Wiped out overtaking

[sapaul]

This almost happened to me but I had read the story first, slowed down and sure enough!!

But then he turned...

The Build Up
The day dawned a beautiful morning, crisp and blue and we all eagerly looked forward to our 130km early start ride from Die Eiland to the Palabora Mine to visit the open pit and other facilities there. Ritha and I, together with Peter & Ursula and Neil were on the last but one day of a funtastic Magoebaskloof Spring Flower Trip. We had seen so much there, visited so many interesting places and been well treated by an unusually bike-aware vehicle-community; this visit was to add one more highlight to the extra-long weekend.

We rode with all our usual protective gear (helmets - Baehr - gloves, armoured and brand new airflow jackets from Lookwell and boots) - except that we both chose on that day to wear our Levi''s and not our armoured riding pants. The road from Die Eiland is signposted at 120kph and serves mostly a citrus farming community along its length - orange blossom aroma was strong in the air and it was a truly great day to be out on the bike together with the other much more important love of my life! Several farm road entrances, so few of which are signposted or road-marked with barrier lines, characterise the road. Road marking, if present, was in generally a poorly visible state. Even the rural business community around the Rubbervale intersection does not have a speed restriction to it on the approaches to a 4-way Stop Street controlling it. The road surface was fair to good for the most part with many repairs having been successfully made but making for a patchwork colouration in sections. Traffic was relatively light even though it was a working day within that "long" weekend.

We traveled in a 4-bike group and I checked the spacing several times along the way as I usually do. Ursula was generally some 3 seconds back from us in the lead, with Peter and Neil similarly spaced behind that. Our ''pace'' was 130-135 indicated (122 - 127 on the GPS) and my GPS recorded an instantaneous maximum of only 134kph in a prior passing manouevre between the start of the trip up to the Bosveld Citrus Farm - a distance of some 34km from Die Eiland (and 4km short of the left turn to Gravelotte). We all had refueled at Die Eiland and were safely within our timing schedule for the trip having left at 0713.

The Approach
A rig towing a luggage trailer loomed ahead of us going west down a long straight of 3.7km. There were two crests in this straight, so following vehicles (our bikes all with lights on - but not on main beam) would have appeared at least 3 times in his mirror in our approach. The rigs'' speed was of the order of 80 to 100kph so we were catching up over a period of around 2 minutes from the time we should have first been observed. This was angling to be another quite straightforward passing manouevre with clear sight distance of at least another 500 metres beyond what I estimated to be the latest passing point up ahead and the road was clear of traffic. That a turn-off right was looming was unclear to me at the decision point to go. At 3-400m a tree on the right hand side somewhat masked this fact and once committed to the right hand side of the road the farm roads entering from the left were also masked in the run-up.

The Impact
At about 300m back I rolled off the throttle (mostly my habit, to take the edge off the closing speed in a passing manouevre) and took a pre-commitment check for any signals from the Venture up ahead. Mirror and shoulder check complete signaled right, traversing to the right of a minor centre-of-road surface imperfection at 250m and focused again for any sign of a change in status from the rig. There were none and my final check just before reaching the rear of the rig for movement of the driver''s head (a sometimes useful indication of a potential turning manouevre especially with no signals given) also yielded an all clear. There were passengers in the Venture but given the nature of the rig, the long weekend and coming from Die Eiland, the term TAXI did not register in my mind. Ritha was enjoying the sights of the orchard in flower to our right hand side.

We were passing the rear door when my wide-angle view of its wheels relative to the (dotted) white line showed that the rig had drifted in its lane to the right. I performed what turned out to be a perfect lane-change at speed (thanks for the Training, Dirk!) that put us at the right hand edge of the tar to maintain what safe distance we had but when we were at the driver''s door HE TURNED.

The bike took the impact with a sickening crunch on the left hand side; I had somehow braced for Ritha''s impact on my back and she catapulted forwards off the seat past my right shoulder. The impact and my left handle bar pull in that instant put the bike down to the right, intentionally and thankfully away from where she had gone. I remember having a grip on this wild bronco until terra firma where I must have landed on my back first but overturned and came to a dusty and visor-clattering stop, face down, flat and forwards. The bike was to the right between myself and Ritha, 31 paces from impact point, the latter now grubbily marked by a ''splotch'' of oil on the edge of the tar.

