Passes & Canyons Blog

I got back on my last remaining bike today for the first time since my crash. I never had any hesitation but I had wondered if, when the time came to throw my leg over the seat and fire it up, would I then have any uncertainties?

Nope, not at all. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. It felt good.

So where did I ride? I went right back to the scene of the crash. I’ve gotten some information about how the crash unfolded from the police and the DA’s office but I still don’t really know exactly what happened. I have registered myself to receive notice when the police report is finally available but I’m told that can be months. So I try to piece things together.

One thing that has been mentioned repeatedly is that the driver went over a median before hitting me. That seemed odd because I did not recall there being a median there. Well, there is.

From what the lady at the DA’s office told me, the guy must have been coming off southbound Santa Fe, turning east onto Belleview, and in his drunken stupor he thought the lane I was in was a lane he could use. He may have seen me and tried to veer right but by than had straddled the median so his left front wheel hit the median and threw his car back to the left, with the right front wheel bouncing over the median before he hit me.

There apparently was a witness who stuck around and told the police everything he/she saw. I would very much like to talk to that person.

So anyway, that helps explain why my injuries were not a whole lot worse. Unlike a head-on where both parties are going 60 mph, for an impact speed of 120 mph, I was at a standstill and the other guy, coming off the highway and slowing to make a turn, was perhaps going 20 mph. And he may have already had his foot on the brake. However it all happened, despite my pain and financial loss, and the loss of the very first motorcycle I ever owned, I feel pretty darn lucky.

But I still really want to read that police report.

What is it like to be on the receiving end of that phone call? The one where a police officer or some other emergency services person calls to tell you your husband or wife or whoever is not where you thought they were, but are instead in the emergency room somewhere?

I asked Judy that question after my recent head-on with a car. At least when the news is not all that bad, apparently the call can be handled pretty well.

In Judy’s case, the phone rang and she didn’t recognize the number but I guess caller ID identified it as the Littleton PD so she picked up. Then the officer addressed her in a manner I suspect has got to be something they are trained on. He told her, essentially, “I’m Officer So and So and I’m talking with your husband here in the emergency room at Swedish, who has been in an accident but is in fairly good condition.”

Quick and efficient. First he tells her he is talking to me, so clearly I’m not dead. Let’s put that fear firmly to rest. Then the reality–I’ve been in an accident and yes I’m hurt–but not horribly. Oh that’s a relief.

Now, Judy is not the sort to panic or flip out when something like this happens. I imagine in some cases despite all the care in planning the statement, the person on the other end of the line is going to freak out. But not Judy. From that point on he was able to explain all he needed to explain, tell her where she needed to come, and it was OK.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for the officer when the news is worse. I have this idea–I could be wrong–that if the person involved is dead they send someone in person to the door. There can’t be many assignments much worse than needing to deliver that news.

Or if the injured party is really, really badly hurt. “Yes ma’am, your husband is clinging to life and if he does live he will certainly lose a leg.” How horrible would that be? I can’t imagine receiving that call. Actually, the officer probably would not pass that information along in the phone call, just “He’s alive but he’s hurt badly and you’re probably going to want to get down here.” Then let the doctors deliver the really bad details.

I’m super glad in my case there were no really bad details. Judy is, too. Now I’m just wondering how long it’s going to be before my body stops hurting.

Biker Quote for Today

Driving a car versus riding a motorcycle is like playing a basketball video game versus playing basketball.

I don’t have the energy to do anything active so when I’m not sleeping–which I do a lot of–I have a lot of time to think. Right now I’m thinking I lead a charmed life.

In the past year and a half I’ve had two vehicles totaled, both entirely due to somebody else. Some people might look at that and say their life was cursed but I don’t see it that way.

In the first instance some guy with his face buried in his phone blew through a red light and hit me broadside, demolishing my car. I came out of that totally unscratched. Not the slightest injury.

In this second instance a drunk ran into me head-on, and this time I suffered severe injuries. But nothing that happened to me is anything from which I will not recover. It will take time, and it is painful, but I will recover completely and be as good as new.

