"Had to lay it down"???

[dantama]

I decided that this thread turned into something that I did not intend it to be (pats on the back for losing control of your bike and crashing it, becoming smart safety advice) and killed my participation on it by deleting my posts.

After a few day of thinking it over, I decided to post explaining why my posts got deleted.

I understand folks wanting to make board members feel welcome and giving pats on the back, but perhaps thinking of what the intent of the thread is first would be helpful. I started this thread pointing out why getting on the brakes is wiser than dumping your bike.

Somebody got defensive about the time they dumped theirs, and came trying to prove how much more wise it was to dump it, than to scrub off speed. Inexplicably, he found many people willing to agree that it was the wise thing to do. Clearly not what I intended for the thread.

So after a few days of digesting it, I decided to respond. So we are to accept that if somebody walked away from an accident that proves it was the best course of action. Jeezze, people have driven drunk the wrong way down the freeway and gotten in a head on crash and walked away, therefore getting in head on collisions is now the wise thing to do if you walk away?

And the part about sliding tires first into the trailer. So now the safety merits of tires as airbags comes into play. So what, you were still seated on the bike sliding on its side and used the little bit of give from the tires to absorb the energy of the collision?

For everyone to jump on the band wagon and say what a great move that was, as evidenced by walking away defies logic and physics. If staying on the brakes slows you down, anything else can be seen as accelerating by comparison. Say I'm going 40mph; If I'm at one point in time (the end of my braking)I am going 20mph, and instead I dump it on its side and at that same point in time I am now going 30mph rather than 20mph, it could be said that I accelerated 10mph.

Somebody has come to the discussion and in effect said that when faced with an emergency situation, he decided that it made the most sense to accelerate into the object, and he found people who also thought that accelerating into it was the smart move. Or were unwilling to call BS when they heard it for other reasons.

No matter how you look at it, if you hit something faster than you would have by braking, you accelerated. Overall you decelerated, but because you didn't decelerate as much as you could have, you have a net acceleration of 10mph in my example.

Say we have a brick wall and you have a choice to accelerate (by giving it throttle) to 30mph and hit the wall, or can choose to accelerate to only 20mph and hit the wall. Some would choose 30mph? I think it's safe to say we would all choose to only accelerate up to 20mph if given the choice, why would we choose 30mph?

But for some reason we are willing to suspend logic when it's the brakes that are used to get to those same speeds, rather than the throttle. The brick wall doesn't care how you got there, it's going to give you a 30mph whack once you hit.

Motorcycles stop faster staying on their tires and using the brakes than sliding on their sides. Choosing to hit something at a higher speed is not wise (even if you walk away). The destructive forces in a crash quadruple when the speed doubles. Getting rid of speed pays big dividends. Can you Monday morning quarterback other people's crashes? Sure you can. No matter who you are, or why you did it (so my tires will hit first) twice as fast will have four times the impact.

We can all agree to disagree on this, and hopefully enjoy each others company here. I think that accelerating into objects is not wise; others can think that it is. But give some extra thought into whether or not bad advice should be given pats on the back. You never know who might take your advice to heart.

[Top Cat]

Dan, I'm glad you decided to come back and state your motives for deleting you posts. When you delete like that , new people to the thread don't get all the posts and it doesn't make much sense.
A lot of threads on this site take on different meaning than the original poster meant it to be.
He11 some of them get so far off topic , by the time you get to the end you forget what the original post was about. ( speed scroll if necessary)

Of corse its always smarter to slow down. My only point was once you crash ANYTHING can happen. Jlamz very well could have died. My other point was speed doesn't always = impact. You see sport riders on the track loose it all the time and they slide for a while and a lot of times they don't impact anything at all. You are in a very precarious situation any time you are OFF your bike IN motion doesn't matter if you are going fast or slow. ALWAYS SLOW DOWN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE before impact but don't be surpised if you still get hurt or die anyway.

[dui546]

I could not agree more wolfman. Remember that great law..."An object in motion tends to remain in motion until acted upon by an outside force." When riding a motorcycle...OUCH OUCH OUCH -- are normally the sounds heard when that force begins to act. LOL :)

[flightdoc]

for most of us....we are not riding in a controlled situation like a race track. Once that bike is on its side it has a mind of its own.