Ritha must have first landed on her knees (after what must have been a somersault when one''s mind blacks out) and been turned because she had slid feet first - her jacket riding up and exposing her midriff to the gravel. We were extremely fortunate that the verge and our landing ground were fairly clean grass and gravel with only a few large stones (one of which I must have landed on first from the pain in my shoulder and another which wedged itself between the frame and the drive shaft, bending the latter and cracking the gearbox housing). The left hand cylinder head was completely topped off around the mid-valve region and I truly believe that were it not for the ''Boxer'' format our legs would have been pulverised in the impact. Our beautiful bike lay there quite destroyed, wafting an oily smokiness with contents of the cubby and the top-box strewn along the path and the beautiful love of my life was lying on the ground in quite some pain but it was the gentle flow of tears that got to me first. The Venture meanwhile, had turned left despite a wrecked front right wheel, mudguard and bull-bars and parked on the left hand side of the road opposite us with the flicker now switched on and blinking forlornly in the chaos - the sod! The first thing I made sure of when I was able to ask was whether I had in fact passed with his flickers going but everyone has confirmed there were no signals.

The Miracle
That we were not more seriously injured than receiving some severe cuts and bruises and a large gravel-burn is the most amazing part of the whole incident. Perhaps we were saved to let you have this report and our learning points and in so doing continue to make our world a better place. This is what I believe our Maker has lined up for us because I haven''t yet received a different message.

State emergency services were fairly quickly at site (within minutes) after a cellphone call to 112, to attend to Ritha. Given the severity of the lacerations to her knees both Ursula and I feared the worst in terms of likely bone damage. I was, apart from being well dusted and bruised with a graze or two on the knees, quite OK! I collected the ''space blanket'' I always carry from the tail of the comet being the stream of possessions in the road and was about to make use of the emergency dressings I always carry when the first paramedics arrived.

The Golden Hour... and more
With field dressings on Ritha''s knees and tied to a stretcher with a neck brace Ursula had to show how to fit properly, we were off to the (very rural but closest) Letaba State Hospital with a paramedic holding an oxygen mask over Ritha''s face anywhere but near her nose while he tried to make small talk with me! A drip was eventually inserted successfully but the several missed attempts merely increased the bruising to her arm! Although there were several very kindly people within the "Casualty" section were it not for the constant presence and quiet support and explanations of situations arising that Ursula gave (despite the inner turmoil that she must surely have endured) I think Ritha would have suffered from more shock in Casualty than from the accident itself! Any process (including any form of even the basic trauma management) had to await a doctor''s sanction and the single young man on duty in the hospital that morning was clearly completely overworked. Although one feels at the time that you are the one needing immediate and urgent treatment, in this situation I am sure there were many more deserving than our plight.

A thoroughly decent young man though and I marveled once more at the strong sense of purpose of these young people when they set out upon a medical career in South Africa. They have to undertake this form of work and then under such poor conditions, as a condition for their completion of training before they can take their rightful place in the world that if the Mining Industry had done the same to me as a graduate Mining Engineer way back in the mid-60''s I''m sure I might have been sweeping streets in preference! No wonder enrolment figures are down at Universities. This, however, was not a situation in which we could be overly assertive or demanding and to an extent had to go with the flow, such as it was.

Nevertheless, X-Rays simply had to be taken to confirm any more serious damage and this took some time, with Ursula and I variously helping to hold the plates while the shots were taken! We chuckle about the whole process now but I can assure you at the time, getting any form of treatment was a major hurdle. The staff were hesitant and poorly trained, waited on the doctor''s go ahead for anything and facilities like a simple pair of scissors to remove clothing were sadly lacking - Ursula and I used a given scalpel blade to do the work and borrowed a set of wire-cutters from the hospital maintenance chappie to get rings off fingers that had swollen. Completion of the X-Rays and the doctor''s review took the best part of 5 to 6 hours - you better believe it! These showed thankfully that no bones were broken but he held to a conservative view that there could have been damage to the 5th cervical vertebra. This was therefore a potentially very critical situation; Ritha had to remain still (and she was truly very strong in this period and even later) and we were to be transferred to Pietersburg State Hospital at which point I made it clear once more that we wished to be sent to a Private Hospital since we had Medical Aid cover - a fact clearly marked down in our files. The process of a casevac to Pietersburg then moved ahead, the local ER24 emergency service arrived and things started to look up from here.

A terrific Orthopaedic Surgeon took charge, did not take long to clear up any doubt as to whether there were bones broken and spinal injuries or not and that night under anaesthetic, finally cleaned the wounds stitched by Letaba before our transport to Pietersburg... the healing began and has been very successful to date. Physiotherapy is giving Ritha the final confidence to really start moving well again and life is different but filled once more with great expectations.

Back at the real world of the accident site, both Peter and Neil did stalwart work. Statements were given, measurements, waypoints and details recorded, a Police Case Number obtained, the Police Station identified by a visit with a GPS track and all the time giving us the support at Letaba we needed. Our various possessions were gathered up and secured, my insurance company advised, the bike was supervised to a local recovery yard in Tzaneen and instructions left to secure the helmets and top-box being part of the insured package. The next day they went back to the yard and recovered the intercom and Netstar units from the bike for safekeeping. The three mates also packed our other gear back at Die Eiland and then loaded the panniers onto their own already well-loaded bikes and returned this all to me in Pietersburg where we met once more the next day.

