Scariest Moment on a Bike

[MrGompers]

my scariest moment was on my old CX500. was riding down a pretty busy street at about 30mph when the SUV in front of me slammed on his brakes for no apparant reason. The craptastic brakes on the CX managed to get me to a screeching kinda sideways (the bike fishtailed a bit because the back tire locked up) halt about 6 inches from the SUVs back bumper

Any idea why the SUV slammed on its brakes ?

[jmillheiser]

my scariest moment was on my old CX500. was riding down a pretty busy street at about 30mph when the SUV in front of me slammed on his brakes for no apparant reason. The craptastic brakes on the CX managed to get me to a screeching kinda sideways (the bike fishtailed a bit because the back tire locked up) halt about 6 inches from the SUVs back bumper

Any idea why the SUV slammed on its brakes ?

He wanted to make a left turn and was probably yaking on his cell and almost missed it. did I mention right after slamming on his brakes he made a left turn with no turn signal

[MrGompers]

my scariest moment was on my old CX500. was riding down a pretty busy street at about 30mph when the SUV in front of me slammed on his brakes for no apparant reason. The craptastic brakes on the CX managed to get me to a screeching kinda sideways (the bike fishtailed a bit because the back tire locked up) halt about 6 inches from the SUVs back bumper

Any idea why the SUV slammed on its brakes ?

He wanted to make a left turn and was probably yaking on his cell and almost missed it. did I mention right after slamming on his brakes he made a left turn with no turn signal

Thats a lame reason. Figured it would be something like that. I hope these high gas prices will get some of the SUV's off the road. Doesn't look like thats going to happen tho. Maybe if it hits $5 a gallon it'll happen.

[Bubba]

Well, today I ran my bike up to Kalamazoo (yes this is a real city) for its first service. On the highway, some jerk just merges into my lane. There is pretty dense traffic and no place to go except the shoulder, so next thing I know I'm doing 80 on that gravel/sand stuff you see along the side of the highway. ..

I had the same experience crossing the Delaware River via the Ben Franklin Bridge.
Guy in a sports car, comes in from the left, not seeing me at all. There I was with my front wheel between his rear fender and the guard rail. If we had hit, I would have either been electrocuted on the 'third rail' of the high speed line, that runs across the bridge or would have fallen about 1000 feet into the Delaware.
Managed to break back out of the situation. Started wearing brown pants after that so people wouldn't know how scared I was.

[snwbrdr]

one of mine happened last night. my buddy and i had just started riding and we were headed up the main road past the university. at this point the speed limit is only 35 and there are two lanes in each direction with a middle turn lane splitting the two. as we near the intersection we were turning at the center turn lane becomes a left turn only lane. as we begin to move over this idiot cager comes flying up from behind. so im moving over, my buddy is already over and this guy gets right beside me. i nearly went into his car because he came out of nowhere and cut into the lane before it was a left turn lane. i was okay and got out of the way fast enough, but now im freakin' about my buddy because the cage is about to run him down. so i honk as quick as i can and my buddy looks back just in time to see this cage about to take him out. luckily my budy has quick enough reflexes that he manages to swerve into opposing traffic and not be run down. thank god there was no traffic coming or he woulda been gone. after my buddy managed to get out of the way the cage goes sliding out into the intersection with all four tires locked up, as he slides out the light changes green for us and he turns. Instinctively my buddy and i take up chase positioning and start to follow the cage. at the first light we get next to him and opened my visor to ask what his problem was, but he (AND HIS WIFE) ignore us. at the next light he pretends he is gonna go right, but then goes straight. anyway.....he keeps trying to lose us, but we followed him for roughly 10 miles before we got bored and gave up on it.


ps. we werent going to do anything to him we just wanted him to get scared and realize that he nearly killed the both of us.

[NorthernPete]

understandable.....Id have given the evil eye, maybe follwed a bit if I was bored.....

[black mariah]

understandable.....Id have given the evil eye, maybe follwed a bit if I was bored.....

Some stuff just cries out for a busted windshield. Always carry a rock when you ride, and be prepared to use it.

If a guy pulls that crap on me, he'd better be ready to get punched in the face. I get really stupid once I hit a certain level of pissed and once I reach that point, SOMETHING is gonna get hurt. Most likely he's going to get a nice foot-sized door ding when I pull up beside him at the next light.

Not really, but yeah.

This is why as soon as I get around to getting a bike the first thing I'm doing is installing the most godawfullly loud horn I can find. If someone gets close to me, they're gonna KNOW IT.

[NorthernPete]

I dont think that its that great of an idea to boot in their door panels.... you could get charged, gettign cut off isnt an excuse to do damage... just go up and go Boo! through the window....shake your fist in anger... along those lines... you boot in someones panel, they are still in a driveable car, and if they have the same light hold on their aggression you could end up under their car.

[Beach]

ps. we werent going to do anything to him we just wanted him to get scared and realize that he nearly killed the both of us.

Your lucky that he didnt phone 911 and tell them that two crazy bikers were following him and trying to jack him or something. If stopped by the police for chasing after this guy, you wouldnt want to tell them that he almost ran you over and that is the reason why. Now the cop would be thinking you had a motive to do harm to him. They may seek prosecution under some road rage law or some such bull.

I am not comdemning you for your actions, we have all done foolish things in the heat of the moment. If you think about how your actions could make matters worse, you can make wiser choices in the future. Thats easy to say from a keyboard, but I do live that way now. A better solution would be remember his license plate, car and driver description, and call the police to report a possible impaired driver who almost ran you down. There is a good chance he was drunk or impaired, and just maybe they could have found him and locked him up.

I am legally armed on a daily basis. I have to be careful not to escalate bad situations into deadly encounters. If he happened to be armed, you guys could have scared him enough to use it had you kept pushing it. And I hope we all know that rock throwing is deadly force, just like shooting at someone. Alls well that ends well, but we really need to think long and hard about this sort of thing. If we let anger take over in the adrenaline rush that follows a near miss, we can easily land in jail or in the ground. I have done crazier things in my time, so dont think I am pretending to be holier than thou. These idoits make my blood boil as well. Good thread.

Beach.

[black mariah]

I dont think that its that great of an idea to boot in their door panels.... you could get charged, gettign cut off isnt an excuse to do damage... just go up and go Boo! through the window....shake your fist in anger... along those lines... you boot in someones panel, they are still in a driveable car, and if they have the same light hold on their aggression you could end up under their car.

Nah, you just have to kick hard enough that your foot goes through and severs their spinal cord so they can't drive. It helps if you're a T-1000.