, so lighting was flat (no shadows) which I believe contributed.

There was a significant rise in the road upon approach, so my perspective on the road surface was from a very shallow angle. My eyes were focused ahead on the next turn, and i was not scanning as thoroughly as i should have been.

ian

I feel for you and hope the recovery goes well. But I do have to comment on something no one has touched on yet, so bear with me here.

A huge factor in riding is visual. In fact, I place visual skills/evaluation at the very top of effective riding skills. Scanning, searching, looking evaluating everything that comes into our path of travel. It is critical to our survival as riders. When riding, we have to scan FAR more than just the path of the road, the slope/camber, the terrain alongside/near the road, the surface itself. Certainly, anything like gravel, dirt, terrain wash across the road are somethings we all have to look for. But also, road imperfection, like this pothole.

Given it is in a curve is even more critically important to scan/search for anything that might quickly deflect the front tire. Given the size and depth of the hole and its placement in the turn I can easily understand how it could cause a bike to crash, and it should be repaired before someone is killed because of it. But the fact remains that these types or surface hazards, and many others are up to us as riders to look for and adjust our riding line and speed to avoid them. When riding, I am constantly evaluating anything that catches me attention before I get to it.

Given your reported speed, I have to ask if you recall seeing the pothole or any evidence of it before you got to it? Seems that for the speed it would have been possible to quickly adust your line to avoid it. Now, please don't feel I am pointing a finger at you, because I was not there, and I don't know the road, so who am I to say. But these types of things are what I coach my MSF students about, effectively using your vision to take in everything that affects our riding. Thanks though, for reporting on it, because we can all learn from these instances.

ANDYVH said:

Given your reported speed, I have to ask if you recall seeing the pothole or any evidence of it before you got to it? Seems that for the speed it would have been possible to quickly adust your line to avoid it. Now, please don't feel I am pointing a finger at you, because I was not there, and I don't know the road, so who am I to say. But these types of things are what I coach my MSF students about, effectively using your vision to take in everything that affects our riding. Thanks though, for reporting on it, because we can all learn from these instances.

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Andy - yes, my purpose for reporting was to help others realize how quickly it can happen, even to the very experienced. not to brag, but i have hundreds of thousands of miles experience riding tight twisty mountain roads, paved, unpaved, beaten to crap, fast, medium and slow, wet, dry, leafy, wet and leafy, snow, ice, sand, falling rocks, tree branches, gravel washouts, ledges, exposed culverts, tree roots... pretty much everything a road can throw at you. i know all about scanning, looking, checking, etc. as well as the correct lines to take to reduce the risk of being cleaned out by oncoming traffic.

if i had seen this hole, i could have easily stayed up even if i had center punched it while leaned over quite a bit, which was the case.

i've ridden this particular road at least 200 times (probably way more) and have seen & dodged this hole before. but this road has hundreds of turns and it's just not possible to know *any* road like the back of your hand. no matter how easy that is to say.

if you've looked at the pics, you see there is no other hole, crack or other imperfection to give the rider a clue. really, the only clue is a few drops of oil on the road, which were shaken loose from the undersides of cars or trucks when they hit it. the hole is all by itself on a smooth section of pavement.

as one approaches this hole, the road is going up, so your eyes are just about even with the hole until you're right on it. in this instance, i probably looked at that section of road when my eyes were level with the road, didn't see the hole, and hit it when my eyes were scanning ahead to the next turn to make sure there was nothing coming from around the next blind turn.

if you've looked at the pics, you've seen how it doesn't look like much even when looking right at it. the road is in deep forest so the lighting is very flat, making the dimensions of the hole appear much smaller than they really are.

you are correct to teach your MSF students this kind of stuff because it's what they'll need in the real world.

the funny thing is that, as i was riding, i was thinking about my friend who was coming up from Florida to ride with me later that week. he's a Gold Wing rider (and ex-road racer and flat tracker) and i was going over in my head the conversation i planned to have with him about the tricky nature of mountain roads... they catch out a lot of Florida people up here... and i was especially going to emphasize how something can jump out and grab you very unexpectedly.

ian

CaptainR12C said:

Is that grass growing in the damn hole?

