Crazy young drivers

[Fire-medic]

Man, there' s a reason I have cut back my seat time on two wheels! The drivers are for s___! i was on my way home from the hospital w/my father-in-law this afternoon, just discharged after a bout of G.I. bleeding, and coming through Miami FL there was a pretty-good two-car accident, w/possibly a third, I didn't want to rubberneck and 'join the scrum,' so I kept going. Everyone was ambulatory, no one on the ground, no bloodied people so I paid-attention to traffic and passed-by.

Leaving Miami and entering Coral Gables, just after one of the largest foreign dealerships in the USA (Porsche, AUDI, Ferrari, Maserati) I came upon two SUV's and it appeared the one following must have not been paying attention, because she completely flattened her front bodywork up to the radiator. The airbags deployed. She hit an SUV, it looked like a KIA Sorento. One female was wailing-away and leaving the immediate scene of the wreck, which is what I saw as I came upon the accident.

No fire-rescue or P.D. yet at either scene when I passed them. I would have stopped if it looked like someone was trapped, or if someone was ejected, or bleeding profusely, but at neither did I see such casualties. Besides, "charity begins at home," and I was taking my just-discharged father-in-law home.

Both scenes had what appeared to be young females involved, I do not know who was driving, but at the second one, it was all young females, I saw no males. Crazy drivers, not paying attention, driving too-fast, and tailgating is what I believe occurred, and I haven't even mentioned the cellphone distraction factor.

People like those accident-causers are why I have spent less time behind the handlebars, at-least in-part.

 

[texmax]

I here ya. I live about 100 yards from a highway with an intersection. Last summer I was grilling on my back porch and heard a Harley rev real fast then heard the BANG! Went to see what was up..... can you guess?..... chick on a cell phone pulls out in front of the guy rolling down the highway at 65mph. Knocked his helmet off, totaled the bike and her car. He was airlifted out and I later learned he died from his injuries. This will never make me sell my Max, but as I get older I find myself riding less and sticking more to the backroads. Also been looking real hard at dualsports and doing more backwoods riding.

 

[PDWeyand]

I try to stay to secondary streets and try to stay super alert to any cage that is moving in a way that might intersect with my path from any direction. I know that one day that someone will slip in on me and might have contact. But I will not let fear of a wreck stop me from riding. I am helping a friend of mine to remember how to riding again and over come his fear by letting him ride my Honda. He has been off a bike for almost 40 years, he just turned 60 and wanted to ride again. So we took out today for 50 mile ride. I tired to limit his ride to two lane roads and four lanes when we had no choice and steered away from all highways. It is a PITA to watch out for yourself and double that when you have a rider that is like new and starting over.

 

[maxrom]

i`m also disapointed of the poor quality of the drivers who`s shairing roads

But cars had become a muti-media full distraction devices
How could diving could be your first state of attention when; GPS, phone, tweter, car screen control and FUCK`N wath else is taking drivers OUT OF THE ROAD

The time is arived to take the head of car builders and knok it on the brick wall as well as governement that let them built/sell anything, as long as it have wheels.

Walkers, juggers, cyclist and bikers are the first victims

 

[DakRatFink]

I here ya. I live about 100 yards from a highway with an intersection. Last summer I was grilling on my back porch and heard a Harley rev real fast then heard the BANG! Went to see what was up..... can you guess?..... chick on a cell phone pulls out in front of the guy rolling down the highway at 65mph. Knocked his helmet off, totaled the bike and her car. He was airlifted out and I later learned he died from his injuries. This will never make me sell my Max, but as I get older I find myself riding less and sticking more to the backroads. Also been looking real hard at dualsports and doing more backwoods riding.

About 3 years ago a 16 yr old girl did the same thing to me in my single cab Mazda pickup. Before I crossed that intersection, I scanned it and didn't see anyone turning, then literally last second, she turned left into oncoming traffic. Both my truck and her Momma's brand new '09 Accord were totalled. Lucky for her the impact spun her car and absorbed most of the energy. She walked away without a scratch. For me the impact was head on. I was neck boarded away with a broken knee cap, but I could have been a lot worse.
I always look for people lingering in the turn lane when I cross intersections now.

 

[Dr.n2o]

Not just the young ones, everybody is absolutely f*****g nuts. Big big hurry to go NOWHERE. Driving is a privilige not a right.

