16-07-13, 07:32 PM
Quote:but your skill means nothing when some cager on a mobile phone takes a corner wide or you come over the brow of a hill to find a tractor turning in front of you.
I had a car a couple of years back coming towards me out of fast corner in the wet sideways. I was going a bit quick myself, I remember positioning the bike on the centre of the road and thinking it might go one way or the other. I also thought briefly - this is it - I'm gonna die. I had full good quality leathers on, boots, gloves and hat, but if that thing collected me I knew I was almost certainly dead.
I was lucky, it kept sliding round, tucked in and went into a roll when it hit the verge and ended up upside down in a field. I pulled over, I was covered from head to toe in mud and grass. The driver crawled out, hardly a scratch on him, his car a total write off. He did even see me.
I don't usually bother too much about the behaviour of others on the road. But he almost wiped me out. Fancy gear? Bollocks, if that car had of hit me I'd have been dead. Anyway I reported it, but the local police were not interested. I insisted they fill out a report form and gave me a copy. That generated a notice to traffic to have a look. They had a look, did their stuff, took some measurements etc, gave me a phone call and told me the young lad had been charged with dangerous driving and would be up in court. Dunno what the result was. But with luck he had already leaned his lesson. One witness I spoke to said it rolled three times.
I didn't ride the bike for a week after that. It did have a bit of an effect on me, but only for a while. Wasn't too long before I was back out again.
Your tractor? Well stop. If you can't you were going too fast. Hit a tractor at any decent speed, no matter what you are wearing and you will more than likely die.