<Jitter>
I work from home most days, but every Tuesday I physically go into the office.
I saddle up on my Honda Shadow and hit the highway, US-60 in Mesa. Work my way over to the carpool lane during 6:30AM rush hour traffic, no problem. About 2-3 miles down the carpool lane, I'm doing a nice comfortable 55-60 mph and the lane next to me is doing about 35-40.
All of a sudden, a cascade of brakelights shine out about 100 feet ahead. This little Saturn swerves so hard into the HOV lane that I can see his undercarriage. He leaves a curving skidmark on the yellow line and veers back into his lane and tags a car, then swerves back to the HOV lane, now maybe 30-40 feet ahead of me.
I'm hitting the brakes as hard as I dare without locking them up and losing traction, desperately looking for a window to steer into to be safe.
He smashes into the concrete separator on the far left of the highway.
No matter what, my bike and it's two tires starting at 55mph isn't going to shed speed as quickly as this guy starting at 40mph and braking/swerving/smashing like he is. I can brake, or I can steer. I can't do both and once I lock the brakes I have an unchangeable vector.
I move to the right side of the HOV lane, doing about 20-25mph, my only chance to avoid the accident is to pass in front of his passenger fender while he's still moving, but I have cars in the lane to my right, behind me, and in front of me (him).
Misses my left leg by about 8 inches, his forward momentum tags my left saddlebag and shatters the kydex liner inside of it and rips the top off the saddlebag.
I come to a stop about 100 yards later on the left side of the HOV breakdown lane, afraid of out-of-control cars behind me that I can't see. I didn't go down, but felt a good shove from his car on my rear tire from the side.
Took 30 seconds for me to frantically find neutral on the bike once I pulled over. Nothing seemed to work right. Just too much adrenaline.
DPS shows up, fire truck, two witnesses pull over.
Everyone agrees the swervy Saturn is 100% at fault and a dumbass.
I now need new saddlebags.
And shorts.
(No, not really.)
So glad I've taken 3 MSF classes over the last year. Gonna go take another one this month.
I think I could have avoided this if I were a more aggressive motorcyclist, along the lines of a crotch-rocketeer or experienced dirtbiker. Cut across two lanes and lane-split or something. But then again, I might have just gotten pasted by something else instead.
Aside from that... this is that damned-near-impossible-to-avoid scenario of nowhere to evade on the left, danger to the rear, nowhere to evade on the right and a window of safety about the same size as my bike. And the threat comes out of nowhere and is essentially undetectable by scanning the road ahead. Guy literally manufactured an accident out of thin air.
So, there are two types of motorcyclists: Those that have had a fall and those that will. I am still the latter, and hoping to stay there a bit longer.
All in all, I'm very grateful that I got through this with nothing worse than a broken saddlebag. I need to get the rear end inspected to check alignment and the shaft drive and the fender, but it seems okay so far. I finished my ride up to work and I'll ride her home tonight.