I’ve always tended to think of head-on crashes as the worst kind but I no longer think this. That guy hit me head on and my motorcycle took the greatest brunt of the force. It gave its life to save mine. Imagine how different it would be if he had hit me broadside, as the other guy did. For certain my leg would be crushed and I might easily have been crippled for life. That’s if I didn’t lose the leg entirely. I’ve known two people who have lost legs in motorcycle crashes.

And then there’s the vehicles. I really liked my car, and it didn’t have a lot of miles on it so I was planning to drive it for a long time to come. But you know what? I like the car I got to replace it even more. I really, really like my current car. Now, it cost me all the insurance money plus $10,000 cash to get the new one and I’m not thrilled about that, but it’s only money. My health and well-being count more than the money.

With the bike, this was a really special bike. That CB750 was the first bike I ever owned and I have owned it and ridden it for 40 years. I loved that bike. But you know, it was an old bike and old technology. There were a few things I really honestly did not love about the bike. One was removing the seat, which took a wrench, finesse, and about five to ten minutes. Then the reverse to get it back on.

Another was the way it smoked. I thought a couple times I had resolved that issue but I had not. It still smoked like crazy when I started it up and I would stand there embarrassed hoping none of my neighbors was looking out their window at how I was turning all the air in the neighborhood blue.

I intended twice to just spend whatever money it took to fix this problem but when it finally came out that to do so would cost at least $3,500, and probably more, I decided to do what my mechanic had been saying all along: just live with it. And of course, now I’m so glad I did not spend that money.

Unlike with the car, I don’t want to just absorb all this loss. I do want some sort of recompense and with whatever money I can get for it I will buy a new bike and a lot of new, really good (read: really expensive) protective gear.

Of course, through all of this my wife has been there like a rock beside me, and that most of all is why I truly believe I lead a charmed life.

Biker Quote for Today

Graveyards are filled with people who “had the right-of-way!”

I was finally feeling able so I went to the impound lot yesterday to take a look at my Honda CB750 Custom. After Sunday’s crash I knew it would not be pretty.

As expected, the front end was totally mashed and twisted. I couldn’t tell that the frame was bent so with some money it might be rebuilt, I don’t know. The pipes on the left side were mangled.

I figure it’s totaled but if not, the lot has its own way of forcing you to that conclusion. That bike is probably taking up about 14 square feet of a multi-acre lot and for that space they are charging $135 a day. To get it out of impound even now would cost $675. They’re closing for four days for the 4th of July and I assume the cost keeps adding up on those days. That’s got to be some of the most valuable real estate on the planet.

The guys working at the lot were super helpful in removing my bags and the pigtails on the battery for my heated vest and trickle charger. That entailed lifting the tank to get one bag off and removing the seat to get to the battery. Seats didn’t used to just lift right off like they do today. It’s a major pain.

One of the guys asked me if I had a lawyer. I said no, though several of my friends have been telling me I need to. He said he got in a bad motorcycle crash some years ago and the guy he worked with was great. He dialed him up right there and handed me his phone. I’m sure he gets a finder’s fee.

So I talked with him but this was not a very good time to get into any kind of real discussion, so he agreed to call me later. He did and we talked. I told him that if the guy who hit me is some poor schlub who has no insurance and barely has two dimes to rub together that I’m not interested in going after him personally and loading him up with crushing debt for years to come. He agreed that that was not what he wanted either, that they would go after whatever insurance company could be found legitimately obligated, and then work for a settlement without going to court.

My wife is an attorney and she abhors litigation but agreed that if I wanted anything out of this I would need to get a lawyer. I would like to be made whole. That motorcycle, besides being something I loved, had some value. The helmet that saved me from severe injury was not inexpensive and will need to be replaced. And I just put a lot of money into that bike in the last year, getting it into top running order. It was running great.

And yeah, I am hurting. The pain shifts around. Sometimes it’s my thumb with its stitches. Other times my right knee hurts like hell. But pretty much my whole right side hurts. And just today now my whole left hand has turned purple.

So yeah, I guess I’ll be hiring a lawyer. Then I’ll just be able to leave it all in his hands and whatever comes out of it is what it is.

I’d much rather this had never happened.

