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Some of you lucky buggers from Facebook may have already heard about this and seen the video…

Last night, after some expert riding where I raced my riding partners Valentino Rossi and Max Biaggi (and won), jumped over a medium sized canal, and wheelied for 25 miles non-stop, I pulled off onto a gravel driveway and slowed down to sensible speeds, crawling along with nary a blart coming from my exhaust.

And then this happened:



That’s right – after two and a half years of careful ownership, I’ve only gone and crashed my trusty Kawasaki ZX9R.

You’ll see from where the car pops out that I had no chance, and also that the lady driving it couldn’t possibly have seen me, and so I guess neither of us is at fault. It was just one of those really unlucky moments where I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The wheels locked the second I touched the brakes on the gravel, and somehow I still managed to steer around the back of the car but by that stage the bike was already going down and nothing would stop it.

I think my knee hit the deck, and apart from the standard pulled muscles in my arms etc I seem to have twisted my lower back pretty nastily.

Ah well – I didn’t tear my expensive petticoat or hit the car, and I don’t think I’ve done a serious mischief to myself. The bike survived well, too – a few scratches on the fairing but no cracks or breaks, and the crash bung seems to have done it’s job well!

You’ll also notice that after the tiny little woman asked me if I could get it up – *blushes* – and I answered “I don’t know, I’ve never tried it with this one” – *cringes* – she heaved the bike upright probably taking more of the weight than I did!

Time for me to read up on techniques for lifting up a fallen bike, methinks!

Weird, because for the last week or so, I’d been getting a feeling like I was going to crash whilst filtering on the bike. I have uploaded a couple of filtering vids on YouTube to show you Yanks some proper ‘lanesplitting’, so figured it was probably just this on my mind.

I have had premonitions before – for a few days before my last bike accident I actually had dreams of losing the front end on the brakes, and then suddenly some tosser did a u-turn in front of me and I lost the front end on the brakes and nearly splatted myself!

Yes, I’m a Rubberhead, but rest assured my hatred of the modern ‘compensation culture’ ensures that I WON’T be claiming on anyones insurance for either the bike or my injuries.

And all this is even more ironic if you read my very last blog about mechanical sympathy… Plus it was only around a week ago that I had a full valet done on my bike… Doh!

Id have sped up myself, not slowed down, just might have missed then, but hindsights a wonderful thing.

As for lifting i bike, ive always turner the bars in the opposite direction its fallen and lifted using both hands by just the one bar, works everytime for me.

Its quite refreshing to see you havent gone down the compensation route, like you say its just one of those things.

RedexRobB wrote:Id have sped up myself, not slowed down, just might have missed then, but hindsights a wonderful thing.

As for lifting i bike, ive always turner the bars in the opposite direction its fallen and lifted using both hands by just the one bar, works everytime for me.

Its quite refreshing to see you havent gone down the compensation route, like you say its just one of those things.

I also know that even if you claim against someone elses insurance, YOU still get fkd for it for the next 5 years!

If I'd sped up I'd have only made it through the gap if she'd stopped the instant the car appears - you can't see the ridge so much on the video but the rut between the grass in the middle and the actual track would take your front wheel anyway, so i think I'd just have succeeded in clipping the car or hitting the deck at a faster speed!

As crashes go I can't really grumble lol!

Unlucky Jamz! It's gutting when that happens, especially at those sort of speeds.


"And all this is even more ironic if you read my very last blog about mechanical sympathy… Plus it was only around a week ago that I had a full valet done on my bike… Doh!"

I know how you feel regarding this, last month I washed my bike for the first time in ages, took a couple of piccies and went out for a ride. Ended up lowsiding on the road, scratches, dents, new levers etc. It's a curse I tell you, a curse!!! I'm never washing my bike ever again lol

At the risk of making myself the most unpopular person on this forum (which is not my desire ) I think you did have a chance to avoid this. Now, I'm not standing here as some clever butt saying 'I would never have done that', what I'm saying is that you should always take something away from an accident or near miss and look at what you could have done different to avoid it. That way you improve as a rider and avoid having the same accident twice. You should never think an accident was unavoidable or someone else's fault, because even if there is an element of that in there if you could have anticipated the possibility you might have prevented the accident. And being innocent of fault is never much compensation when you've got a pranged pride and joy.

If I was going to analyse this if it was my accident I would be looking at four things -

1. You know those alleys so you should know that there are parked cars hiding behind the fence lines. With hindsight could you not have gone even slower when approaching these blind spots, bearing in mind the almost total lack of sight for a reversing car driver and the extremely poor braking surface?

