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Close calls and near misses

Gary856

Gary856

Are we having fun yet?
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Location
San Jose, CA
Moto(s)
WR250F, MTS1200, FZ1, DR650, R1250GS
Name
Gary
First I don’t want to put this in Crash Analysis because the mod there is too heavy handed. Second these incidents are good safety reminders so please share your own close calls. Finally please be thoughtful, refrain from one liners that add no value to the group.

3 weeks ago I was riding down from Lick Observatory on Mt Hamilton Rd at a reasonable pace around 1 pm, keeping to the right edge around blind turns as usual. Halfway thru a right blind turn, I saw the front end of a Ford F-150 coming at me and taking up my entire lane – the guy was driving on the left side of the road, fully left of the double-yellow! With no time to react what happened next was a bit of a blur. I expected a head-on collision but side-swiped the driver door, might have hit his mirror but not sure. The bike went down on its right, and I was on my back in the dirt with sharp pain in the left wrist. I don’t recall if I braked or not, but the scratches on the bike looked like it was dropped standing still. The 20-yr old truck driver must have swung to his right at the last moment to avoid the head-on, and his truck stopped diagonally, with the front end on the right side of the road, its tail still on the left. He couldn’t explain why he drove on the left side of the road but apologized profusely, probably just one of those dumb things young men do with no good reason. The bike had very little damage. Later-on x-ray showed nothing broken in my left wrist, just a contusion.

I’ve ridden Mt Hamilton Rd hundreds of times, in all kinds of conditions, had many close encounters including fire engines, dump trucks, PG&E trucks taking up half of my lane without issues. I trusted my ability and judgment, but this incident shook my sense of invincibility. Last Saturday I rode the same road again for the first time since the incident. I tried to see how I could take the many blind right turns differently to improve the odds, took different lines, entered wide or hugged the fog line, pushed the bike down and leaning my body left to peer around the corner, varied my cornering speed, etc. After all that I still feel there was no sure way to avoid someone driving on the wrong side when the sight distance is but a fraction of a second. Think about this if you ride fast on Mt Hamilton - what would you do if we can’t count on fellow motorists to follow even the most basic rules of the road?
 
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I think your last point is dead on - you just can't trust others. Other than that, it doesn't sound like you've made progress on measures to avoid such an incidence from repeating, but there are some good thoughts in there. Maybe hammer fist will chime in... :laughing
 
Here's mine -

I hit NB San Antonio from Charelston Rd, intending to get onto NB 101. That stretch of San Antonio is fairly isolated once you get a bit past the intersection, so I throttled up to about 60. As I approached the overpass, I noticed a BMW coming around the cloverleaf to merge. I guess we both had egos that day as the beemer remarkably met me at speed. Well, I had to move over to the centerline and that put me on the DY botts dots on a slight right-handed bend, so I slid over further into oncoming traffic, where I leaned the bike right as quick as I could while arching my body over the side of the oncoming vehicle. I'm sure it felt closer than it was.

So I figure, don't do stupid things and get into any contesting positions on the street.
 
Glad to see you post and that you are OK Gary.

Scary F'ing scenario... we had one of those of sort. The ones you describe that happen, but are not a full lane shit show.

Butch, Weasel, Chill and I were hammering up 130 when a fire truck just as describe in your post was what felt like eating up most of our lane. Video proved it was only 5-6' but that grill was huge. As you noted both Butch and I were well to the right and while disturbing it was not a deal really other than the huge WTF.

The other guys got through to, but Chill had a oh God moment and was shaken. We did not know it and when we slowed to regroup he was not showing. We sent Weasel back to check on him with an Fire Truck oh shit worry. After a bit they came up and we rode on the observatory to "Chill". What we found was a shaken and shaking Chill. Literally his hands were shaking as he told the tale.

I believe that moment had him rethinking riding for a while.

The fun can go to shit in less than a heartbeat. I love Mt. Hammie but riding with extreme vigilance is the deal. I have seen cars driving in the middle of the road while sitting at the top looking down. One woman was centered on the DY and I was just losing it hoping nobody would get collected.

She made it to the top just as we were leaving and I confronted her.

Me: "What the hell are you doing driving in the middle of the road? You are going to kill someone!!!!

Her: "The cliffs scare me so I was going very slow.."

