Passes & Canyons Blog

I am struck by the number of bikers being killed. If you search the web, as I do, for motorcycle-related news items, the reports of biker deaths are endless.

On most days there are several. Of course, today, when I planned to copy in the headlines here to make my point, there are none. Today is not a typical day.

I try not to take it out of proportion. If you did a similar search for automobile-related stories I’m sure you would be buried in accident reports. And being more conscious of these fatalities does not make me feel more at risk, as it might some people. If anything, I feel perhaps less at risk because my awareness keeps me vigilant.

Nevertheless, the daily barrage can’t help but make me think. Why are these people dying? What mistakes are they making? What mistakes are other motorists making? How can these deaths be prevented? What can I learn from this?

I’m not the only one asking these questions. A new motorcycle accident study began recently that promises to update and expand on the understanding derived from the Hurt study of 30 years ago.

In a recent issue of American Motorcyclist magazine there were a couple letters from readers arguing that another study was a waste because thanks to the Hurt study we already know the reasons for the crashes. The AMA responded saying “. . . the traffic environment has changed dramatically in the 30 years since the data were collected . . . a new study of U.S. motorcycle crashes can have far-reaching effects on how we teach motorcyclists and drivers, and shed new light on exactly how to reduce the number of crashes.”

But it will be several years before this new study yields its wisdom, so in the meantime we ought to at least make use of what we know already. And that includes these three points:

• Untrained riders have more accidents
• New, inexperienced riders have more accidents
• Riders who have been drinking have more accidents

Now, there’s only one remedy for being a new rider, and that’s to get out there and ride and gain experience. The other two are simple–get some training and don’t mix booze and bikes.

I’m no pollyanna, I know people will have a beer at a stop on the ride. I’ve done that myself. But don’t have four. We all need to remember that “Live to ride, ride to live” presupposes one crucial point: You’ve got to stay alive or you can’t do either.

Biker Quote for Today

Don’t argue with an 18-wheeler.

What’s the strangest thing you ever hit, or almost hit, while riding your bike? I love this thread on the Adventure Riders forum, and I’m here today with another batch of tales. Read and cringe.

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my garage door – when my ex partner put it down on me as i rode through it…

was really happy that day

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A buzzard
A Cow
A dead brown christmas tree (in August)

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I was hauling a friend on the back to get his bike and hit a concrete block in the middle of the road at about 70 mph. Shoulda seen it and all that but things happen fast. This was back in the sixties and we were not wearing helmets. The bike did a sorta flip thing and when we hit the road I landed on top of him. Here we were sliding down route 92 out of tampa at probably 65 or so and he keep yelling “get off get off.” I swear I tried my best to roll off of him but we end up getting into the median first and doing some ground gymnastics before coming to a stop.Cars stopped and we both got up and picked up the bike. Straightened the forks a little, got back on the bike and went to the hospital. He didn’t want to go but, man, he really had to. When they got done with him he looked like a mummy but other than a ton of pavement rash was okay. Bad day but he still kids me about wanting to ride him out to keep from sliding on the road myself.

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I had a close encounter with a hawk. I was riding down I-70 towards the lake of the Ozarks from St. Louis on my brand new R1100 and a hawk took flight from the median.

Damn thing hit my windshield dead center, broke through it, hit me square in the center if my helmet and knocked me onto the highway doing 70 mph. I was AGATT and glad of it. First thing that hit was my head on the pavement and I rolled I don’t know how many times before ending flat on my back and sliding off the highway.

Good thing too, an 18 wheeler ran over the bike shortly after I cleared it.

I was only bruised and sore for a month, nothing broke, nothing cut.

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Birds, yeah, birds.
Two bird stories:
1) Had a bird hit me in the chest one time and I just about dumped the bike getting off the road gasping for air. Not good.
2) Following a friend, Richard, and his wife, Miriam, up rt192 here in Pa. They were on their sidecar rig. I saw a big bird up ahead coming in from the right and darned if it didn’t hit them. Man, feathers instantly all over the place. Richard weaved back and forth a little and then pulled off the right side of the road. He jumped off the rig and ran to the sidecar. I pulled over thinking maybe his wife Miriam was hurt, got off and ran up to the rig. To my surprise Richard was laughing pretty hard and so was she. Then Miriam held up a tube of lipstick with feathers all over it. She was just fixing to put on some lipstick when the bird hit and like I said feathers were all over the place. No damage except to the bird….kinda goofy.

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A motorboat.
Night on I95 in VA. Came over a rise and there it was. Across both lanes.
How do you say SWERVE?
Missed it(!) somehow.
A couple hundred yards ahead is a car with an empty boat trailer in tow parked on the shoulder and two guys standing there apparently trying to figure out what to do next.