 

[Fire-medic]

Accident reviews often cite intersections as places 'most dangerous.' The archetype for bike accidents is the left-turning car in an intersection, not-noticing the bike crossing the intersection. It happened to me coming home from the gym after a day of work on fire-rescue. A motorist behind me in traffic saw me highside as I tried to aviod the female (not a teenager) who turned left in-front of me but stopped across my lane because she figured she wouldn't be able to 'beat' the 3 lanes of cars to my right as we approached the intersection. The witness said they stopped because they figured they were a witness to a traffic fatality when I did a Superman flying stunt head first imto the passenger 'A' pillar, shattering the windshield, denting the pillar, and then falling to the pavement. I don't recall the impact but I do recall being on my feet afterwards screaming at the driver. Fire/rescue backboarded me to the hospital two blocks away, where I previously had taught EMS-ACLS & PALS classes. The driver who decided to be a witness came to the hospital and made sure the staff had their contact info, asking me to contact them. This Good Samaritan wanted to be sure the auto driver was found at-fault. I was out of work for two & 1/2 mo. w/broken ribs & a concussion. My bike, a Kawi four, lived after repairs, to ride again. I sold it to my brother.

I think that's great that 'PDWeyand' Is helping another rider return to the streets and is doing it the right way, by giving him time to re-acquaint himself w/bike dynamics on rural & less-heavily-travelled surface streets. I suggest the MSF "Experienced Riders Course" too, since he already has riding time. The countersteering and "both-brakes" techniques they teach can help restore rusty skills or teach more effective use of them.

Caution and defensive driving need to be practiced every time you swing a leg-over. I also believe in the "Blessed Mother of Holy Acceleration," I think Dan Ackroyd called it, while piloting the Bluesmobile. Sometimes the best way to ride is to get-out of harm's way.

The one thing that really aggravates me is when a driver decides to just move-over on you, because after-all, "they have a car, and that's just a motorcycle," causing you to brake hard to avoid being sideswiped. Yesterday I was on I 95 in Ft. Lauderdale, merged onto I 595, and the pod of traffic I was in had a driver who was constantly changing lanes, never signalling, cutting-off multiple drivers, just generally being a poor operator. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see him next to me in traffic do something in-character given my observations. I was exiting, two lanes going off the roadway, and he was next to me, behind another car whom he was tailgating. So it wasn't a question of missing the turnoff/exit, he was in the exit lane queue, to my left, in his lane. I guess he was in a real-hurry. Suddenly he just began occupying my lane, and as the roadway is in construction, I had a solid concrete 3' ht. barricade where the shoulder would be, so there was no place to move. I hit the horn, by now he's about < 2' from my flank, he keeps coming. I was in a Camry, I didn't have anyone tailgating me so I was able to nail the brakes and of-course he slipped right-in where I was. The important thing is I wasn't in an accident, but clearly the driver was aggressive-enough to deliberately cause one. With all the crazy drivers out there, you have to be careful, and constantly be alert for encroachments on your 'envelope' of space on all four sides.

On a bike, when I approach an intersection, if I am in the left lane, I gradually slow-down and make sure the driver behind me is not tailgating me so I can stop if I need to if someone turns left in-front of me, and will let one of the other cars heading the same way in traffic 'lead the way,' being first to cross the intersection, w/me a bit behind them in my lane. If I have to, from observing the behavior of the vehicle in the oncoming left-turn lane, I may slow way-down, being alert for the vehicle behind me, to ensure the left-turn vehicle doesn't "go fo it," and t-bone me.

Bottom line, I just don't enjoy the urban grind as-much. I used to ride w/a t-shirt, but not shorts. No more! A mesh jacket w/CE armor at a minimum!

 

[PDWeyand]

The group I ride with here locally had a meet and greet yesterday and one of the topics that came was the "Experienced Riders Course", we are going to schedule this course for all our members. And of course my friend will be dragged to it also. I know that a good rider can become used to habits and bad riding styles and do not realize that they have fallen pray to this. We also have a dress code for riding in the group also, no shorts or flipflops but as far what you wear from there is to each person, but eye wear with and or helmets are a must. I personally have a hard time finding gear that fits my size, I will never be getting in body in a one piece race suit lol. My suit jacket is a 64 long and riding jackets are hard to find.