The Analysis
One''s first and perhaps typical SA driver reaction would be to rant and rave against yet another unobservant Taxi driver and write the whole thing off too easily in this fashion. Believe me, I have ''punched the wall'' on this one but all my many years of renewed Advanced Driving/Riding certificates on a regular basis unfortunately does not allow me to approach this that simplistically and it serves no useful purpose anyway. Whether one chooses to place blame elsewhere by saying it was all or most of another''s fault, one was still involved in an accident. The whole essence of an Advanced Riding habit is to ride defensively - meaning to ride in such a way that you ''defend'' your own safe space by riding conservatively and it is now fact that my space was compromised. Cold statistics must be that we were passing at likely between 110 - 120kph and the Venture must have been down to say 30 or 40kph in order to carry out his turn - I failed to register his change of speed and when it occurred (I do not believe that it was gradual - perhaps he reacted to a passenger suddenly exclaiming that this was the turning, who will know?). Perhaps if I had recorded this fact, this may have just given me time to brake or at least be slow enough to have safely taken to the verge without wiping out there in the high side that could have resulted then.

Part of a passing manouevre requires one to commit to a conscious decision to limit one''s safe space, particularly to get through that zone of close company with the vehicle being passed. I simply had to answer the question for myself as to how I could or should have done this one differently so, once I could leave Ritha alone at home for a while, I went back to the site of the accident and rode the whole section once more. I analysed and measured and photographed and studied everything that I could think of.

On this also clear day and with no traffic distractions, the accident site is clearly an intersection of some importance. There are roads from the left as well as the fateful one to the right. A farmer was overheard to say (on the day of the accident) "Not another one" so clearly this had happened before. The right hand turn is somewhat masked and I understand now why I missed it at that distance, but it becomes clearer within about 150m from impact point so I can''t hide ''behind the tree'' except at that point I would have been well committed to the passing anyway. While at site, several cars at speed passed each other at the exact spot despite me being on foot and physically quite close to the edge of the road then. Did they miss the same things? My analysis on that day arrived at the conclusion that given the identical circumstances, timing and situation I would likely have done exactly the same things.

This horrified me and made me think the whole thing through from a different perspective. As difficult as it may be to swallow, I simply did not recognise the degree to which the other driver was about to deviate from the assumed status under the existing physical conditions there and this primarily contributed to me having no free space to overcome his two major mistakes while I was nearby and committed - its as simple as that.

The Learning Points
So, how not to be at the other drivers crisis point under any circumstance is what I have been struggling with these past weeks. Some of the points below we did get wrong while others are my additional suggestions as to how to do it differently next time and they appear in no particular ranking of significance - they all carry equal weighting


Never compromise on your riding safety gear - if we had worn our armoured trousers and then were granted exactly the same circumstances at and after impact, our injuries would have been limited to only some bruising. Always tie down your jacket to your belt or zip them to your trousers to limit clothing riding up.
First think "TAXI" of any vehicle no matter what, that is larger than a small truck about to be passed - it''s the more conservative option and puts you on a safer footing from the start.
Do not let the ''local circumstances'' dull your ongoing assumptions. The old situation of ones'' assumptions building castles in the sky? A Venture towing a Venter from Die Eiland towards the end of a long weekend is not necessarily unlikely to be turning right - it may just not be going on home to the PWV! Just because a rural road is signposted 120kph doesn''t necessarily mean it can be ridden at that speed? (Speed per se was not a major factor here though because even at 90 or 100 similar consequences would have arisen).
Register the general nature of the road you are using, its overall condition and whether you think the signage is up to scratch or not. If not then be extra vigilant and more hesitant rather than be overly confident in you riding style.
Do not allow anything to compromise your safe space - this is easier said than done and is probably the most difficult thing to get right all the time every time, but that''s the way its got to be, like it or not!
Rider spacing of at least 2 seconds in a group (and I define a group as more than one bike riding together) saves lives. If our following rider had been riding on our tail or even closer than a deliberate count of "21..22" (as some of us feel entitled to do from time to time!), fatalities would have resulted for sure in this accident.
Rather use the cellphone 147 number and if you can, rather use the injured rider''s cellphone for this call. There are just so many decisions one has to make at a time like this and the realisation only came to me many days later when checking the cellphone accounts for payment and still wondering how we could have ducked the State Hospital monster. We had registered ourselves on the Vodacom 147 Plus facility where they would have had all our details at the click of a mouse and perhaps from that point we just may have been able to skip the State Hospital experience or at the very least only had to endure a short period before competent help would have taken over.
Always carry a ''space blanket'', some emergency dressings and a triangular bandage or two with you packed into the bike. To this list I would now add a Burn Gel pack - this is magic stuff for the first treatment of a burn (or graze, same thing) and at home always have a tube of ointment called Flamazine. It''s a silver sulphadiazine and also magic stuff that takes the pain away from a healing burn and really heals the skin in very quick time. Use Hibitane dilute solution as an antiseptic since the Dettol-like stuff is clearly too aggressive in these circumstances.
Take steps every time to make sure you have been seen by the driver about to be passed. This is tiresome and easier said than done but in order to save oneself from this sort of fate one has to find a process that works. I am now working on a passing protocol that runs something like this:
Approach and stay behind the vehicle for a while and study both the space ahead and the driver to first confirm whether he is looking around and in his mirrors thus leading to a reasonable conclusion that you have been noticed, or despite a lack of signal from him, he may be looking for his turnoff anyway.
Light onto main beam during this pause, shoulder check and signal before moving out. Develop a ''squint'' meaning keep any eye on the space ahead and the driver (both his head and face in his mirror).
Give a polite ''toot-toot'' on the hooter at the point of entry into the vehicles length along the road, which is usually your point of entry into his ''blind-spot'' (and once safely past a cheery wave to escape the road-rage bullet in the head!). NB - not a heavy hoot but a ''toot''!!
Do not push past too aggressively on the throttle but find the right balance between being hard on the throttle and too long in that confined space that arises.
Our Baehr helmets and the Lookwell airflow jackets have now been thoroughly but unintentionally road tested and they came through with flying colours. It took a while to work the grit out of the jacket though, but then I did have a little more time on my hands after the prang.
If you are going to have an accident have it when your friends are around. Like the saying ''Strangers are but friends you do not know'' under these circumstances our friends became our absolute heroes too!
We wish you an even safer riding experience going forward than you may have enjoyed to date.