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I think it's growling. I would never thunk a hole like that would take out an experienced rider. Medicate and meditate, looks like 'twas unavoidable and you wern't the only one to go down there.
Did any of your riding buddies get squirly on that corner also?

thumperbum said:

Did any of your riding buddies get squirly on that corner also?

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i was riding alone, but interestingly a Harley rubbernecker looking at my sorry butt on the side of the road hit it and almost fell over. His passenger whacked him on the beanie and yelled at him to watch where he was going.

also, to your initial point... if i had seen that hole i could have hit it at twice the speed and remained upright. my brain was telling me "smooth pavement."

moral of the story is: scan, scan, scan....

Thanks Ian. Your response was much like to some similar instances I have experienced in my 39 years of riding. I agree, the appearance of the hole is more like a depression with a hole in it, tough to see no doubt. But thanks again for reporting this to us as it makes all of us more aware to never take for granted the roads we love to ride. because those same roads can just as easily bite us!

Back to an earlier comment/question. I would paint a circle around the hole - bright orange. I'd use inverted tip marking paint if I had some. Then I would send a letter (yes, one of those quaint written things in an envelope with a stamp) to the folks who maintain the road. An email or phone call is OK too, but I'd send a letter too.

I would point out I had an accident when I hit the hole which had been there a very long time. Big damage, serious injuries. Then I would tell them that to warn other potential victims and to make it easy for the hole fixers to find the hole I painted a circle around it. And here are the GPS coordinates if that is a help.

When I worked for cities or counties we would have welcomed such a letter.

FWIW, until a very recent set of reforms the NC state highway commission (like many other aspects of perpetually Democratic NC state govt that have resulted in felony convictions for various agency and legislative heads) was a haven of corruption. The commissioners jobs were (and may still be) "for sale" political appointments that rewarded campaign contributions and those commissioners decided what got built and overhauled, NOT engineering professionals employed by the state. A ton of money was spent on uneeded 4 lane in relatively remote places while ignoring necessary improvements in the rapidly growing urban areas. Much poor work has been done in NC as a result of inept and corrupt commissioners failing to oversee state professional staff adequately. Among the more amusing goofs that cost taxpayers big $ was the need to rip up a few miles of I 40 work that was too thin, badly adhered, not expansion cut and nearly immediately debonded and distintegrated. Other examples include long stretches of embarrassingly poor concrete work on I-85 north of Charlotte, nearly a decade reworking a few interchanges north of Durham, etc etc. Now the new Republican legislature is trying to rein in potentially huge state deficits (state const. requires a balanced budget) so I wouldn't bet that rural road repair is going to improve any time soon. Counties are also seeing major budget issues so expect local roads to suffer for the next several years also. NC is paying the price now for an economy built too much on relo of folks from up north to cheaper real estate and local NC economies cannot recover any time in the next few years given the national real estate situation.
It used to be the "good roads" state and still is compared to PA but that's not saying much...

Like "Visian," I too had a crash caused by bad road maintenance. (To read my report, go to the "Just Ridin'" forum, "Crash Cronicles" - the second "sticky" at the top, and scroll down to post #10.)

One important similarity is that in both cases we were riding on well-maintained roads with a single "death trap." Potholed roads or roads with a lot of sand in the corners after the winter, are simply matters to deal with, and we do. A second similarity seems to be the lack of quick response to correct these problems after they are reported. (A friend who came back over the Beartooth a week after my accident, reported the sand in that passing lane was still there.)

Frankly, this makes me very angry. Visian and the guy who hit me were both riding skillfully, legally, and encountered a surface problem they couldn't visually detect which caused an accident. That can happen. But it sure would seem someone should be out there the NEXT DAY with at least a warning sign and soon thereafter the hole should be patched or the sand swept away.

The opinions expressed on this forum I think could be summarized as "it is up to YOU to ride safely" and I endorse that sentiment. But I think it also incumbent upon upon whoever is responsible for a particular stretch of road to fix the the problem after ONE reported accident.

I suspect that these two accidents, where the cause could be quite cheaply and quickly fixed after one reported accident, but were not, are more the norm than the exception. Your accounts are welcome.

More to the point, what is the best way to bring pressure to bear so simple problems get fixed quickly after one accident?

