OK, saw the crashing thread & recalled this, so thought I'd see what other folk have experienced.
Here is mine :
a July Thursday 10:00, M25 anti-clockwise just before the M3 turn-off, conditions dry & sunny, I'm on a ZX-6R on my way into work, it's a nice day & I've no specific start time, so no particular rush to get there..
I'd just pulled into the inside lane in order to take the slip road to the M3, traffic was flowing pretty well at around the 60ish mark, and there was an artic ahead of me.
Artic signaled to pull out into the 2nd lane & did so, I can see inside lane ahead empty all the way to the slip road. The Lorry then brakes suddenly & hard, I'm about level with the back of the truck, when a light blue Calibra appears in front of me. Now normally this would be no cause for concern, however, this one is travelling - at 90 degrees to the rest of the traffic & going head first for the crash barrier !
The situation at this point is that I'm in the inside lane doing around 60, there's a 12 foot solid fence to my left, about 18" of grass then the crash barrier & hard shoulder, there's an artic on my right and a Calibra spinning in front of me, just over a trucks length ahead, so in effect I'm looking down a tunnel with spinning car in it. First thought into my head - there's no way of out of this & it's going to hurt, a lot.
Strange how time seems to go slowly in these situations, the whole thing only lasted a second or two, but I can remember thinking about what to do & making a decision. My reaction was to come off the brakes & aim as far right as possible, as that's where the bonnet's likely to be when I get there - which at least gives me a chance of being thrown over the car rather than hit it in the middle of the passenger compartment.
Car bounces back from hitting the barrier still spinning anti-clockwise, I'm practically brushing my right shoulder against the lorry, rear of car hits the barrier and bounces forward just as I'm hitting the gap. Anyone that's had an accident where they've had a time to realise they're deffo going to crash knows the feeling I then had of thinking oh shit ! here we go & waiting for the inevitable bang .
Next thing I register is that it's not happened ! I'm through !! I managed to squeeze through the gap without being hit! Large waves of whatever chemical causes elation hit my brain. !!
Pull onto the hard shoulder ( truck pulls in behind me) & brake, go to change gear..... Hold on that's strange, where's that sticky out bit that my left foot goes on ?
Stop bike, look down - yep there's definitely no L/H foot peg there. Get off bike (somewhat shakily), discover that the foot rest hanger has snapped & that the peg & gear lever are dangling from the gear shift rod. Rest of bike is untouched apart from a small crack & scuff on the L/H fairing just behind the alternator cover, also my L/H boot has collected some black scuff material from the rubber inlay strip on the Calibra's bumper, on the clear plastic over the kevlar ankle panel (Daytonas).
Lorry has pulled in behind me, so I walk past it, back to the Calibra, as I emerge round the back of the trailer the guys who where in a van behind me are amazed that I'm alive let alone walking, they were convinced I was under the artic.
Calibra is comprehensively wrecked at either end, & all 4 wheels have blown out from hitting the kerb, driver & wife seem OK, if a bit shook up - thing that puzzles me though is that despite the obvious force of the impact, the airbags haven't inflated.
Cause of the accident was the lorry pulling out as the Calibra was overtaking & pulling in - the car was clipped just behind the L/H rear wheel, which caused the spin. Lorry & driver were Spanish & once the Police turned up, he explained through a combination of mime & drawings that the car was in his blind spot when he pulled out.
I'd like to claim that I avoided certain death & injury due to lightning reactions & exemplary riding skills, though in reality I'd say it was 80-90% luck & 10-20% experience. I think that without the experience I'd have probably just slammed on the brakes, in which case I'd have probably hit it somewhere in the middle, which would have been very painful, experience made me override that reaction & go for the pass or at least the less painful impact zone.
Even now 9 years later I still get flashbacks to looking down that 'tunnel' with the car spinning at the end of it ....
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Topic: Scariest thing that's happened to you on a bike ? (Read 5943 times)