True story (husband wants to sue manufacturer) ...

The wife mounts her motorcycle while in her driveway. It is pointing towards the street. She is wearing safety gear including a helmet. She is experienced and has recently attended an MSF class, apparently not for the first time. She plans to ride the bike to the end of the driveway and make a turn into the street at the end. Her husband also has the same motorcycle and has started his bike just before wife and completed the drive out onto the street where he waits for her to join him.

Something goes wrong. Just as she starts to move the engine begins to race as if the throttle is fully open. The bike moves 58 feet before it hits the curb on the other side of the street throwing the rider off itself and becomes a total loss as far as the insurance company is concerned. The woman is only bruised and buys a new motorcycle with insurance proceeds. According to the policeman who investigated the accident, says the husband, she was traveling at about 40 MPH when she hit the curb.

It should be pointed out that BOTH the husband and wife reported having experienced their motorcycles behave in this way previously. That is, both of their bikes have, after a brief ride and shut down then restart of their engines, experienced a sudden and unexpected 'racing' of their engines. They claim to have reported this problem to their motorcycle dealership and were told there is no known problem with the motorcycle such as they describe. So, of course, according to the husband, neither of them could possibly have expected that the problem might happen again. Further, neither of them could possibly be expected to be prepared to remain in control of their motorcycles if the problem did happen again because if it did it would be totally unexpected and if it took any corrective action on the part of the rider (such as use of the clutch) within a period of two seconds that would be entirely too little time to recognize that something was wrong and do anything other than 'hold on'.

Everybody has 'attitude', including this author. When I hear about or witness a motorcycle accident my attitude includes concern for the parties involved and a desire to LEARN something from it in hopes that *I* might be spared a similar experience.

This author concludes that she actually didn't do ANYTHING (right OR wrong) other than hold on until she was thrown off the bike. Because she KNEW, based on prior experience, that her engine seemed to sometimes 'runaway' by itself, and because she did NOTHING to try to regain control of her motorcycle, it is simply not credible that the 'accident' was 'entirely' the fault of the equipment. However, the 'blame game' is best reserved for the courts.

I believe that EVERYBODY, including myself, is STUPID when on an adrenalin high and that such times are not when they should be expected to LEARN anything. It is after the fact that the rider learns, if they want to, and before the fact is the best time for everyone else. That learning necessarily involves knowing and thinking about what actually happened - and that, in turn, requires asking questions and, not incidentally, credibility on the part of the 'witness.'

The husband claimed that the accident happened in the blink of an eye - too fast to do anything. Absurd and defeatist thinking. The accident took between two and three seconds from the time the bike started moving until it hit the curb 58 feet away. If the policeman's estimate was accurate (it was too high, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt) then she was traveling at 40 MPH when she hit the curb. For any vehicle to accelerate to a speed of 40 MPH in 58 feet requires that it do so at a rate of approximately 30 feet per second per second. (That's almost ONE G and beyond the capability of almost all motorcycles.) Further, that means, assuming a constant rate of acceleration, she averaged 20 MPH during that 58 feet and was traveling at