PGlaves said:

Back to an earlier comment/question. I would paint a circle around the hole - bright orange. I'd use inverted tip marking paint if I had some. Then I would send a letter (yes, one of those quaint written things in an envelope with a stamp) to the folks who maintain the road. An email or phone call is OK too, but I'd send a letter too.

I would point out I had an accident when I hit the hole which had been there a very long time. Big damage, serious injuries. Then I would tell them that to warn other potential victims and to make it easy for the hole fixers to find the hole I painted a circle around it. And here are the GPS coordinates if that is a help.

When I worked for cities or counties we would have welcomed such a letter.

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++1! draw attention to those who can fix it, and to riders who come by before it is!

bogthebasher said:

++1! draw attention to those who can fix it, and to riders who come by before it is!

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The answer is simple. Contact an attorney who is familiar with motorcycle accident claims right away and have him pursue damages from the city/ county/state that maintains that road. For some strange reason the people who can fix the problem pay attention more when they are contacted by an attorney.
You may or may not be awarded damages but the problem all get fixed quick.

leesrt said:

The answer is simple. Contact an attorney who is familiar with motorcycle accident claims right away and have him pursue damages from the city/ county/state that maintains that road. For some strange reason the people who can fix the problem pay attention more when they are contacted by an attorney.
You may or may not be awarded damages but the problem all get fixed quick.

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Sometimes! And sometimes, upon receipt of bad advice of their own counsel, they stubbornly leave it just as it was for fear that fixing will be construed as an admission of their error and thus liability.

legal point

Once a governmental authority has been notified in writing of a hazardous situation, they become liable for it. Otherwise, they can claim they didn't know about it and can dodge responsibility for it. Laws vary by locality, but that's how it is where I live.

Harry

AKsuited said:

Once a governmental authority has been notified in writing of a hazardous situation, they become liable for it. Otherwise, they can claim they didn't know about it and can dodge responsibility for it. Laws vary by locality, but that's how it is where I live.

Harry

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I think that is the key. In my car I hit a huge pothole on Eastern Blvd on a dark night in Louisville that blew out the tire and bent the rim. Found out the pothole had be reported weeks before and was able to get the city to pay for damages because they knew about the issue and had failed to fix it or set up guards.

might want to post all the details on several websites so others can find it if they do a search. State, Road, Milemarker, nearest cross street, GPS coordinates, date you notified the state / county / city of the problem, who you notified (names of individual if possible), etc.

A couple of things.

One, whenever there is an asphalt paving job, a core is taken of it to ensure it is of proper specs. They have formulas for the various components and ratios in it as well as how it reacts to a variety of tests. This is part of the job of the place I work. Usually a patch is filled in where it was taken out. Unless there is a huge problem, like say on I 285 around Fayetteville where 10" deep 5" cylinders were taken out, the usual one is like a thick drink coaster. It is just whatever the top layer just put down is, 3/4" to 2". That said, that is all that is usually done and then a filler is put back in where the core was taken.

For that hole to have sunk in like that is very very strange. Perhaps some other research was done there at another time and did allow the substructure to collapse. There should be a history on that if there was. On rare occasions a more extensive core is taken to investigate some situation. It is surely worth checking into. Glancing at the pictures really doesn't show the size and depth of this and I can imagine how it would up set the traction of a bike at any reasonable speed.

Please do report it. I have thus far found those in agencies very willing to listen and act at least in some moderate regard to dangerous situations that I have reported. If you need help finding the right place to report it to in NC, PM me please.

NCS

Small sinkhole probably due to erosion around a pipe of some type crossing under the road in that area. I see those all the time where I live. Could be a sewer or water line under the road that has developed a leak and its sucking the substrate into it. With time the asphalt sinks. It'll get bigger.

NCStephen said:

Please do report it. I have thus far found those in agencies very willing to listen and act at least in some moderate regard to dangerous situations that I have reported. If you need help finding the right place to report it to in NC, PM me please.

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Stephen - thanks for the info you provided, the situation has been reported to everyone in NCDOT that could be involved with assuring safe road conditions.

Very detailed description of the hole's location, including GPS coordinates.

Interestingly, which obtaining this information, I spotted another hole in the opposite lane, not far from the one that took me out. reported this one, too.

looks like this is another situation beginning to appear.....