[jussmatt]

Dan...I just wanted to say as a rider that's been riding for several years now, I know I'm ALWAYS learning...and there is a lot to learn. Some ideas are good, some not. That being said, I consider myself a beginner by all rights and I found your original post very helpful. I've always known that motorcycles have the ability to stop much quicker than cars/trucks, I just never applied your total logic to it. What you said made sense to me and that's one of the many reasons why I wanted to join this forum... to learn! Of course... some other posts in here do hold some merit...but I would also agree it's a kind of "Monday morning quarterback" situation... Long story short... thanks for the thread... I, for one, found it helpful. :)

[flightdoc]

I too want to thank Dan for his obvious insights into this issue. I just wish I could say it as well. Dan is 100% correct ( in my opinon). A biker that thinks laying the bike down is the way to do things is in for a rude awkening. Slowing down as much as possible AND keeping the bike upright is the only choice. I too have heard that old wives tale before. I believed it for a long time myself.
Some of you know I was involved in a serious accident back in May and I braked all the way to impact. If I had layed it down I would have struck the vehicle in front of me at about 40mph and might have slid under the car too. I braked to approximately 15-20mph, struck the car and went down. Mimal damage to the bike and myself.
I love this sight and these subjects.it's the only way we learn.....safely. Nobody should ever take it that you are being "attacked" for your question or opinion. Speak up and be heard. That's what this sight is all about.

[donoller]

any time you walk away unhurt it was the right thing to do .but most times it better to brake and stop before impack then to slide and not know were you will end up.

http://www.dmv.org/how-to-guides/bike-down.php


http://www.msgroup.org/Tip.aspx?Num=226

[socwkbiker]

The benefit of being a Monday morning crash quarterback is that we can take the time to sufficiently analyze the accident and state what would have been the best course of action in the situation. The issue lies in the fact that we have ample time to analyze the actions of others, and then voice our opinions.

As with any situation, there is little time to contemplate and analyze then react. Dan makes a good point that decelerating is preferable to sliding, but in that moment of thought, when jlamz was contemplating his alternatives, he didn't have the benefit of a site full of people willing to give helpful advice. He had a second to make a decision. But we have to analyze jlamz story too. There was a fact that was not included in the original that may help us understand his actions better. There are also facts we don't know.

First, he said he came from a safety class and had rubber surrounding his crash pads. This fact influenced his thinking. He knew that his bike would be a bit more protected.

We don't know how early or late in jlamz turn the truck ran the red light. We don't know how tall or long the trailer was, a fact that influenced the decision to hit front tire first or both tires. We don't know if there was traffic at the intersection.

To sit here and throw out theory, fact, opinion and, possibly, judgement demonstrates two very important things. That jlamz is here, regardless of his technique, to discuss it with us, and we have a lot of knowledgeable people here willing to discuss the point. Both are very good things.

But we must be careful about passing judgement on a fellow rider. We don't know everything about the situation, we were not in jlamz head making his decision, and when the time presents itself, will we be so cold and calculating as to not take what might be considered an unwise action?

WM made some really good points about what can happen in any given situation. We can all say we "would have" reacted in a different manner, but is that necessarily true? When we see a biker sideswiped by a car, we may think, "I would have done.....", but do we really know that for certain?

I agree that laying it down is the exception to the rule, but when you are headed for a wreck and are considering alternatives, you must admit that it will be an alternative you contemplate. Who are we to judge the decision of others when it is their life they are thinking about?

[flightdoc]

Hey jlamz.....you mentioned you were returning from an advanced riding class.....which one?

[dantama]

I agree that laying it down is the exception to the rule, but when you are headed for a wreck and are considering alternatives, you must admit that it will be an alternative you contemplate. Who are we to judge the decision of others when it is their life they are thinking about?

I agreed with the majority of your post. Thanks for posting it.

The part above I disagreed with. I have ridden since I was 14, had a motorcycle endorsement since I was 17, have about 80,000 Miles just on Nomads, and have never considered dumping the bike as I was about to smash into something.

I find it strange that it seems natural enough to some that they would assume that everyone would consider doing it. It seems about as unnatural to me as being in a car and thinking that if you open the door and jump out right before you hit, things will go better.

