Had a pretty scary moment riding to work today. Same route I always ride, ridden it probably 600-700 times. I was making a left turn at a light with traffic and out of the corner of my eye I saw a truck run the light. I was following two cars with several more behind me. We were all moving into the far lane after the corner. No way to hit the brakes so I pushed hard to keep the bike in the closest lane. Everything was scrapping and pretty quick I was sliding out. I slid on the crash bar and the bag (and my knee) a ways but managed to right the bike and keep going. I have no idea how I did it. It was sliding on its side with me on top of it and then it just stood up and I kept going. I wish I had video because it probably looked pretty cool. I wasn’t going too fast, maybe 25-30 with the flow of traffic. I think if I had gone down all the way the guy behind me would have run over me. If I had not kept it in the lane I would have been hit by the truck for sure. Pretty lucky. I think I can hide the damage enough so I don’t have to replace anything. Scraped the crash bar good, the bottom outside edge of the saddle bag, the highway peg, and the primary a tiny bit. I’ll know more when I clean it up tomorrow. Lost a nice pair of dress pants and my cowboy boots, ground the toe off of the left one. I am usually really paranoid about people pulling out in front of me but I can honestly say I didn’t look for someone running the light. I will now. I know everyone says its not if its when but I've been riding for 40 years and gone down a few times. I can honestly say that just about all of those were because I was doing something stupid.
If I had it to do over this time I would:
1. be more cautious (I think because I have ridden this route almost daily for several years I let my guard down a little)
2. slow down ( was moving with the flow of traffic which was probably too fast for the situation, I was below the speed limit though)
3. plan to turn in the near lane. I was following the flow of cars and then going to turn right in a block
4. I'd like to say look for the truck before entering the intersection but he was going so fast I don't think he would have been near enough to see and stop. I was already deep in the turn when I saw him.

I was on the blue path with 2 cars in front of me and several behind, the truck was on the red.

 

Damn Dave! I'm glad you're still around to tell the tale. Take care of that road rash and good job of keeping your wits in the heat of the moment.

 

Glad your ok. That would have been sweet to see though! Something straight out of the movies for sure! Hope your knee and bike heal soon.

 

Glad to hear you're OK. It's moments like those that make you thank God you were paying attention. Nice save, by the way. The bike took the worst of it, you're lucky. Did any body catch up to the guy?? Get a plate number? Anything?

 

Glad you are ok... That is exactly how my ather-in-law was killed in Houston. And he was driving his car.

 

Glad it all worked out for you...sorta. I'd hate to not see your avatar - I mean you - posting in this forum.

 

Me too, glad you're avatar was ok. Wish I was there to see you pull off that batman move!

 

scary! I have learned to never leave a light because it turned green.

 

Glad your ok buddy! Good thing you were aware of what was happening to respond to the situation. It is unexplainable how we are able to do what we do when the need arise. God Bless!

 

That sucks.

Too bad you weren't first in the line of traffic turning left. Probably a much better chance you would have looked first. When you're in a string of vehicles all turning left it's easy to assume all is well and just go with the flow.

Many of the accident threads I read here get me thinking... "you mean you didn't see that coming, or you didn't anticipate that happening, or that should have been easily avoidable", but in your case I can see what happened happening.

Live and learn.