Me: "Lady.. you can't do that if this road scares you like that you need to not drive it.. go home!!"

Her: "I am sorry.. I will".

There are a lot of shitty drivers out there and it is easy to feel everyone is as good as you and ride accordingly. They are not!! Stay vigilant.
 
budman said:
Glad to see you post and that you are OK Gary.
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Ditto!
Gary856 said:
3 weeks ago I was riding down from Lick Observatory on Mt Hamilton Rd at a reasonable pace
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I don't know what "reasonable pace" means. And I don't know the road. I'm going to assume that given then notoriety of this road, and its popularity on this forum that "reasonable pace" does not mean "slow". Or even "speed limit".
Gary856 said:
what would you do if we can’t count on fellow motorists to follow even the most basic rules of the road?
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Slow down.

Or don't ride the road.

There's a road near me I refuse to ride. At least east to west on the "cliff" side. I need to consider it from west to east.

It's crazy narrow, has I would say a, maybe 2 foot shoulder over the abyss, fenced with high impact dead grasses, and I can just visualize an F-150 Super Duty trying to get around one of those blind corners, and just "drifting a little" to my detriment. So, yea, "don't do that".
 
I have had a fair number of cars on my side of the road between Hamilton, Diablo and the various roads around Alices. I am pretty slow around corners I can't see through, instead of the fast line I'm focusing on how quickly I can take a corner while hugging the shoulder. This has certainly saved me from interacting with someone's hood, and also has meant rocks and debri appearing mid corner aren't as pucker worthy as they might otherwise be. There are certainly still times where I get a little spicy and later consider how my luck could have run out.

Beyond inattentive drivers, the one thing on the back of my mind is losing focus. I've had a few brain dead moments where I blew a corner or got complacent while splitting and got puckered. I believe as I am getting older, I need to pay more attention to being well rested and ensuring on long days that I'm keeping my mind in the game, and some of that is ensuring the body is rested and fed at consistent intervals. It does give me pause when I think about what the end result of going off a back road corner at speed would be. I definitely find that my pace is frequently slower these days.
 
Mt Hamilton and Mines road peg my Risk-O-Meter™. In the late 80's I rode them quite frequently but after more than a few close-calls and the loss of a friend, I've chosen to stop riding them. I'm not saying that I'll never ride them again, but it's pretty damn close.
 
I got one more to share.

Spirited pace on Stage road heading towards San Gregorio. The road has no center line and is narrow in places, bumpy in places, has gravel in places ETC for those that have not been on it.

I was coming around a right hander about 6' off the edge of pavement when a minivan showed its face consuming the whole lane except for about 3'. Her widely opened eyes and shocked look was the last thing I saw as I pushed the right bar down hard and dove to about a foot maybe off the edge of the road. It was really close, but for some unknown reason I did not get even a bit of oh shit as the job at hand had me totally focused.

I slipped by and never slowed my pace or even gave it a second thought really.
If I had hesitated I probably would not have made it. Hitting the brakes like a newer rider may have would never have happened at my pace as the amount of time to react was not there.

Hopefully she moved over after that.
 
Gary856 said:
I’ve ridden Mt Hamilton Rd hundreds of times, in all kinds of conditions, had many close encounters including fire engines, dump trucks, PG&E trucks taking up half of my lane without issues. I trusted my ability and judgment, but this incident shook my sense of invincibility. Last Saturday I rode the same road again for the first time since the incident. I tried to see how I could take the many blind right turns differently to improve the odds, took different lines, entered wide or hugged the fog line, pushed the bike down and leaning my body left to peer around the corner, varied my cornering speed, etc. After all that I still feel there was no sure way to avoid someone driving on the wrong side when the sight distance is but a fraction of a second. Think about this if you ride fast on Mt Hamilton - what would you do if we can’t count on fellow motorists to follow even the most basic rules of the road?
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Gary, sorry to hear about your incident and glad you’re ok.

I have always favored a wide entry in blind rights at a pace that gives me the option of tightening my line. This lets me see farther into the turn and gives me that much more reaction time. It does the same thing for an oncoming driver.
 
My Mt Hamilton story: Wife and I were on our Goldwing sidecar heading up the west side. We came to a fairly tight blind left-hander and about halfway through the turn we meet a family in a minivan coming down the hill. The driver was staring at us, and heading straight for us! I ended up putting the sidecar up on the berm beside the road and bouncing the wife around more than she liked. As we passed the minivan was about halfway over the line and his eyes were wider than ours!
 