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A few nights ago I was riding around midtown in Manhattan. Bitterly cold, below freezing, Friday night, me with under 300 miles on my bike…perfect night for ride! Anyway, I made a left onto a side street from 5th avenue…I had the green light but noticed that there were about 3 cars in front of me, most of them honking, some yelling in unrecognizable accents…so I stood up to see what the hell was going on. Turns out some yahoo in an escalade thought it might be a good idea to stop in the middle of the street, with a green light, and just go ahead and start pissing. So he uh, zips up, and gets back in his blinged out land monster just before the light turned red. A few cars managed to get through, but I missed the light, and as I was waiting for the next one I look down and low and behold I am standing in some beefed out Jersey boy’s pee.

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I hit everything from bugs to dump trucks. I’m glad I was young when I T-boned an LTD and ran into the rear of a dumptruck.

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I was on a KLX 650 w/ my brother on a tiger in Dinosaur Nat’l Park, Yampa River bench road. an eagle hears us coming and lifts off but isn’t gaining enough elevation so it drops the HUGE rabbit that it was feasting on from about 15 feet into the air right (almost) into my windshield. A dead HUGE rabbit falling from the sky! My little bro laughed and laughed. I could see the look in the Golden Eagle’s eye!

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OK. Enough fun for now. You’ll find the other flying object posts here:
Motorcycles and Flying Objects
More Flying Object Tales
Latest Tales of Flying Object Encounters

Biker Quote for Today

Who cares? I’m riding…….

Let’s start with two statements that I think we can all agree on:

1. Helmets would not be an issue if motorcycles did not get in crashes.

2. It is crashes, not the failure to wear a helmet, that kills motorcyclists.

Speaking Friday at the Motorcycle Riders Foundation‘s Meeting of the Minds here in Denver, “Doc Ski” Wasileski, Ph.D., addressed the issue of rider safety in a talk titled “A Failed Safety Paradigm.” And the point Doc Ski made can be summed up as such: “If you get in a bad enough crash, you’re gonna die. Crashes kill bikers. Crash prevention saves lives.”

Doc Ski argued that ever since the Hurt Report, “Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures,” the government agencies involved in transportation safety have followed the approach of working for crash mitigation. That is, safer crashes. In cars that means seat belts and air bags and other clearly effective means. When it comes to motorcycles, however, the idea of safer crashes does not work as well. As Doc Ski said, you will die if you get in a bad enough accident, regardless of whether you’re wearing a helmet.

Thus the failed paradigm. Doc Ski, who serves as the MRF’s resident statistician, quoted his own studies that show no statistical difference in fatality rates between states with mandatory helmet laws and states with no helmet laws. And he echoed the MRF’s position that rider training, motorist share-the-road training, and impaired riding programs are what lower fatality rates, not stricter protective requirements and vehicle design modifications.

Nevertheless, as many speakers stated repeatedly over the course of the conference, stricter regulation is coming. The form that that regulation takes will be determined at least in part by how effectively the motorcycling community’s voice is heard. One purpose of the Meeting of the Minds is to ensure that that voice is heard, and effectively.

Issues the MRF is expecting to address in the near future include mandatory rider education, graduated licensing, and restricted access for motorcycles on some roadways.

Be grateful that someone is out there fighting for your rights. Consider joining them in the effort. You’ve got nothing to lose but your rights.

Biker Quote for Today

We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man. — Peter Fonda, The Wild Angels, 1966

If you ride with buddies — and who doesn’t? — I cannot over-stress the importance of making sure that everyone understands the principles your group will follow on rides.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. My buddies John and Bill and I have been riding together for nearly 20 years. We take week-long summer trips and go on various other rides over the year. We have had the good fortune not to have had any accidents along the way. Barely. That’s the issue.

We very nearly did have a serious accident on one of our early rides. I was in the lead, with Bill behind me, and John behind him. We were coming up a road that was snaking up a mountainside and I saw ahead of us a pull-out on the left with a terrific view of the valley below us. I slowed down as I considered stopping, and just as I decided that I would pull over Bill went shooting past me on my left. If I had made my decision to pull over half a second sooner he would have T-boned me and who knows how bad the injuries might have been.

So essentially, what I’m saying is that the most serious danger we have ever encountered was not at the hands of some inattentive driver, but at our own hands. There’s no excuse for that.

Every group needs to have signs and signals, and use them. The first and most obvious one is to signal your turns and look before turning. That applies to anyone on the road and should be so obvious as to not need mentioning, but I didn’t do either that day.

Other good things to have agreed-on signals for are gravel or other obstacles on the road, and reminding someone to turn off their turn signal. Indicating you want to make a stop is another obvious one.

What about the less obvious? For example, when it was just the three of us we all understood that when passing through a town we would stay bunched close so that everyone would make it through any traffic lights. It was up to the leader to judge before going through whether the others would have time to make it. Now that we ride with a bigger group I don’t think we’ve had this discussion with the other guys. Consequently, we end up getting all disjointed and needing to pull over and wait. Sometimes, with a larger group, that’s just inevitable. But not always. It’s guaranteed, though, if the last guy is half a block behind the next guy. Stay close.