Biker Quote for Today

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.” — Ernest Hemingway

I mentioned how I have launched my own small campaign against headline writers who describe crashes that involve a motorcycle and another vehicle, even if the driver of the other vehicle was at fault, as a “motorcycle crash.” It seems pretty consistently that my Google Alert for “motorcycle” brings up about two of these offenders nearly every day. So I send about two of my emails every day. I also decided it made sense to send emails expressing approval when headlines are written accurately, in order to let people know someone cares and appreciates their efforts. I don’t often get responses but in some cases I do. I want to share some of those conversations with you here.

Initially I was sending this message: Hi. Just want to ask/raise the point: Why does your headline refer to a “motorcycle crash” when it was in fact a car/motorcycle crash and it was the car driver who was at fault? Aside from being simply inaccurate, this is totally common and gives the misleading impression that motorcycles are dangerous, when in fact the danger is with the car driver. The number one cause of injuries to motorcyclists is cars turning left in front of the bikes.

Predictably, I got some responses from the writer saying an editor wrote the headline, not them.

Dan Sokil, The Reporter: Hi Ken – thanks for the feedback! I actually did not write that headline, all I filed was the text from the scene and my editor entered it into our system, and there has been no official word from police yet about the cause or who was at fault. My editor who wrote that headline is in later this afternoon if you’d like to contact her, but my guess is that was meant to convey that the motorcycle riders were hurt and not the auto ones. Let me know if you’d like to talk to her, and as soon as we have more info we’ll update that story accordingly.

I told Dan I didn’t need to speak with his editor but would appreciate his passing my concerns along.

I also got this from Tara Becker at the Quad-City Times: Hi Ken…thank you for your email. I’m not sure who wrote the headline on the story, but I will pass along your concerns to my editor.

To a third similar response I replied: Perhaps you might make my point to your editor on the basis that it inaccurately presents the accurate story you wrote.

This reporter replied that he did speak with his editor and he thanked me for pointing it out.

Next was Brian Day, with a newspaper group in the Los Angeles area.

Brian: The description of “motorcycle crash” is not intended to assign fault or imply motorcycles are inherently dangerous, it it simply a description of how Mr. Gomez died. It is not an inaccurate description. To say the incident the rider died in a “car crash” or “SUV crash” would be inaccurate and only create confusion, as obviously, Mr. Gomez was riding a motorcycle at the time, he was not driving a car. Saying someone is in a motorcycle crash does not imply, in any way, that they are at fault. Merely that they were riding a motorcycle, which was involved in a crash.

As far as the cause of the crash, police are yet to determine which party is at fault. “The investigation is ongoing,” as my story states. It’s premature at this point to say the woman driving the SUV was at fault in the collision. While the involved SUV is believed to have made a left turn in front of the motorcycle, the cycle was also described by authorities as travelling at high speed.

I certainly understand your feelings, and I hope you find this explanation satisfactory. Take care.

Me: Thanks for responding Brian. I’m particularly interested in your comment about it being a motorcycle accident because he was on one. That’s a little different perspective than I had been using. Still, considering that it was a multi-vehicle accident I think to refer to it only in terms of what the dead guy was on still is less than fully accurate.

Also this from Stephen Frye at the Oakland Press: Thank you for the note. The use of motorcycle in the headline of this story was due to the fact that the driver of the motorcycle was injured and the story was about him being hurt.

Not at all satisfied by those answers, I replied to Stephen: Thanks for the reply but let me ask you this: If the car had hit a toddler on a tricycle would you have referred to it as a tricycle crash? Omitting mention of the car makes it look like the biker just crashed all by himself.

Stephen offered this follow-up response: In that case, I would have mentioned the toddler, which is key to the story. In this story, the key element is the motorcyclist, who was hurt, and the secondary element was that he was from our area, Milford. Rather than say Milford motorcyclist, I broke that up to say a former Milford man was hurt, making the motorcycle part of the crash a secondary part of the headline. Thanks for sharing your input. Many considerations go into the headlines and it is a challenge to convey key details of a story in as brief a way as possible.

I had a good bit of back and forth with DeAnn Smith, Digital Content Editor with KCTV5. First she had this to tell me: We initially were told that it was a single vehicle crash involving a motorcycle. I have no idea what occurs in most crashes but in this case the car driver wasn’t at fault. In this case, the danger was from a motorcycle that didn’t operate properly.

