I heard this happen today...

[flatbutt]

I was in the area close enough so that I heard him winding it out and then it cut out...then nothing until the sirens. I followed the sound but got directed away. Be careful my brothers.

Motorcyclist killed in Jefferson crash, cops say | NJ.com

[pwd72s]

Be happy you were directed away...

[shadowjack1]

I hear this all the time. I live close to the interstate. In the medical field they call them, "organ Donor's". For the most part they are young healthy men. Sad.

[BE911SC]

Witnessed a similar thing when I was in high school in 1978-79. In the local hobby shop with a buddy, we heard loud motorcycles outside on the boulevard coming our way. Then a horrendous crash and people outside gasping. We ran outside and down the block to the scene. It was afternoon commute traffic on a four-lane avenue and the two bikes had raced from a stoplight about 100 yards away. They had probably gotten up to at least 80 mph when a 94-year old man made a left turn in front of them in his small Mercury Bobcat (up-market Pinto). One of the riders laid his bike down and went underneath the car, high-centering the car and rendering it unmovable. The other biker had slid into the right side of the car and impacted the top part of the A-pillar with his head. Neither one had a helmet on. As we ran down the sidewalk toward the scene a man who had come outside was throwing up in the gutter. The old man in the Bobcat was trying to move his car by selecting Drive and then Reverse and people were yelling at him to stop trying to move the car. It was a real mess. I never forgot that and years later when I would get cut-off on my bikes by left-turners I would think of that crash. Both bikers died.

[tcar]

Originally Posted by shadowjack1

... In the medical field they call them, "organ Donor's". ....

"Donor cycles" here...

[pwd72s]

My daughter once had a job as an e=room RN in Rapid City, South Dakota. When the Stugis thing was going on, she saw plenty of gore.

So, she recently decided to buy a 650 road bike. Odds have increased that Cindy & I will outlive her.

[Bob Kontak]

Saw one bad solo MC wreck in Baltimore right as the police got there.

The dude was very crooked.....everywhere. Stomach wrenching.

[Arizona_928]

Last HD crash I saw was a guy face down in a pool of blood with the police just looking over him. Didn't seem like that bad of an accident, but it only takes a little bit

[greglepore]

Two years ago, in front of my house. 21 yr old kid on a gixer 600 he just bought that nite. 3am, missed an easy curve. Off the road, onto grass on opposite side of the road, clipped a pole and then impacted a very large old oak about 200 ft on. I called 911 while still getting out of bed, and then told them to roll easy after having one quick look...

[oldE]

Three incidents are always at the front of my mind.
Forty years ago talking to a guy who had lost control on a corner near his home and slid back first into a concrete post. He never regained use of his legs.
Just a few minutes from here a local guy enjoying a ride before going to work was coming around a downhill blind corner and couldn't stop in time to avoid the truck and trailer which was pulling onto the highway. There were a lot of folks at his funeral.
On a fairly straight piece of road near here a young woman was motoring along enjoying the day when a driver coming the other way pulled out to overtake the camper ahead of him. He didn't see her. She didn't might have made it if she had left the road instead of just braking straight.
There are times when I would love to ride again but I don't like the odds.
Be careful out there.
Best
Les

[DanielDudley]

Yeah. No.

Let's be safe out there.

[ckelly78z]

I have had road bikes in the past, and didn't like the amount of traffic 25 years ago. Now, I strictly stick to farm lanes, fields, and treelines around my farm on my KLR 250.

I have seen some pretty bad accidents that made me re-think being an "organ donor".

About 5 years ago I was taking my son to football practice, drove over the hill near my house, and came upon a guy just attempting to get up out of the ditch. He had hit a spot of bad pavement at about 100 mph, and proceeded to get the "hospital" speed wobbles (left a nice squiggly tire mark on the road for about 100 feet). He then went over the handle bars, and cracked his helmet in half when he hit the road. His t-shirt was pulled over his head, he was missing both shoes, and 1 sock, and had road rash on almost every visible surface. He did'nt want to call the cops, because it wasn't his bike, no insurance, no license, already had a bad driving record. He also didn't want to go to the hospital, but by the time his friends arrived to get his bike, he was going into shock, and shaking badly.