Well I've recently had an attitude adjustment thanks to an E-bicycle crash. Caught the edge of blacktop and got slammed hard left onto the blacktop, only going about 10mph. First time in a long time and I had a sense for awhile that I was getting a little too comfortable with any of the two-wheelers. Been three weeks now and still upper-torso is hurting some. Tapped my helmet-less head on the pavement, no harm but now I have a bike helmet. Main lesson is I don't bounce near as well at 70 as I did at 20. Hurts enough I know that throwing myself down the road at 50 or 60 mph would be less amusing then it used to be. In my cockiness in recent past I was making more hairball passes, and have now trained my brain that when I have a hairball impulse and my mind says "I think I can make it" next thought is "Don't be stupid". Guess my extended adolescence is about over...
dirty harry.jpg
 
Tight mountain roads have almost collected me, so many times, if I WASN"T all the way over to the right side, on a Moto. All in a far flung locations.

I'm kinda liking that Binary Translator I've installed on the TW, blast that going around blind corners, , ,
I don't know if it works yet, haven't met one lane traffic
 
Thanks budman. Regarding Mt Hamilton shit show one stood out recently. Again, I was coming down from the observatory and caught up to a 4-vehicle caravan heading downhill. At a short straight section the full-size pickup truck, the last of the 4 vehicles in front of me, pulled across the double-yellow to pass. I expected him to have a quick burst of speed, get in front of one car ahead and quickly duck back in line, because a tight right turn was coming up. I watched in disbelief that truck stayed left of the double yellow to pass all 3 vehicles in front of him all at once. That pass took a while, and by the time he passed the lead vehicle they were both well into the tight right turn. If someone was coming uphill at that moment he would be face-to-face with 2 vehicles side-by-side taking up both lanes at speed, and that would've been a bloodbath! :LOL:

budman said:
Spirited pace on Stage road heading towards San Gregorio. The road has no center line and is narrow in places, bumpy in places, has gravel in places ETC for those that have not been on it.

I was coming around a right hander about 6' off the edge of pavement when a minivan showed its face consuming the whole lane except for about 3'.
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same experience on Stage around a blind right hander except it was 2 bikes cutting the inside corner toward me.

tzrider said:
I have always favored a wide entry in blind rights at a pace that gives me the option of tightening my line. This lets me see farther into the turn and gives me that much more reaction time. It does the same thing for an oncoming driver.
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I've always felt I'm prepared to tighten the line and dive inside around every tight turn, but it didn't work out that way with that F-150. :(
 
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That stick in the truck deserves a good stoning.
What a shit ass move. :wow
 
My luck has been good. I hope it holds. I have seen some poor drivers on Hamilton. I will investigate tomorrow
 
Headed south from Shelter Cove on the unpaved section headed towards Highway 1, a big group of dual sport riders came at me headed north. The lead group posed no issue, gave the signal more behind. Second wave no issues signaled 5 behind. Then one by one I encountered the remainder of the group. The first signaled the correct number behind then it was hearty waves from a wobbly line. The next one target fixated on me and ran me straight into the ditch before he corrected. Thank goodness for the Beta's amazing suspension because just as easily as it entered the ditch it climbed right out. The sweep was enough behind the KTM rider to stop and make sure I was still on my way and not crashed. Good thing he didn't stop because I was PISSED.

A few minutes down the road my other half is waiting. He said a rider on a KTM just about put him in the ditch. When we got home, I did a little research, I know whose ride it was and don't believe folks were properly vetted.
 
I meant to say the sweep slowed not stopped but I think he was pretty concerned.
 
Back in the 70's and in High School I was riding out to a party on a windy country road in New Hampshire when a dumbass classmate decided that he was going to pass me in his vehicle full of friends on a straight before a long sweeping turn. He didn't complete the pass and drifted out to the outside of the turn, pushing me onto the grass. I was in a two wheel slide at 45 mph all the way around with 2 foot thick maple trees every 20 feet or so just outside of me all the way around the curve. Definitely the worst close call I've ever been involved in. When I got to the party , I found the asshole and threw him off of the deck into a shrub, he was damn luck that I didn't knock him the fuck out. He didn't realize how close he came to killing me.
 
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