I replied: So you’re never glad to hear someone got hurt or killed but at least it was not the driver at fault. In the vast majority of cases it is.The number one cause of motorcycle fatalities is drivers turning left in front of a biker. The standard explanation: I didn’t see him. Well, maybe you didn’t look, or maybe you were fooling with your cellphone. My main point, however, was that in many, many instances the headline calls it a “motorcycle accident” even if it involved a car and even if the driver, not the rider, was at fault. I’ve initiated my own small campaign to bring this idea to the consciousness of the people writing the headlines–and I know it is not always the reporter who writes the headline. So hopefully I’ve brought it to your attention sufficiently that if you find yourself in that situation in the future you will think about what I’ve said. Thanks.

And she replied: My brother was in two motorcycle crashes. He nearly died in the second one. Both were his fault.

And of special interest was the response I got from Wayne Roustan, at the Sun-Sentinel, when I thanked him for a good headline: Thanks for the feedback. Ironically, later that day, on my way home, on the flyover ramp connecting westbound I-595 to southbound I-75, I was nearly run off the road and into the concrete barrier wall by two guys driving an estimated 80 mph (at least) on motorcycles speeding between the two lanes of traffic that was going about 55-60 mph. The first guy cleared my mirror by inches before I swerved to the right.
It’s about the 10th time this has happened to me. I’ve videotaped a couple on my dashcam, but not this latest one. Back in 2009, I was westbound on I-595 alone at 2 a.m. when a white ninja bike came up on me from behind doing about 100 mph before passing me. Scared the crap out of me. I remember it because the rider was wearing white leathers and a white helmet. The next night one of my videographers brought me videotape of a crash from the same stretch of I-595 going eastbound. A car was rear-ended and burst into flames. The driver survived but the biker didn’t. The video showed debris of a white ninja motorbike and an FHP trooper was carrying a white helmet and white jacket.
I don’t know if it was the same biker who buzzed me the night before but…
So, I’m thinking it goes both ways and there’s plenty of blame to go around.

That pretty well sums up the response I’ve had so far. I intend to continue my campaign. It may make a tiny difference. I’ll pass along anything particularly interesting that comes out of it.

Biker Quote for Today

Squids: Cleaning up the gene pool one wheelie at a time.

Raise your hand if you–like me–are really tired of reading headlines about “motorcycle” crashes that are in fact car/motorcycle crashes that were caused by the driver of the car.

I have Google Alerts set up to bring me articles with the words “motorcycle” and “biker” and every day there are stories about crashes that involve motorcycles, many of them involving serious injury or death. Far, far too often the headline presents the story as if the only vehicle involved was the bike, and that is bound to lead the casual reader to assume that motorcycles are more dangerous than they are. “How come there are so many motorcycle crashes? Those things should be called murdercycles.”

Take today for instance. In just one Google Alert email for “motorcycle” there were these headlines:

• Driver enters plea in fatal motorcycle crash
• Two injured in motorcycle crash on Highway 26
• Two injured in motorcycle accident in Towamencin
• Man dies in Marshfield motorcycle crash
• Man killed and woman critically injured in Lyon Township motorcycle accident
• One person injured in a motorcycle crash

As it turns out, in three of those instances it does appear to have been a motorcycle crash, with the rider at fault. In one case the cause of the accident was as yet unclear when the story was published.

In the other two, however, the first and third in that list, the crashes involved cars and in both cases the drivers were at fault, having made left turns in front of the bikers. You really don’t get any sense of that at all from the headline, do you?

So I’ve decided to try to do something about raising consciousness. In both of these cases I sent the following email to the writers:

Hi. Just want to ask/raise the point: Why does your headline refer to a “motorcycle crash” when it was in fact a car/motorcycle crash and it was the car driver who was at fault? This is totally common and gives the misleading impression that motorcycles are dangerous, when in fact the danger is with the car driver. The number one cause of injuries to motorcyclists is cars turning left in front of the bikes.

I did this just a short while ago and have not received any replies but if I do get something I’ll come back and add in what they have to say. I intend to do this routinely from now on. Maybe you might consider doing the same when you see this. We need to do what we can to get it through people’s heads that far too often it is the driver, not the biker, who is reckless and causes harm. Sure this may be akin to sweeping sand off the beach but we need to at least try to make a tiny dent. Just my opinion.

Biker Quote for Today

Death rides. Ride faster.