Another time I came upon an accident that just happened in Columbus Ohio, at a busy 6 lane intersection, where two Harleys were on the ground, and some old lady was just getting out of her crumpled Buick. It looked like both bikes had male/female couples, and one woman was sitting in the middle of the intersection holding her husband's head (no helmet) in her lap in an ever expanding pool of blood. I think that one shocked me into not riding for awhile.

[Willem Fick]

Used to ride a SV650 for a while and loved it. Soon came to realise however that bikes simply have too many doors and too few crumple zones...

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by tcar

"Donor cycles" here...

First time I heard this term was from a neuro ICU nurse

See a lot of young men riding like they are totally invulnerable.

I love motorcycles, would never consider riding one on the street.

[drcoastline]

I was about eight years old when a motorcyclist was hit by a car about three hundred feet away from where my friends and I were playing football. He was laying in the gutter face up. A few minutes later the ambulance showed up and the EMT's began Chest compressions. Every time they pushed on his chest blood oozed out of his ears, nostrils and mouth. They did this three or four times. They then attempted to place him on a backboard to put in the ambulance. There was so much blood he kept sliding off. I went behind a bush and puked for about ten minutes. I have never been on a motorcycle.

Be careful guys.

[timchar]

I just lost a friend 44 yrs old, riding his Harley a drunk driver swerved into him. Severe brain damage, in a coma for 3 weeks, family decided to let him go. He was a very special guy, full of life, always had a smile......I used to race motocross but would never ride a street bike. I was too worried about the actions of others that could end my life. I get why guys ride. Life is way too precious for me, to take the risk.....RIP my friend Rob.....Tim

[motion]

In my 4 decades of racing and riding, I have lost a lot of friends to motorcycles. Maybe 50. I still ride and race, of course, but every second is spent assessing, evaluating and calculating the lowest risk alternative for my next move, or the moves of others surrounding me. I ride as safely as I possibly can. These days I race a Ninja 300 with a top speed of 115 MPH. Its still possible to die, but the risk is much, much lower than racing a 250 GP bike.

In my early days, I crashed and totaled every single bike I owned. Probably the first 10. Fortunately, I survived. I feel very badly for the families of other young people who didn't have that luck.

“You live more for 5 minutes going fast on a bike than other people do in all of their life.”

- Marco Simoncelli

[carreradpt]

I gave up riding years ago because my first wife was in nursing school and she eventually refused to ride with me anymore. She was training in the ortho wing at the lcl hospital at first and then in neuro. She invited me up one afternoon and I saw a ward full of young guys like me in different states of distress. There were some 20 patients, 18 my age and 15 of them having been in bike wrecks. Every week the same type patients and it scared the chit out of her and eventually me. Then 2 close friends were nearly killed only weeks apart and I threw in the towel after visiting them in the hospital. Sure miss/missed riding, had some great long trips, but that was enough. This was in SoCal in the middle to late 70's and into the 80's. Be careful gents.

[legion]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

My daughter once had a job as an e=room RN in Rapid City, South Dakota.

My wife's grandmother is from Rapid City, and her father was born there.

I quit riding in 2011 after one too many close calls. I rode carefully and never did risky stuff, but I felt basically invisible to cars. People would look right at me and pull out in front of me, or look right at me when I was riding next to them and merge into me. I came to the conclusion that it didn't really matter how careful I was.

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by legion

My wife's grandmother is from Rapid City, and her father was born there.

I quit riding in 2011 after one too many close calls. I rode carefully and never did risky stuff, but I felt basically invisible to cars. People would look right at me and pull out in front of me, or look right at me when I was riding next to them and merge into me. I came to the conclusion that it didn't really matter how careful I was.

This is the sad reality, even good riders go down. Bad ones more often, but good ones go down as well.

My 944, bigger than a motorcycle, has gotten side hit by an SUV that just didn't see it. Sad thing is, it was a four lane road, and there were two empty lanes to the SUV's left for him to make that pass instead of running me over on the far right.

Its quite different driving the 944 compared to bigger or modern(bigger) cars, I can hardly imagine a motorcycle.