Life's little lessons...

Message

kabob983 · #1 Unread post by **kabob983** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 7:39 am

I work at the county courthouse. There's a security guard I've recently become aquainted with who I noted rode a motorcycle. After talking to him for a while I found out it was a brand new 20th anniversary GSX-R 750.

Fast forward to today. I walk outside and see him sitting around holding his arm. After asking what happened he says he was in an accident a few days ago.

Here's how it went:

Said security guard pulls up to a stoplight (which is green) and sees a car stopped in front of him. He decided to ride around said car and once he gets partway into the intersection he realizes the car was stopped for a reason. A firetruck is flying towards him. So like most of us would do he decides it might be a good idea to get out of the way. He guns the throttle and (amazingly enough) is suprised by the acceleration of the gixxer. So suprised infact that after staying on for about 1 second he goes flying off and skids about 30 feet to a stop...

Unfortunately for Mr. security guard this is the one day he picked not to wear his leather riding jacket or pants because it was a short ride to work. Mr. security guard is only wearing a tee-shirt and dress pants. The pants are ripped to pieces, and his arm is one giant wound. His arm is now one big scab and his legs aren't much better. He doesn't have riding gloves so his hands are pretty cut up as well.

Hearing this I couldn't help but ask if this was his first bike. To my amazing suprise (yeah right) it was. He'd always liked the GSX-R's and bought one to learn on. Now he has a totaled bike, and alot of pain. He decided to learn without any training and...well, you can see what happened.

The morals of the story:
-Sportbikes really ARE just that powerful, start small (which I told him he might want to consider...)
-Super-protective riding gear only works when it is worn.
-Take a MSF course if at all possible, it can save your life (or at least your skin)

#2 Unread post by **Sev** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 8:12 am

Lesson 4: Road rash SUCKS, it takes forever to heal, and never looks the same.

Chicks dig horribly disfiguring scars right?

kabob983 · #3 Unread post by **kabob983** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 8:33 am

Sevulturus wrote:Lesson 4: Road rash SUCKS, it takes forever to heal, and never looks the same.

Chicks dig horribly disfiguring scars right?

His right arm and alot of his right leg are going to be one big scar...

flynrider · #4 Unread post by **flynrider** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:17 am

In my unfortunate experience, typical road rash doesn't really scar much. It usually takes a deeper wound to produce significant scarring. I once had solid road rash on one side of my body, from my butt to my neck. It was horribly painful for weeks, but now you can't even tell it was ever there.

BTW - I keep hearing (and occasionally witnessing in person), this same crash story. Noob on powerful bike gets surprised by how powerful the bike is. Duh!

Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:23 am

Sevulturus wrote:Lesson 4: Road rash SUCKS, it takes forever to heal, and never looks the same.

Chicks dig horribly disfiguring scars right?

Of course when your mom is a plastic surgeon and can touch up areas that bother you at the same time with the same bill going to insurance... what's alittle road rash from time to time?

#6 Unread post by **Lion_Lady** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:25 am

And what I find sooo frustrating in this Newbies forum is that some folks (including some veteran TM forum members, who ought to have a clue) will actually tell a newbie - "Go ahead and get that R bike, just be really careful with the throttle."

P

#7 Unread post by **cb360** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:52 am

Luckily even the most jaded big, fast bike guys aren't recommending GSX-R 750s for total noobs. The problem is that everyone knows[/i]somebody who learned on a fast bike without killing their self so it must be a good bike choice for everybody.

Thu Oct 27, 2005 10:41 am

cb360 wrote:Luckily even the most jaded big, fast bike guys aren't recommending GSX-R 750s for total noobs. The problem is that everyone knows[/i]somebody who learned on a fast bike without killing their self so it must be a good bike choice for everybody.

They always say learned but never still living... Oh well.

I have only been riding on the street for about 6 weeks now so I should not be considered an expert at all here. However, why would you buy a nice fast, heavy, expensive bike to learn on when the first time you drop it the repairs will cost the same in new plastic as the junker you could have bought to learn on? Not to mention being able to insure a junker for a few months and having time on the motorcycle brings down your insurance rates.

For the 750, when you crash the first time, the repairs and medical bills would easily pay for a few nice used bikes.

junker to be read as old but still good bike that would be perfectly nice to learn on but still not your dream/ego bike

thaimike · #9 Unread post by **thaimike** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 1:24 pm

even more importantly this scenario highlights the true hidden danger of riding...none of us know when something unexpectedly is going to occur.. whether it's a quick jaunt to the 7-11 or a long distance journey. Had he just analyzed the situation before going around the car....maybe he'd be okay.

Shiv · #10 Unread post by **Shiv** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:03 pm

One thing I wanna know is how the hell did he not hear the siren?

I can hear sirens in my cage with music going. Can't imagine not hearing one on a bike.