Then again I've heard adults that don't understand physics and still think that jumping out of an airplane right before it hits the ground will end up in a soft landing.

I was in a very bad motorcycle wreck 17 years ago when I was 25. I car turned left in front of me on a green light. I braked the whole way right into their door. Didn't even consider dumping it. That would be 2 crashes rather than one.

Other times I have braked and ended up missing, but in the heat of the moment, and with past experience to validate it, I don't even consider laying it down to be an option.

Decapitation would be an exception. Say I'm about to run into the side of a piece of farm machinery that has parts that look like they are going to lop my head right off, then I might consider it, otherwise no. It just doesn't make sense.

As far as the who are we to judge part. How will this dangerous, unwise, myth get dispel ed if everybody is afraid to say that it's silly? A whole new bunch of riders are going to be convinced that laying it down and accelerating into objects is the smart move, if nobody says otherwise.

On on that same subject, it's not like I went to some body's crash story and jumped in judging their reaction when they were just looking to share a difficult thing with the rest of the group. This was a thread about motorcycle safety where one person took exception to the safety advice and jumped in to say that laying it down is the wise thing to do.

He can have his opinion, and it's obvious that I'm not going to be influencing him otherwise. But as far as judging goes, I didn't go to his thread to bash his technique, it was quite the opposite.

Nico, your links were spot on. They help make it not just my opinion to those still not convinced.

[burkazoid]

This has been a very interesting thread to read. I think we can all agree that in spite of any "best practices" or "recommended steps", how we will react when THAT time comes is completely subjective. The handful of times over the last two years I've missed becoming roadkill while on my Nomad I am at least thankful that my mind was pretty clear at the time, and the appropriate action was obvious to me (hit the brakes hard a couple of times, break right a couple of other times). At least I didn't lock up in the situation.

Dan made a what I think is a very appropriate comment with "Then again I've heard adults that don't understand physics and still think that jumping out of an airplane right before it hits the ground will end up in a soft landing."

This embodies my greatest fear when getting into a potentially bad situation. I know for a fact that I'm not going to be the one to cause the bad situation, but rather, it will be the ignorant cage driver. I am fairly sure I will make a appropriately correct choice on my end, but I can't anticipate what they are going to do. They're dumb enough to jet into my lane only to see me at the last minute, and I break right; who's to say they won't break in the same direction? Ignorance. No one, except riders, know the bike. To the cage driver the bike looks small, lightweight, and never appears to be going as fast as it is simply because of it's smaller profile from their perspective.

It's like the fly in the traveling car scenario. The car is traveling at 55mph. The fly flies from the rear of the car to the front of the car. From the perspective of a passenger in the car, the fly is moving at 1mph. From the perspective of a person standing on the side of the road as the car passes the fly is moving at 56mph. Who's right? Both. And neither. It depends on the perspective.

While I'd prefer to just hit the brakes hard and hope for the best, I have no qualms whatsoever about deciding to drop the Nomad like a bad habit if it means I walk away, even if with a limp.

[socwkbiker]

Dan, you make very valid points. My point to that last part is to not judge the person by their decision because that was their choice. It's an idea called self-determination by social workers. Give people information, provide them with facts and empirical evidence of what works best, but we have to let them do what they will.

As you and others have said, nowhere in the MSF course is laying the bike down advocated. So it is important to continue teaching proper techniques, watching traffic and being self-aware at all times. The unfortunate thing is riders know that laying the bike down is an option and, when their time comes, they will have to make the appropriate decision for them. If they walk away, even with a limp, they walk away, hopefully realizing that preventative practices would have been preferrable. Unfortunately, they may think that laying the bike down is the best way to handle a situation. Either way, it must be their choice.

It's through experienced riders such as yourself and the others on this site that new riders receive information and benefit from your experience. You teach them that laying the bike down should never be a first choice nor, hopefully, the last choice. You teach them proper techniques, talk about ways to avoid accidents or give examples like you and Nico provided to demonstrate good riding techniques.

Keep up the good work Dan. Your experience and knowledge are a true benefit to all of us.

[beezer]

so, are we supposed to dump it or not ???