Hitting close to home.

I had to run a couple of errands this morning, and took the cage for
that reason. Traffic reports on the radio were dominated by a fatal
accident blocking highway 1 in Monterey county. Apparently a
motorcycle, car and big rig had gotten tangled up together rather
messily.

This evening, I learned that the motorcyclist was my sometimes
next-door neighbor, Dave, as conservative a driver/rider as one would
want to meet, and a general all-around good guy.

No other details on the accident. For the morbid, here's the CHP log:
http://cad.chp.ca.gov/ii.asp?Center=MTCC&LogNumber=0150D1022

_resquiet in pace_

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

ouch. my condolences, and all.

sadly, those links expire rather quickly.

Incident: Type: Location: Map Page: Info as of: 10/22/2003
8:24:33 PM

No information available at this time.

 

That's a miserable stretch of road. While Highway 1 is freeway to the
north and to the south, that 10-mile stretch is one lane in each
direction through a generally rural area with a few cross roads serving
nearby farms, homes, and businesses. However, it has become a congested
commute route between Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, often moving at
a crawl, bumper-to-bumper, in drive time. Maybe tomorrow's papers will
report the exact circumstance, but it's easy to imagine a motorcyclist
getting sandwiched in a collision between the vehicle behind him and the
one in front. Were there an extra lane, a lanesplitting rider could
have avoided that kind of horror.

 

They took is offline. Now it just says:

Incident: Type: Location: Map Page: Info as of: 10/22/2003
10:01:59 PM

No information available at this time.

 

wife was watching KSBW news in other room, I overheard the report...
something about impatient car pulling out to pass, then having to slam on
brakes and pull back into lane, causing oncoming truck to swerve, and nail
bike. ouch. CHP investigators are probably going to file charges
against car who attempted unsafe pass.

 

Here's an article from the Monterey County Herald:
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/mcherald/7083277.htm

The pass attempted in fog brings to mind the case of Nicole Moore, the
Clayton woman who killed BMW rider Gary Kunich last year on Vasco Road
near the SF Bay Area city of Livermore. Moore was eventually convicted
of a felony and sentenced to 30 days in jail, probation, community
service, and restitution.

 

These days I'm not as much on the ball as I was in the good old days...back
then I watched who was following me and if they go too close I turned around
and glared at them until they faded back. that worked. Or Id motion
them back with my hand. that also worked.

Phil Scott

 

I can't help wondering if the person in the Lexus wasn't partly at
fault here...there's been many a time that I've passed a vehicle which
had been going slow only to have them increase their speed
significantly while I was passing them (what is it about bay area
drivers who seem to lack all curtesy and resent letting someone into a
lane or from passing them??).

It's very likely that the woman doing the passing was very strongly at
fault here but what started as a bad decision could have very easily
been escelated by an @sshole driver being passed who at the very least
could have recognized the situation and hit the brakes to prevent the
situation from becoming what it did.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this but I've experienced too many
discourtious (to the point of being dangerous) drivers in the bay area
to not consider it as a factor.

Just my $0.02
Brett
01 Yamaha R1
99 Honda F4
89 Katana 750

 

Wow.

absolute condolences to the family, but did ya'll READ the article?
the author actually treated the rider like a person, not just biker
scum.

it is the first time in a LONG time I have read an article that was more
than just "and the biker scum died"

some send emails to the author thanking her for making Ken a human, not
just a statistic.

--
Assuring you of my best intentions at all times,

Charles Statman
Rocket Scientist/Wonderboy/Women's Legs Shaven

DoD the Un-Numbered One

 

Done.

Charles

 

Likewise.

-Keith

 

Before I start, let me say that I don't know the full story behind either
crash, but, as we say in our on-line crash survival course, you can learn a
great deal from media stories about motorcycle crashes.

With these, I find myself wondering whether the rider missed seeing the
situation unfolding and got caught out.

A London courier rider, where riding is always ïnteresting to say the least,
says that he saw so many crashes happen that he learnt to be able to see the
crash coming well before impact occured.

