Riding the cb1100 home from work today, I turn right and start heading along a 4 lane, busy street with center lane for turns. Within a few seconds I see a bicycle flash by ahead, a couple hundred meters distant. It takes awhile for the brain to register what it's seeing...something dark rolling in the middle of one of the lanes opposite of my direction of travel. I ease off the gas and start slowing as something doesn't look right... it's a guy on on the ground rolling back and forth in pain...he's wearing a mc helmet.
Lady is just getting out of her car as I pull even with the scene, and I park the cb in the center turn-lane. Lady exclaims something like "Did you see that cyclist!? Came our of no-where!!" I'm looking at the guy writhing in pain on the ground, on-coming cars are slowing...I think. Different lady gets out of her car, a young dude, too. This lady starts talking to the injured motorcyclist, he's moving around a lot, trying to stand, but we calm him down. He says it's his hip that hurts but that he wants to get out of the street. IDK...is he ok to move? I ask him if he feels like he can stand with help and says, yes--please. Two of us help him take a few steps into some shady, grassy area and he lays down. Cars are starting to go around the motorcycle still in the middle of the two lanes, several pieces of motorcycle are strewn about. I pick up all the pieces first and set them beside the guy. I ask him if he wants me to move his bike and he seems fairly coherent and again, 'yes, please'. It's a crotch-rocket type, maybe a 450cc-600 something, I didn't even notice, just trying to remember correct bike liftintg techniques while checking to see if traffic is going to stay stopped. The grab bar breaks off in my hand, pretty sure it was broken in the fall, but I manage to get it up using back/legs, and roll it over to a parking area, next to where the guy is laying.
Within 5 minutes, police are there, ambulance and fire truck arrive, too. One of the police officers asks me if I was riding with the guy, whether I saw anything. Since I hadn't, he says I can leave, but then asks if I'm an instructor at the local college--yep! He's a former student of mine and says he uses the Spanish he learned from the classes he took with me quite a bit. Good to hear that at least.
Before I left the motorcyclist was saying loudly, "that was a FAST stop!!", sounding proud kind of. Now I'm wondering if he's in shock. Then it hits me: There was a marked cross walk, the bicyclist I saw briefly had "come out of nowhere" (according to the lady), and entered the cross-walk, she must have slammed on the brakes, and the motorcyclist behind her couldn't stop in time and hit her from behind and he landed hard on his right side, or his right side is what slammed into her car. Or maybe it was the other way around...maybe he was able to stop quickly and the lady hit him from behind.
I dislike these cross-walks...the scene of soooo many accidents. Pedestrians push a button, little yellow lights blink and heavy traffic must stop. It's a mile between interesections, and people lose sight of the fact that there's a crosswalk half-way between the two major intersections. The cross walks are incongruent with heavy traffic streets, cars traveling at 40mph. I've nearly hit the car in front of me as they quickly stop--the vehicle(s) in front can obstruct your view if you are behind them--sometimes you can't see the yellow lights blinking. If they want to put crosswalks in, then they should simply treat the crosswalks as intersections and use full fledged stoplights so drivers / riders can easily see the green/yellow/red lights with the lights hanging from above and not as small yellow blinking lights on signs that are 2 meters high. As it is, a pedestrian presses the button, and immediately enters the cross walk because by law, cars must immediately stop. There's no typical yellow light, then red to warn oncoming cars to stop ahead, just bang...yellow flashing, and pedestrian sometimes "challenges" on-coming car(s) to stop by entering street with no hesitation.
As I left the EMT guys were beginning to work with the guy. I rode home slower than normal.
Lady is just getting out of her car as I pull even with the scene, and I park the cb in the center turn-lane. Lady exclaims something like "Did you see that cyclist!? Came our of no-where!!" I'm looking at the guy writhing in pain on the ground, on-coming cars are slowing...I think. Different lady gets out of her car, a young dude, too. This lady starts talking to the injured motorcyclist, he's moving around a lot, trying to stand, but we calm him down. He says it's his hip that hurts but that he wants to get out of the street. IDK...is he ok to move? I ask him if he feels like he can stand with help and says, yes--please. Two of us help him take a few steps into some shady, grassy area and he lays down. Cars are starting to go around the motorcycle still in the middle of the two lanes, several pieces of motorcycle are strewn about. I pick up all the pieces first and set them beside the guy. I ask him if he wants me to move his bike and he seems fairly coherent and again, 'yes, please'. It's a crotch-rocket type, maybe a 450cc-600 something, I didn't even notice, just trying to remember correct bike liftintg techniques while checking to see if traffic is going to stay stopped. The grab bar breaks off in my hand, pretty sure it was broken in the fall, but I manage to get it up using back/legs, and roll it over to a parking area, next to where the guy is laying.
Within 5 minutes, police are there, ambulance and fire truck arrive, too. One of the police officers asks me if I was riding with the guy, whether I saw anything. Since I hadn't, he says I can leave, but then asks if I'm an instructor at the local college--yep! He's a former student of mine and says he uses the Spanish he learned from the classes he took with me quite a bit. Good to hear that at least.
Before I left the motorcyclist was saying loudly, "that was a FAST stop!!", sounding proud kind of. Now I'm wondering if he's in shock. Then it hits me: There was a marked cross walk, the bicyclist I saw briefly had "come out of nowhere" (according to the lady), and entered the cross-walk, she must have slammed on the brakes, and the motorcyclist behind her couldn't stop in time and hit her from behind and he landed hard on his right side, or his right side is what slammed into her car. Or maybe it was the other way around...maybe he was able to stop quickly and the lady hit him from behind.
I dislike these cross-walks...the scene of soooo many accidents. Pedestrians push a button, little yellow lights blink and heavy traffic must stop. It's a mile between interesections, and people lose sight of the fact that there's a crosswalk half-way between the two major intersections. The cross walks are incongruent with heavy traffic streets, cars traveling at 40mph. I've nearly hit the car in front of me as they quickly stop--the vehicle(s) in front can obstruct your view if you are behind them--sometimes you can't see the yellow lights blinking. If they want to put crosswalks in, then they should simply treat the crosswalks as intersections and use full fledged stoplights so drivers / riders can easily see the green/yellow/red lights with the lights hanging from above and not as small yellow blinking lights on signs that are 2 meters high. As it is, a pedestrian presses the button, and immediately enters the cross walk because by law, cars must immediately stop. There's no typical yellow light, then red to warn oncoming cars to stop ahead, just bang...yellow flashing, and pedestrian sometimes "challenges" on-coming car(s) to stop by entering street with no hesitation.
As I left the EMT guys were beginning to work with the guy. I rode home slower than normal.