 

[Redbone]

I live in a rural area so I don't deal with the volume of traffic that some of ya'll do, but they are still brain dead drivers here too! It seems most of our lane weavers, head down drivers that the phones are the biggest culprit.

 

[Lew L]

I always avoid the high school parking lot and the areas near by when the kids are comming and going. It's bad. Worse with phones and texting( even though it's a ticketable offense).
But it's not just the kids.
Lew

 

[Bill Seward]

Somebody tell me why a car needs a hard drive....... The LAST thing I need is 60GB of space for distractions while I'm driving..

 

[Fire-medic]

I was following a kid on an R6 home on I-95 today in-front of Ft. Lauderdale FL International Airport. It was dark. The only light he had was from a license plate light. I saw no taillight or brakelight. He did have some twinkie Tinkerbelle directional signals. I was close-enough to see that if he had a taillight, it wasn't visible to me as he passed me and then braked for traffic. That's just asking to be rear-ended. Maybe he had some minimalist 'eyebrow' light under the curve of his rear fender, but it sure wasn't reporting for duty.

You have to check your lighting before you go onto the road at night. (or any time really)

 

[PDWeyand]

Somebody tell me why a car needs a hard drive....... The LAST thing I need is 60GB of space for distractions while I'm driving..

The new models will have the 'CLOUD' system so the will have much more than that. Soon there will be so much in the dash of a cage that you will not be able to drive it trying to figurer it out.

 

[RaWarrior]

The new models will have the 'CLOUD' system so the will have much more than that. Soon there will be so much in the dash of a cage that you will not be able to drive it trying to figurer it out.

This is going to be the worst thing to happen to road safety since the Pinto.

The OEMs say the point of all this hands free technology is to keep your hands on the wheel and enable you to supposedly "stay focused" while browsing through your ipod library, responding to a text message, and LOLing at something on facebook.

It'd been tested, and Mythbusters proved it, that you can be quite distracted while having both hands free to drive. You're mentally pre-occupied with a phone conversation, thinking of something witty to post to whatever social media you're obsessed with, or thinking what song you want to listen to.

The danger comes from the mental distraction, not the physical. And cars are only getting more loaded up with this shit.

Sure, it's illegal to talk and drive, and in a lot of states text-and-drive now also. But talk about an un-enforcable law. I'm fairly sure at least in NY they can't actually pull you over for this, only ticket it if you were hauled over for something else, and they happened to see it also. And even if all that happens, you get a whopper of a $50 fine.


IME the 16-25 or so female crowd, and 25-40 "young professional" crowd seem to be the worst offenders. One's hopelessly addicted to their social network updates, and the other is way too self-important feeling to give a damn.

 

[gamorg02]

I'm fairly sure at least in NY they can't actually pull you over for this, only ticket it if you were hauled over for something else, and they happened to see it also. And even if all that happens, you get a whopper of a $50 fine.

altho its a moot point now, i'd be interested in this law. in 2006 i got pulled over for being on my phone and not wearing my seatbelt. i wasn't on my phone and had my seatbelt on. got a ticket for both. it was bullshit but whatd ya gonna do.

it was in New York Mills, NY. be careful in that town. i could count 10+ people i know who got tickets for going 31-35 mph in that town (speed limit is 30)

 

[RaWarrior]

I got nabbed for that a few summers ago in my truck. It's a 2 mile drive through town, never topping 30mph, and I tend to forget the seatbelt. He saw me almost immediately after leaving work, but followed me home, pulled in behind me, and then approached me and gave me a ticket. Didn't put his cherries n berries on or actually pull me over.

Makes me wonder if I had kept going for a while he would have eventually pulled me over, or gotten bored of waiting for me to stop on my own. Maybe at the time they couldn't actually pull you over for a seatbelt? I dunno.

I got pulled over on a VT highway for doing 71 in a 65. Then again, the fee was put right on the ticket, and you could pay it online so as far as tickets go it was fairly painless. Not like in NY they won't tell you, have to mail in a plea, then either wait for a court date months away, or wait a few weeks for your ticket to arrive and put you into shock that a red light ticket just cost you almost $400.

Little "municipalities" always seem to be ticket-traps. When we used to go visit grandma in Muncy PA there'd be state cops posted without fail about 100 yards past the speed limit signs lowering it from a 55 to a 25. If you weren't already under the limit when you passed the sign, you got hit up. I want to say my boss got a ticket in Vergennes VT for 33 in a 30 also.