He reckoned that there were usually at least five visible cumulative steps
before impact.

If we can learn to see the crash situation unfolding early, NO ONE will be
able to get us if we remain alert.

 

This article from another local paper adds the detail that the driver
who killed rider David Berridge did so while making a double-yellow
pass, which would seem to make a felony charge inevitable:
http://www.zwire.com/news/newsstory...97&PAG=461&CATNAME=Top Stories&CATEGORYID=410

 

Strikes me as optimistic. We can reduce the incidence of crashes by
more alert and intelligent driving, but zero strikes me as a goal
beyond reach.


Rich, Urban Biker

 

Thanks for that link -- I hadn't actually understood how the accident
developed from the story in the Monterey County Herald.

That's the last stretch of CA Highway one left in it's 1940s condition
between Santa Cruz and Monterey. When I was a kid in the '50s, the
whole stretch had a terrible reputation for frequent fatalities, being
mostly a 3-lane highway: One lane north, one south, and a "meatginder"
lane between. Faster cars, bigger trucks and more traffic forced the
elimination of the "meatgrinder" some time around 1960, and the
conversion of most of it to freeway beginning shortly after that.
State budget restrictions in the wake of prop 13 basically put an end
to the improvements, but not to increases in traffic.

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

When I drove deliveries, I was popular with the CHP because I could
tell them clearly what had led up to the accidents I witnessed. After
a couple of months on the freeway, I was always watching things
unforld seconds before any actual impact. I figured an average of five
errors distributed among two or more drivers in every collision I
witnessed, which was about two per week. The accident reports in
those cases were so clear that not a single one ever resulted in a
court case, all parties realizing that their odds of having blame
reapportioned were too poor to justify the expense.

One thing they didn't mention in the second article I saw:

http://www.zwire.com/news/newsstory...97&PAG=461&CATNAME=Top Stories&CATEGORYID=410

It was foggy at the time of the accident. It's pretty clear from that
description that the only avoidance strategy that might have saved
Dave was to get well off to the right hand shoulder (away from the
oncoming traffic, I remind you since you're in NZ), possibly leaving
the pavement. No amount of braking could have helped, as he was in
between two vehicles which ultamately collided with each other: the
Honda ahead of him and the truck behind him. Seeing the Honda pull
back into it's own lane, I suppose he felt it safer to continue than
to try and maneuver, which decision sealed his fate, even assuming he
could have maneuvered as I suggest.

The photo of the scene:
http://www.zwire.com/local/Z/ZWIRE1197/zwire/images/crash772.jpg

Indicates soft shoulders, with fields of what's probably lettuce to
either side. Leaving the pavement would have been risky, but give a
better chance of survival than what actually happened.

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

Yep. Or even a little further north than that, since it's veggies
growing on both sides, not just sand dunes.

Might have been me, except that I wasn't exactly old yet in '66... I
did drive a Citroen, however. I liked that car. Roomy, comfortable,
economical.

So sometimes they do see us in time. Whoda thunk it?

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

What are those 5 steps?

 

To us dirt type riders hitting the shoulder at 40 or 50 mph is almost a non
event.. some of us used to go off onto smooth dirt off camber shoulders at
70 mph sometimes just to practice power slides.

If a rider does down at 40 or 50 in the dirt on an HD type bike the chances
of injury are slight unless he hits a culvert, pole or barbed wire fence


This guy had only half a second between the time the Honda clipped the lexux
and veered into his lane, not enough time to react even if he saw it
coming...for him most likely an unavoidable accident.

If it was me in that scenario I might have been riding close to the center
line so I could see ahead, and when the I saw the Honda out to pass I would
have gone clear the right looking to hit the shoulder or the lettice field.

He apparently just held his position in the lane.


Phil Scott

 

its freeway to well north of Fort Ord, in fact, all the way to
Castroville. The location of this accident was south of Watsonville, and
north of Moss Landing. Jensen Rd is the left (if you're northbound) at
Dominics fruitstand...