QuestionCongratulations on your latest book, Maximum Control. The information is excellent and the many high quality pictures really help illustrate your points.
I ride a BMW R1100RT (my second BMW) and although I’ve been a two wheel enthusiast (MC’s and long distance tandem bicycle touring) for many years, I still found a lot of new and helpful information in your book.
I do have one observation that I’d like to get your opinion on. In chapter 7, Emergency Braking you respond to the comment, “I had to lay ‘er down.” I have always shared your opinion regarding this statement and I’m fairly vocal about it when the subject comes up.
A few weeks ago I was at a party and started talking to a Harley rider who related just such a story to me. In this case he said that large panel van blew a stop sign only 100 feet or so in front of him. Although he applied his brakes he realized a crash was imminent and so he, "laid ‘er down". My reply to his story was along the lines of, “so you crashed to avoid a crash – bad idea”. His reply was interesting and got me thinking if there might actually be a situation where purposely low siding the bike might be a good idea.
He said that once he was certain there was no way out and it was inevitable that he was going to hit the van, he calculated that he would sustain less serious injury sliding (atgatt) than he would being pitched head first into, or possible being thrown over, the van. His reasoning was that if he hit the van in a riding position his risk of head injury would be far greater than if he took a slide.
This started me thinking that he might actually be right. Are there possibly times when a slide might be a better alternative than keeping the bike upright? If a crash is imminent and you’ve run out of options, might it be better to risk some road rash, or a couple of broken bones, rather than being catapulted head first into the side of a two ton piece of steel?
I realize that the goal is to never get into such a situation and fortunately I never have, but the possibility always exists. In spite of our best efforts accidents happen, even to safe, well trained and disciplined riders. The goal of any motorcycle accident, should it occur, is to get up and walk away. I’m now wondering if this might be a viable injury avoidance technique to use in certain situations, such as the one I described. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.
Thanks.
Joel
AnswerThanks for the kind words, Joel.
In the sport bike community, this subject comes up from time to time, but in a different way. Instead of "laying 'er down" the discussion is "when to jump." Funny. I guess the riding positions of the two types of bikes (cruisers vs sport bikes) makes your last-resort options different.
Purposely ignoring the other more important factors (strategy, plan, awareness, braking ability, etc.) I regrettably have to say yes, there could _conceivably_ be a time when your best course of action is to "lay 'er down" (or to jump off)--but only from a purely logical perspective. (By that I mean it's a categorically false to say that there will NEVER be a time to lay it down.)
If you know that there's nothing you can do to avoid an impact while remaining on your bike and giving it all you've got (basically, you're aware that your braking skills are poor, which is another discussion altogether), and either sliding on your ass or leaping from the bike like a grasshopper is the lesser of two evils, I guess you really have no choice. The lady or the tiger?
I saw it on a CHiPs episode once. The cop was chasing a bad guy in one of those low, low sports cars. The sports car shot under a half-closed garage door, and the stunt rider layed it down, sliding under the door, then stood it back up on the other side and continued the chase. Now THAT was cool.
I guess I'd want to think about this a little more before I start offering lots of opinions. But my brain keeps coming back to this: if you've got all this time to think and analyze and realize trajectories and closing speeds and how far you're going to slide and all that, you've got plenty of time to just use your brakes and get the bike stopped. You're wasting time making decisions. How long does it take to "lay a bike down?" It's got to be at least a few seconds. A bike on its tires will stop faster than a sliding bike anyway. And I'm not sure I'd want to take my chances getting caught under the wheels.
Thank you for getting my gears turning this morning!
Pat