2. In view of the fact that you know there is almost zero visibility at these spots, did you consider sounding your horn on approach to give an audible warning?

3. Positioning: in view of the possibility of a car reversing into sight might you not have been better positioning yourself right over to the right of the track? This would have brought you into view sooner, would have given you a sooner view of the car, and could probably have allowed you to spurt past the car safely if all else failed.

4. Did the reversing car take you by surprise? Could you not have anticipated the possiblity based on your local knowledge and had an escape plan ready (either slow enough to brake clear, or avoiding action ready)?

Now don't go ripping into me here Jamz, I'm not trying to be a smartarse and criticise you. What I'm saying is that I think you could probably take something away from this that would stop you getting in a similar situation again, which has to be 'a good thing'. If you've ever read the police motorcycle training book 'Motorcycle Roadcraft' then this sort of post accident analysis is what they recommend to help you (if you haven't I recommend it - even if you break some of the rules in it at least you know you are breaking them and can assess the increased risk: ignorance is only bliss until you come a cropper all unexpected).

Hope this helps you, cos that's what I'm genuinely trying to do

Tirpitz wrote:At the risk of making myself the most unpopular person on this forum (which is not my desire ) I think you did have a chance to avoid this. Now, I'm not standing here as some clever butt saying 'I would never have done that', what I'm saying is that you should always take something away from an accident or near miss and look at what you could have done different to avoid it. That way you improve as a rider and avoid having the same accident twice. You should never think an accident was unavoidable or someone else's fault, because even if there is an element of that in there if you could have anticipated the possibility you might have prevented the accident. And being innocent of fault is never much compensation when you've got a pranged pride and joy.

If I was going to analyse this if it was my accident I would be looking at four things -

1. You know those alleys so you should know that there are parked cars hiding behind the fence lines. With hindsight could you not have gone even slower when approaching these blind spots, bearing in mind the almost total lack of sight for a reversing car driver and the extremely poor braking surface?

2. In view of the fact that you know there is almost zero visibility at these spots, did you consider sounding your horn on approach to give an audible warning?

3. Positioning: in view of the possibility of a car reversing into sight might you not have been better positioning yourself right over to the right of the track? This would have brought you into view sooner, would have given you a sooner view of the car, and could probably have allowed you to spurt past the car safely if all else failed.

4. Did the reversing car take you by surprise? Could you not have anticipated the possiblity based on your local knowledge and had an escape plan ready (either slow enough to brake clear, or avoiding action ready)?

Now don't go ripping into me here Jamz, I'm not trying to be a smartarse and criticise you. What I'm saying is that I think you could probably take something away from this that would stop you getting in a similar situation again, which has to be 'a good thing'. If you've ever read the police motorcycle training book 'Motorcycle Roadcraft' then this sort of post accident analysis is what they recommend to help you (if you haven't I recommend it - even if you break some of the rules in it at least you know you are breaking them and can assess the increased risk: ignorance is only bliss until you come a cropper all unexpected).

Hope this helps you, cos that's what I'm genuinely trying to do

You sound like my dad

I totally agree with this though, and with the "read the book" thing. My dad has this book and I've read it through a couple of times now, picking up on little bits as I go along, which, in turn, make me a safer rider (didn't stop me crashing my bike mind). But when I think about it I have actually taken a lot from that crash and what not to do if I'm ever in a similar situation.

Great advice Tirpitz!

Yes I agree - so what would I do differently in the same situation? That's the first question you should ask yourself after an incident.

In this one, though, my answer is "Absolutely nothing."

For various reasons if I use the right hand track there I WILL drop the bike at some point - especially in the wet. Sounding the horn works fine in text books, but my neighbours won't have read them and would soon get pissed off with that! Plus it's probably louder if I give it a big handful of revs, anyway...

That one spot is the only place that is blind on that section, so the realistic chances of a car coming out of there as I'm at that point... well, I'd be better off buying a lottery ticket than waiting for that! If I was even a metre further back i'd have had no problems stopping, or a metre further on and I'd have sped up and got past.

You can see from that video that I'm riding almost painfully slowly on that section, and to be honest I'd probably normally do it faster. And by doing that she'd have been more likely to hear the bike...

With exactly the same situation, I think I'd be lucky to miss hitting the car again, and just as lucky that the driver wouldn't panic and reverse over me, or just not even see me at all.

'Tis a pisser!