This is a post made on a different forum by a very respected MSF trainer and motorcycle safety guru on this very topic. His name is James R. Davis... This is his idea on how to handle this kind of situation...
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I wonder how many of you have heard and bought the advice that the MSF and most 'right thinking' instructors have given you that if a threat presents itself to you then you have ONE choice to make: EITHER brake or swerve?
Now let me be clear here, we are talking about a PANIC situation. We have all both braked and changed directions at the same time with some regularity. Consider what you do when you pull into a parking spot, for example. At those times you are using so little traction that braking and turning at the same time is not dangerous as you have lots of traction left. But in a panic situation you are deliberately trying to brake hard enough that the front tire is almost skidding so it's clear that there is very little traction left to try to change directions as well. (Besides, the righting force caused by trail makes it almost impossible to do.)
So, I suspect that we all agree that you really do have only that one choice to make in a panic situation: EITHER brake or swerve.
But are those choices in any way 'equal'? Is one choice DEFINITIONALLY SAFER, EASIER, and more likely to result is a satisfactory outcome than the other?
I'm here to tell you that a PANIC STOP is your best friend!!!! Any other maneuver is GUARANTEED to result in a crash (if there is a crash) with you moving faster than you would have had you elected to do the PANIC STOP.
Here is a diagram that demonstrates only the most obvious reason:
In this scenario you are moving at 40 MPH and an 18-wheeler crosses your path. You can choose to panic stop or panic swerve. If you panic stop you will hit the truck at 20 MPH. If you panic swerve you will hit it at 40 MPH. Which choice makes the most sense?
Notice, please, the dashed red line. That is the course change that you would have to make if you elected to change your mind after you started the panic stop and released your brakes in order to try a panic swerve. It is IMPOSSIBLE!!!! In other words, if you start a panic stop you MUST commit to it. It ends with a successful stop or a crash, nothing else. You CANNOT change your mind after you start a panic stop and expect to get a better outcome.
Of course there are times that a panic swerve will allow you to not hit the threat in front of you. But in virtually every case (not all! - the car in the wrong lane coming head on, for example) where that is true if you had panic stopped instead you would not have hit the threat and come to a complete stop at the end of the effort.
So, we are finally at the REAL ISSUE relative to panic swerves: THEY ARE NOT MERELY HARD RIGHT OR HARD LEFT CHANGES OF DIRECTION!!!!! They are THREE consecutive hard changes of direction. That is, a successful panic swerve is an *S* turn where you make a hard, say 20 degree lean, to one side, then an even harder 40 degree reverse lean in the other direction, followed by a third hard reverse lean back up to vertical.
It is almost unthinkable that you have charted in your mind the course you will take beyond the first hard lean when you begin that panic swerve. In other words, when you decide to do a panic swerve you are committing your bike to move into a direction that is GUARANTEED TO BE INTO DANGER - off road, in a ditch, or onto the grill of an oncoming car - while moving at speed (maybe a lot more than 40 MPH). THEN, with a ton of adrenaline running through your body, you must make TWO MORE AGGRESSIVE direction changes before you can once again be moving in the direction the roadway points.
To believe that with that adrenaline pouring through your veins you are NOT going to reach for your binders is foolishness at best. In other words, a panic swerve will, with high odds, cause you to have to do a panic stop anyway!!!!
What's the message here?
While you may EITHER PANIC STOP or PANIC SWERVE, you should be so predisposed to choosing to PANIC STOP that you do not waste time making that decision and get on your binders as quickly as you can - and then STAY ON THEM. A PANIC SWERVE is a very poor second choice, almost always. So poor, in fact, that you should essentially forget about it.
Practice emergency braking to the point that your instincts take over in a panic situation and you can quickly and safely CONTROL your bike until that maneuver is over. COMMIT TO IT - it is your best friend