Peter Short (mfishaan@intekom.co.za)

[Mintbread]

This sort of story is never nice to hear. It is good to know that all involved were not seriously hurt.

I have done several rider courses (my job requires me to attend them on a two yearly basis) and have read alot and heard just as much regarding "internalising" and "externalising" accidents or near misses. I have had several crashes and admitted to myself that actions that I took contributed to the accident and had I done things differently, I would not have crashed at all.
It seems like this incident was one that no matter what you did the result was not going to be pretty.
I had a similar instance at work one day where I was riding out to my delivery run. I was riding down a suburban street with cars parked on the side of the road, I noticed a taxi that was parked, had his indicator on, his wheels turned out and him with his head turned to look for traffic. I assumed he was just going to pull straight out, so I moved into the centre of the road in case he didn't see me to give myself some room to move. I had slowed down and was watching his face (I swear he was looking straight at me) in case he wasn't paying attention, but instead of pulling out into the traffic, he decided to do a u-turn! He hit me square on the side of the bike and my leg which shot me off the bike into the oncoming traffic lane where I landed on my back and managed to bounce up onto my feet to promptly back pedal to avoid the bike which was dutifully following me.
I was wearing my wet weather gear which is the brightest flourescent yellow in the known universe and the moron who hit me, his first response was "I didn't see him".

Regardless of the fact that I had highly visible clothing,slowed down, moved over, and as I thought, achieved eye contact, I was still hit. There are just some things that cannot be avoided.
Thankfully though with the right gear the damage can always be lessened.

[sapaul]

You are soooooo right Mintbread, even Peter in his story admits to not having the right gear on and I have known this guy a long time and he is very experianced. We often also ride with bright orange vests over our jackets and you should see some of the looks we get from other bikers, like we are from another planet. Listening to you we should maybe change from sometimes to all the time.

[iwannadie]

glad you everyone is ok for sure.

reading more of these storys really is making me decide to go buy more gear. i used to ride with my leather jacket, gloves, helmet. now its just gloves helmet. i think im going to go back to full gear even some nice riding shoes and pants. also forcing my gf to gear up before she gets on the back, shes very anti gear but ill have to let her read these storys and show her some pics to change her mind.

[sapaul]

Yeah my goose also used to be more into fashion than safety, after reading some horror stories that I showed her about loosing skin and "Roasties" she changed her mind quick quick and now rides full leathers gloves boots, everything.

[cb360]

Good for you Iwannadie. It's been in the 90's in Seattle lately and I've been soooooo tempted to ride in short sleeves for my one-mile ride to the gym. But my wife rides too and she follows my lead on all this safety stuff... so I throw on the boots and thick leather jacket anyway. If I start slacking off on the gear then I know she will too and I'd really rather she didn't do that... I plan on needing her around for quite a while. Nine hundred and ninety-nine successful rides in t-shirts won't save your skin on number 1000 when someone runs a red light and clips you on the back wheel to send you sliding. One bad one is all it takes for major pain, disfigurement or worse. If my number comes up I plan on having the best chance I can for minimizing my injuries.