The setting: Clear, almost warm. Cruising down the road (4 laner) in the right hand lane approaching a driveway to a shopping center. This lady is sitting at the stop sign at the driveway. I was doing the speed limit (45mph).

All of a sudden she starts coming out, I brake and hit the horn. Didn't take me too long to figure out I wasn't going to stop. I quit braking and swerve to the right. I was worried about going left and getting rearended or runover. Now I am right on line to go up on the sidewalk. I hit the brakes as hard as I can, end up halfway in the grass half on the sidewalk. I thought I was going to lose the bike as soon as the front tire hit the grass (it was still a little damp from the rain the night before), but the bike stayed upright.

I killed it, put down the kickstand and checked my shorts. I was clean. Damn lady was gone, people passing by were giving some weird *** looks. I just chilled up on the sidewalk for a few minutes (20) thinking about what just happened. I decided I was proud of myself for avoiding the accident. I am fine, bike is fine (a little muddy on the tires), no one hurt. I am damn lucky the curb was one of the sloped ones, I am not sure if I could have stopped before I hit it.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful.

**Cliffnotes**

Almost hit some lady, didn't brake and swerve at the same time, ended up on the sidewalk. Everything OK.

 

THAT'S a close one. glad you didn spill or worse

 

Nice to hear that you are alright...........today this lady cut off a bus that was behind me and I was braking hard b/c car in front of me was. The lady behind hit her brakes hard. Lucky, I looked behind me and i saw and i moved into the breakout lane. The lady almost car infront of me.

 

I wish I had a shoulder I could have gone onto. Probably wouldn't have scared me as much as the sidewalk did. We have pretty wide sidewalks here.

Kyle

 

Damn, that's pretty scary when **** like that happens.

You might as well assume they are going to pull out in front of you in situations like that. Do you ride with the highbeam on? Just curious... not that it helps very much these days.

 

Yes, I ride with the highbeam on day and night.

I had a feeling she was going to do it, so I slowed down as I got up there. I read somewhere (Proficient Motorcycling I think) that slowing by 10 MPH make is 80 percent easier to stop. Something like that.

 

Really glad you got your first incident under your belt w/o harm to yourself or your ride. Yesterday I had an old volvo pull the same thing to me. Fortunetely I expected it and there was one of those bicycle only lanes on the right of the road and I had designated it as my escape route. Basically this is on a smooth as butter 80+mph set of reverse camber curves with some good elevation changes. Anyways, I was going at a good clip down a hill when the thing pulled out. Downed two gears, leaned right and pulled up alongside the thing. I was still going fast enough that I decided to bring the back up to share a bit of my mind w/ the driver. What do I get? I get a nice shaking fist and some comment about young hooligans or something. I guess I deserved it... maybe Anyways, I decided that it was appropriate at that time to give em what they want so I popped the front wheel and the middle digit and was off. Oh yea, this was on the f4i. I think I may start riding it more now, its nice how easily it starts when cold. The seat is still hard as a plank though. I get flashed by cages w/ the hi's on at night. And frankly its quite blinding sometimes when I'm in the cage.

 

Good job on letting off the brakes when trying to turn When I'm riding on the street I always have a "way out" in case somebody in a car does something stupid like that. Just try to anticipate their bad move before they do it. So if they do do it, you know exactly what to do...Close calls are not fun, neither is crashing!

Justin

 

Nice save man and good job being on the lookout for incidents. Better hearing about close calls then those ever so dreaded "Rider down" threads.

 

Ya, they dont even think out there in their cars. Plus, I live in Florida, and season is coming. NOthing against old people, but they cant see for anything around here,