I am just glad he actually had his lid on(never even knew he owned one) He defiantly learned. But we weren't driving reckless the road is 55mph, we were just cruising...he blew his oil pan gasket and his tires were soaked in oil....within a second he was fishtailing, and slammed into the ground...

You dont have to be driving reckless to crash, but just think if we were going 80mph.....he might not have been so lucky?

Also brings me to my next thought, Saw a guy...well three guys pass me on the interstate today (I was going 80mph) in busy traffic, saw these three bikes come flying up weaving in and out of traffic, and the one guy goes between my car and this truck beside me....and went by 3 cars like this...I have saw stupid, but those idiots are not going to last long driving like that. I feel sorry for their families people like that don't need bikes.

Drive safe, and gear up!

 

I shake my head whenever I see someone ride like that. Do they ever think about their families?

 

I have 2 stories. I grew up riding 4 wheelers andNEVER wore a helmet. One day I jumped on my 4 wheeler to ride some trails to a friends house. That day for some reason a voice in my head said grab your helmet. Not a mile from the house I was going down a dirt road pretty fast and hit a bump and got thrown 20 ft into a creek. My head slammed into a rock in the creek and cracked my helmet. If I didnt put it on that day I would not be typing this.

Story 2: A month ago I was leaving the house to ride my bike. The day before I noticed the handlebar vibrations getting to my hands after a long rideso when I was about to take off I decided to run in and put my workout gloves on. I had never worn them before. That afternoon I got thrown off my bike being an idiot and what was the first thing to hit the asphault? My hands. Im a software developer so road rash on my hands would have put me out of work for at least a week or two.

Thats 2 incidences of where I decided at the last minute to put something on that ended up paying off. Put your gear on people. Its not if you'll wreck, but when.

 

I hope your friend bought the drinks.... your riding him to wear his lid saved his life... I am glad you posted this, people always hear the worst case scenario but this shows GEAR WORKS!!!
Thank you

 

Same here! [:@]

I've ridden with a few people that I swear had a straight up death wish, I kid you not! I didn't even bother to try and keep up, I knew where we were going. I just told them I would never ride with them again. I too wonder if these people ever think of the people they leave behind, and how they'll feel if something happens. I know after laying 5 friends in the ground and seeing what it did to their families, I sure as hell think about it constantly. I've slowed down alot since I first started riding (though I never did anything close to as crazy as some of these guys)... but I don't want to put my family through that. Riding is dangerous enough as it is, and I accept that amount of risk, but we gotta at least try and make it as safe as we possibly can. It's the only way to survive in this hobby. Trust me when I say from experience.... trying to look into a parents eyes of a 22 year old kid that was just killed on his R6 (head-on with an F-250... no gear) and they start asking me about my bike and riding and whatnot. I didn't know at the time that they rode too and were very accepting of him riding. But I stood there trying to think of how to put my mix of thoughts into words that wouldn't come across the wrong way, but just couldn't do it.... I was speechless. Seeing the pain in their eyes really makes you think twice though about some of the stupid stuff you do. With what we do just a little common sense can go a looooong way, and very well may be the deciding factor between life and death. I wish a few more people would use it! [:@]

 

good job man, way to put the put the peer pressure on

 

Thirdgen, I understand where you are coming from. I have just about refused to ride with some of my buddies because of the way they ride. I do not want to be the poor dude who has to come around the corner 2 minutes after they go down and find them all mangled. I have a good friend who is the only person I truly feel comfortable riding with. We ride the same way. Unfortunately, he was downed by a cager and is out for the season. I like riding alone just as much, but it's nice to have someone enjoying it with you/there to call for help I.C.E.

 

I have two good friends I can ride with, and they want to ride within our limits and wear gear. Most of the other guys that come to ride from time to time ride like they can't wait to get to Heaven. We usually ask them to ride with other people because we will just bore them...100+ fly-bys and wheelies on public roads aren't fun to us!

 

Yup exact same here. Sometimes it's not so much about me not wanting to ride the way they do, but rather I just don't want to see somebody go down in front of me again. As most of you guys know, I ride ALOT, and with alot of different people/groups. I've done tons of group rides and I've seen alot of people go down in front of me... some minor and some very major. One particular one involved a cruiser that was not with our group, as well as I think 5 of our guys. One of my worst group ride fears became a bloody reality... we had a group of about 50 bikes going down the highway, and a crash happened right in the middle of the group. From the back were I was, it looked like a bomb went off, and I see bikes and riders flying and flipping in the air. All our guys were fine with minor injuries, but the cruiser guy had no gear. He was laying lifeless in the middle of I-75, blood everywhere, coming out his ears, coming out his throat. We had to roll him on his side to keep from choking on his blood. Eventually I just had to walk away and get some air, I started feeling nausous and felt like I was gonna puke. Lifeflight helicopter came and landed right there on the highway and took him away. He died on the way to the hospital but they were able to recessitate him. He was on life support for a month or so then moved into a rehab center where he was more or less a vegetable. He never did recover.

Another time a guy was riding with us on a Kawi 636. It was his first time riding with us out in the everglades, where people haul ***. He was in front of me and was doing about 140 or so. Came up on a curve and realized he was going too fast. Tried to brake, but ended up going straight and hit one of the metal signs indicating that there was a curve there with his right leg. He snapped his femur in half and I've never in my life seen a leg swollen that big, lol. Bruised his wrist real bad too and it looked like he had a baseball under his skin. The sign he hit, it twisted the metal pole 180 degrees so the sign was facing the opposite direction, and folded the pole 90 degrees flat on the ground. He was also airlifted (we were out on the middle of NOWHERE) and had surgery that night. Several months later he found out the doc did the surgery wrong and he had to have it done again. He's getting better now... that was about a year and a half ago.

There's some others too but I don't want to thread hijack too much, lol. But it's that kinda stuff that I just don't care to see anymore... I've seen enough. That's why I enjoy riding alone sometimes, and if I do group rides I try and make it groups of no more than 10 riders. I was soooo happy when I found the group I went to the Gap with a few weeks ago. That was my first time riding with them, but man freakin awsome group! Everyone was in full leathers, including myself (they're gear *****!), and ride very responsibly. My kind of people