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I am so shaken by what I saw tonight, that I just need to get it out.
My two sons and I were driving home from the grocery store tonight, when we saw a lot of cop cars up ahead on the opposite side of the road. As we drove by my oldest son Jason said "mom it was a motorcycle, and the guy is dead!" So I looked over and there was a person lying in the road covered with a sheet and a mangled bike. There was also about 50 other motorcycle drivers stopped to.

I was so shaken. I stopped, and got out of the car. I went over and started to talk to others that were there. This is what happened.

There were 4 cars a full size van and a bike involved with the accident.
This is how it was set up at the intersection

car that caused accident, bike, van, car, car, car

The car that caused the accident was flipped over onto the driver side, it was pushed quite a ways into the back of the van, with massive damage done to the whole front. The van had so much damage it had to be loaded onto a flat bed to remove it. The 80 year old driver had slammed the biker in the rear going approx. 60 miles an hour. Which crushed the bike into the van. Then the van hit the car in front and so forth. The bike was a Honda, but unrecognizable. When the car flipped it pushed the bike and biker off to the right. The biker was lying in the road beside the van covered with a sheet. There were bike peices EVERYWHERE! The saddlebag that had been bolted to the bike was about 8 car lengths down the road in the ditch. I was crying so hard. I know I didn't know the man but my God. It is so sad.

I hope he didn't see it coming, and he died before he felt anything. I am still so shaken. I am now scared to go riding again. I know I'll get over it, but it's just now I have wittnesed what can go wrong and it scares me.

From what the cops were saying that the woman had been driving erratically for about 20 miles or so, and finally other drivers started to try and box her in for about 7 or 8 miles. They were all phoning police. The woman kept jumping the median, and going around them. Until she hit the bike. The old lady survived too. I am surprised, because by the looks of her car she should have died too. The wittnesses said she climbed out and walked away from the accident.

I am not sure if anything could have been done, but I told my sons, "This is why you always keep your bike in gear when stopped, and keep an eye out behind you. So you can move quickly if needed."


Any way I will get the paper tomorrow, and post the facts.

Sorry for depressing anyone, I just needed to get it out and talk to others who also understand. If I call my family they will all say you need to stop riding. They have already told me It's too dangerous, and I need to stop riding. My brother says I'm stupid. I told him I'm nop more dumb than him on his 4 wheeler.

Amy

PS: Here is the link to the updated news article

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/06/21/Pasco ... _in_.shtml

Also

http://goodfellowsbrotherhood.com/tampabay/id26.html

What an awful story and what a terrible thing to witness, even after the fact. I can understand why you're shaken. Any biker can easily imagine themselves being on that Harley...

"This is why you always keep your bike in gear when stopped, and keep an eye out behind you. So you can move quickly if needed."

Absolutely perfect take-home from the situation. And, for people (like me) who keep an eye on the mirror until a car pulls in behind: Just because there is a stopped car in the lane behind you doesn't mean you won't get plowed into if that car gets nailed.

shalihe74 wrote:Absolutely perfect take-home from the situation. And, for people (like me) who keep an eye on the mirror until a car pulls in behind: Just because there is a stopped car in the lane behind you doesn't mean you won't get plowed into if that car gets nailed.

excellent advice...

whenever i'm stopped at an intersection, i'm leaving the bike in gear and leaving an escape route in case the cage behind me decides not to stop or gets slammed into by the nut case behind them!!!

Amy, I understand. The day I picked up my new bike last year and was riding home, the route I had planned to take was closed due to a m-c fatality. It really makes you think. Just do whatever you can as a rider to maximize your own safety at all times.

Very distressing to read, nevermind actually witnessing it.

As well as stopping a good distance from the vehicle in front, in gear ready to go, it's sometimes worth positioning the bike at the edge of the lane/road if you stop somewhere with good potential for being shunted. Not the proper position in normal circumstances I know, but it means it's easier for the idiot behind to go around the bike, either deliberatley or otherwise, and you may get shunted between vehicles instead of into them.

I came upon a accident blocking the road around a bend in a 60mph limit (was doing about 40mph) and stopped sharply in the middle of my lane. I moved the bike to the side of the road whilst waiting to be waved through and sure enough a car came round the bend behind me, stopped sharply and ended up right where my bike originally stopped.

that sucks in soooo many ways.

the bike did NOTHING wrong and he died..WTF!!!! thats not right.

at least hes in a better place now.

R.I.P

I can imagine rolling up on that is pretty rough. Poor rider.

We came up on a bike accident one evening on a light ride around. It was a bit depressing and somewhat stunning. Took me a few minutes to get my head back straight to riding on the bike, but we didn't have a choice or a chance to linger. We had to keep on going. Not an easy thing to conprehend when you're basically doing the same activity.

Makes you slow down a bit and reflect on things. Take care out there.

Thanks for posting that Amy. I can understand and appreciate why you wanted to share that with all of us.

Motorcycle accidents are something the majority (if not all of us) have trouble seeing or hearing about. Motorcyclists are a very tight nit community who care about one another and will help each other out without a second thought. So when one of us goes down (minor or major) we all feel it in some way.

But we keep riding because we love the feeling of doing it, the freedom it gives us being on the road and we ride to share that experience with others. Riding is dangerous, that's why we (try to) ride within our own safety limits so we can go and do it again, and again. You took away some good riding tips and will learn from it and be even a safer biker because of it.

Sadly, if a person who loves riding has to go, then departing this world on a motorcycle isn't a bad thing, they left doing what they loved.

Mike

This is tragic..my condolences to the family.

I live one county south of pasco, and always go into pasco and hillsbourogh to ride because pinellas is even worse. I'm suprised I didn't hear about this. I always keep my bike in gear till there are at least 2 or 3 cars behind me, maybe I should just keep it in gear the whole time. The other thing I find myself doing more and more is not sitting at lights, but just making a right turn and a u turn. I ride like I'm invisible, because I've seen enough stupid people to realize that I am.