basketcase
What's that noise...?
A half mile from my home on Sunday afternoon, April 3, a new rider was killed when an auto driver pulled into his path in a Toyota 4-Runner. Regrettably, the rider swerved ÔÇô not away from, but into the line of travel of the SUV, resulting in a T-bone collision.
The rider had purchased the bike three (3) days earlier from a custom paint and motorcycling shop located less than 100 yards from where the accident occurred. The motorcycle was a cruiser style bike.
The accident investigation revealed that the cage driver initially ÔÇ£inflatedÔÇØ his story about the motorcyclistÔÇÖs speed, but he later changed his story when eyewitnesses noted the rider had just made a U-turn and could not have achieved a high rate of speed. The newspaper report put the motorcyclistÔÇÖs speed at 35-50 mph, well within the posted limits for the stretch of highway.
But high speed or not, the fact is the motorcyclist is dead because an SUV pulled into his path, and he (1) T-boned the cage, and (2) body slammed said cage at speed, and (3) was wearing a minimal helmet. His skull was shattered, and cerebral matter was protruding from the injury when witnesses arrived on the scene. The cage driver, a male, was not injured.
My oldest child went to high school with the young man, and he is the first of her class to die like this. She came upon the accident on her way home from church. As noted above, the physical damage was extreme, and thankfully, the rider had already been covered with a sheet. Even so, she is dealing with the visual trauma of seeing his body on the pavement, legs and arms sticking out from under the cover, with blood staining the place where his face once was.
A Gold Winger friend called me about it the accident. When my cell-phone rang, I was on the Florida panhandle driving back from a funeral for an elderly aunt. My friend, on his way out to enjoy the afternoon when he came upon the accident, promptly turned around and went back home.
Driving into town late Sunday, I observed the accident investigator's paint marks, and the sand covering the fluid stains on the road surface. Anytime I leave going north I have to ride past the same series of retail access drives to the highway. So this comes as a grim reminder that it can happen to any of us -- and literally "in our own front door."
My thought is that if you happen to know a new rider, by all means belabor the points about speed, safety, and vigilance. The riding season is here, and there will be many new riders on the roads in the coming months. Additionally, we have a number of new riders frequenting this board. I hope they all see this post.
To close this rambling diatribe, I cannot help but wonder if the lessons of a rider course might have made a difference. It is too late to save the life of the young man who died yesterday, so in a way it is just another useless question. But his death does not have to fade from memory as a useless occurrence. While I did not know him, I do know several other new riders, and I plan to put forth the effort to emphatically "make the point" by way of the object lesson this accident provides.
The rider had purchased the bike three (3) days earlier from a custom paint and motorcycling shop located less than 100 yards from where the accident occurred. The motorcycle was a cruiser style bike.
The accident investigation revealed that the cage driver initially ÔÇ£inflatedÔÇØ his story about the motorcyclistÔÇÖs speed, but he later changed his story when eyewitnesses noted the rider had just made a U-turn and could not have achieved a high rate of speed. The newspaper report put the motorcyclistÔÇÖs speed at 35-50 mph, well within the posted limits for the stretch of highway.
But high speed or not, the fact is the motorcyclist is dead because an SUV pulled into his path, and he (1) T-boned the cage, and (2) body slammed said cage at speed, and (3) was wearing a minimal helmet. His skull was shattered, and cerebral matter was protruding from the injury when witnesses arrived on the scene. The cage driver, a male, was not injured.
My oldest child went to high school with the young man, and he is the first of her class to die like this. She came upon the accident on her way home from church. As noted above, the physical damage was extreme, and thankfully, the rider had already been covered with a sheet. Even so, she is dealing with the visual trauma of seeing his body on the pavement, legs and arms sticking out from under the cover, with blood staining the place where his face once was.
A Gold Winger friend called me about it the accident. When my cell-phone rang, I was on the Florida panhandle driving back from a funeral for an elderly aunt. My friend, on his way out to enjoy the afternoon when he came upon the accident, promptly turned around and went back home.
Driving into town late Sunday, I observed the accident investigator's paint marks, and the sand covering the fluid stains on the road surface. Anytime I leave going north I have to ride past the same series of retail access drives to the highway. So this comes as a grim reminder that it can happen to any of us -- and literally "in our own front door."
My thought is that if you happen to know a new rider, by all means belabor the points about speed, safety, and vigilance. The riding season is here, and there will be many new riders on the roads in the coming months. Additionally, we have a number of new riders frequenting this board. I hope they all see this post.
To close this rambling diatribe, I cannot help but wonder if the lessons of a rider course might have made a difference. It is too late to save the life of the young man who died yesterday, so in a way it is just another useless question. But his death does not have to fade from memory as a useless occurrence. While I did not know him, I do know several other new riders, and I plan to put forth the effort to emphatically "make the point" by way of the object lesson this accident provides.
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