It should be understood, too, that when making a turn at a crossroads, you wait until you’re sure the guy behind you has seen which way you’re going.

What else? I’m sure there are more things to discuss and agree on. The main thing is to raise the subject and then make sure everyone is on the same page. It will make your rides safer and help avoid stupid delays and hassles. Do it!

Biker Quote for Today

Don’t lead the pack if you don’t know where you’re going.

I need to give credit to Big Cab Daddy for this, I ran across it on his blog, Returning Motorcyclist.

What would you think of a little device that sticks to the top of your helmet and, powered by the wind, gives off a flashing light to make you more visible to other drivers?

That’s exactly what the HJC Wind Light is. What the sales blurb says is:

Simply affix the wind light to your helmet using the adhesive tape provided and let the wind do the rest? As you ride, the wind goes through the front of the intake grill causing the internal turbine to power 8 bright LED lights. Active at speeds as low as 25mph. Wind powered, no batteries required!

The thing costs about $30. Here’s a picture:

I’d be really interested to hear from anyone who has had a chance to try this thing out. Maybe I’ll have to be the one to do that. It looks like it could be a pretty good gadget.

I mentioned before that I emailed Sen. Ken Gordon to ask about a news report where an ABATE rep said they expect to see a new helmet bill next legislative session. Now I have the response. Ken Gordon said:

The answer is no. I am not planning to do that and I have talked to the people that were involved with this year’s bill and they aren’t either. The rumor is probably the paranoid rumination of someone who imagines something that they don’t like and then assumes that it will happen.

That’s good. Thanks Ken for not getting carried away.

I sent an email to Ken Gordon, my state senator, today. I want to know if he really is planning to introduce a helmet law bill to require adults to wear them. He succeeded this past session in passing a law requiring minors to do so. Here’s the text of my message to him:

Ken–
Hello. I am one of your constituents and I ride motorcycles. I have a question for you.

In an article on July 5 in the Rocky Mountain News about the new helmet law for minors, they quoted Terry Howard of ABATE saying “It’s been rumored that they are going to try and introduce a helmet bill for adults next session. . . . (We fully expect our opponents) to introduce an adult helmet law.”

My question: Is this true? Are you planning to introduce a more comprehensive law? I would very much appreciate a direct answer. I don’t want to assume that Terry Howard is right, I would rather hear directly from you about it.

I’ll tell you right now that I would oppose any such law. I wear my helmet at times when I feel it is wise and at other times I do not. I prefer to be the judge of this.

To your argument that bikers hurt while not wearing helmets add to health costs for all I would simply respond, people who eat poorly and eat junk and become overweight incur health costs that drive up the costs for the rest of us. Do you plan to outlaw eating junk food? I mean, seriously: what is the difference? There are a lot more people eating that second donut and getting fat than there are bikers getting hurt not wearing helmets. The health costs are much higher.

I will really, truly appreciate hearing from you on this issue. Thanks.

So now let’s see how he responds. I’ll be sure to post it here. Stay tuned.

Contrary to what I said here before, it appears that the Colorado Legislature did indeed pass a helmet law this past session. If you are under 18 you are required to wear a helmet, either as a rider or passenger.

I have a bit of a beef with the Rocky Mountain News on this, because I read the newspaper every single day and they had stories about this as it was under consideration, but I never saw anything about it passing. So after awhile I assumed that like so many bills that get introduced, this one had just died a quiet death. Wrong.

Now, I’m not going to get all upset about this particular law. As ABATE’s Terry Howard said, because it was about kids, it was hard to oppose. The problem, as Howard also says, is what comes next. According to the story in the Rocky, Howard and ABATE fully expect Sen. Ken Gordon, this bill’s sponsor, to come back with a helmet bill for adults.

I’m sorry to say that Ken Gordon is my senator. I didn’t vote for him–and I did vote, for the Libertarian candidate–but Gordon is my senator. I’ve never had any real negative feelings toward Gordon but that could change if he tries this. I developed a strong animosity toward then-Rep. Bill Owens, back when the now-former Colorado governor was a state rep and introduced helmet bills in every session. But Owens finally gave up. What’s it going to take for Gordon to give up?

Of course, this may be a matter of jumping the gun. He may have no such intentions. Still, I intend to contact Ken Gordon and ask him flat out if that is his intent. And I will make it clear that if he tries it he will have a fight on his hands. It won’t be so easy next time.

Gordon says it’s all about the health of the people and lowering medical costs for us all. Stop right there Ken! Would it not be a safe statement that overweight people incur much higher health care costs–running costs up for us all–than non-overweight people? Overweight people such as, say, Sen. Ken Gordon? Let’s pass a law against eating junk food, or gaining too much weight, or some other measure to stop people from endangering themselves in this manner. It’s only fair!