What scares you more, fall or a near miss?

[tod.branko_imp]

Recently I was listening to a UK based motorcycle related podcast where they mostly answer questions from followers, and one of the questions that stirred my attention was:"what was your scariest moment on a motorcycle?"
It got me thinking, so listening to their answers, and after having a conversation with a few riding buddies about it, I realized that the majority of people would connect those moments with one of these two things.
Following a recent mishap that EmptySea had, I want to ask him if he was scared at the time and how it felt, but I want to ask others, too.
Being a health worker I have studied psychology and I'm well aware of what fear is and how it works from a scientific stand point, and being human, I have experienced the feeling of being scared numerous times, so I know as what is feels like to me. However I have noticed that what I perceive from this standpoint and "having a proper scare on a motorcycle", it was indeed when I managed to get out of a tricky situation, rather then when it ended messy.
Now I ride dirt as well as road bikes, and I drop bikes more than a regular person, so in that setup, the feeling has watered down a little, but still, I've noticed that when things actually go south it happens in such a manner that there is no time to be scared, while when things happen and I managed to work through them and save myself and my bike from a fall, I recall those moments are particularly scary.

Being an aspiring motovlogger, I want to do an in-depth video piece on this topic, so if you could recall your scariest moment on a motorcycle, and have an opinion on the topic I would highly appreciate your thoughts and feedback.

Thanks!

'14 CB1100 STD 5 speed
I also decided to start with what I remember as one of my scariest moments:


- I remember a few years ago, I have had a Victory Vegas, and coming into a right turn I suddenly heard a scraping sound and lost my rear-end completely, I remember oversteering and after what felt like an eternity of struggle to regain control, I managed to stay on two wheels and continue on my way. After I've stopped and inspected the bike, I realized that I have leaned in so far that not only my feeler peg was broken, but I have deeply scraped to footpeg mount, which was effectively what got my rear wheel off the ground and took me into a slide.

A great scare is only surpassed by an overwhelming relief, so even if it did give me some skid marks in the old underwear and a few extra gray hairs, making it through was rewarding in its own way

'14 CB1100 STD 5 speed

[zirconxi_imp]

Scary riding moment are rare. My riding experience come with lots of near miss, mostly will trigger adrenaline rush, anger, and follow by relief and happily continuing riding. Once a fall trigger adrenaline rush, relief, pain and blackout, and cause me months of financial stress, but not scare. The only scary moment I had, is when there's another rider involved, a senior rider crash into my bikes from behind and both of us crashed. I got scratch injuries all over my body but can't feel the pain, only panic and scared feeling seeing him lying motionless there and wouldn't wake up... until minutes later...

[Jfro5687_imp]

Over the years I have been present when maybe three or four of my riding buddies have come a right cropper, and had to help drag their bike out of a field or roadside ditch. Or wait for recovery to scrape a bike onto a flatbed. I have overcooked an odd bend and had a proper scare but got away with it myself. Thankfully. I was cycling home from work one day when a motorcyclist was tragically killed in front of me when he overcooked a bend and went head on into a VW Golf (that was doing NOTHING wrong). Horrendous, I had to try CPR on him and he died in my arms, literally. I had to go to the Coroners inquest on that one and give evidence. Shook me up and I stopped cycling to work for a good year or so. However. At the tender age of 51 going 52 I think it’s age that makes the difference. What do they say, with “age cometh wisdom” or something like that. We just feel invincible when younger don’t we? Things happen to other folk and if you get caught up in something you just brush it off and carry on. Nowadays I ride and drive much more defensively than I ever did and rarely go much above speed limits. I just don’t want to do it and ride mostly around 60mph. I enjoy my rides and I genuinely don’t care what anyone else thinks. Overtake if you want to. There’s older and wiser folk on here and to paraphrase that tag line about ‘ride every day because one day you won’t be able to’ just captures it perfectly for me. So I think it’s AGE and WISDOM that alters how we perceive risk/danger and how we deal with the aftermath when things go wrong.

[GoldOxide_imp]

Possibly a "near miss" because after-the-fact you can evaluate what could have happened. The realization of what didn't happen can affect one for awhile. Everyone responds a little bit differently.

A "fall", as other have mentioned, leaves little time to think about it. "Okay, this is happening ... ", now one has to deal with the circumstances that occupy the mind.

[Olof_imp]

Tod, I understand your focus to be on riding situations (and not, say, getting lost or running out of fuel in the wild, or being mugged or nearly mugged on your bike), that your hypothesis is that percieved near misses are recalled as more scary than accidents, and that you'd like to collect data on that. If so, great and a very interesting question. While I've never had a real bike accident myself I've had tons of close calls on the road and on the track and I have seen friends and wife crash, at least six different occasions. I must say that although my own near misses as a rule created adrenaline rushes, I dont recall them as scaring me. Neither have they stayed in my mind. Instead, what really scared me was seeing others crash, before knowing if they were ok or not. Road crashes scared more than track crashes, perhaps not surprisingly. I also easily recall them vividly, even now decades later for some of them. And, as someone wrote, time slows down greatly. However what also scares me equally much or perhaps even more are other's near misses, e.g. seeing a buddy in front overtaking and almost running straight into an oncoming truck. These sometimes really have me shaking for a long time afterwards. But, again, being scared is for me associated with others and their , not with myself as I recall it. So, perhaps bad data but in a way I think my experience supports your idea, if I got that right.

[tod.branko_imp]

Possibly a "near miss" because after-the-fact you can evaluate what could have happened. The realization of what didn't happen can affect one for awhile. Everyone responds a little bit differently.

A "fall", as other have mentioned, leaves little time to think about it. "Okay, this is happening ... ", now one has to deal with the circumstances that occupy the mind.

I have the same feeling, if things happen so badly that cannot be saved, they happen so fast that there is no time to be scared. Near misses leave you in distress for a while

Tod, I understand your focus to be on riding situations (and not, say, getting lost or running out of fuel in the wild, or being mugged or nearly mugged on your bike), that your hypothesis is that percieved near misses are recalled as more scary than accidents, and that you'd like to collect data on that. If so, great and a very interesting question. While I've never had a real bike accident myself I've had tons of close calls on the road and on the track and I have seen friends and wife crash, at least six different occasions. I must say that although my own near misses as a rule created adrenaline rushes, I dont recall them as scaring me. Neither have they stayed in my mind. Instead, what really scared me was seeing others crash, before knowing if they were ok or not. Road crashes scared more than track crashes, perhaps not surprisingly. I also easily recall them vividly, even now decades later for some of them. And, as someone wrote, time slows down greatly. However what also scares me equally much or perhaps even more are other's near misses, e.g. seeing a buddy in front overtaking and almost running straight into an oncoming truck. These sometimes really have me shaking for a long time afterwards. But, again, being scared is for me associated with others and their , not with myself as I recall it. So, perhaps bad data but in a way I think my experience supports your idea, if I got that right.

I am open to any experiences people are willing to share, I'll figure out how to turn it in a chewable content people can learn something from. I immensely appreciate your input

'14 CB1100 STD 5 speed

[emptysea]

Interesting question, Tod. And thank you for your kind words regarding my accident.

I gather from your own response that you asking about the moments immediately surrounding the incident and not about how I felt for the 10 or 15 minutes I was riding in the heavy snow. Seeing as I've already committed to taking a seat on your couch, I'll give you a bit of a spectrum of "scared" emotions that I felt that Tuesday.

Let's start with Merriam-Webster's definition of "Scared" -
scared
adjective
\ ˈskerd\
: thrown into or being in a state of fear, fright, or panic

Fear: At the first stoplight on my return from Beck Lake. I began to worry that something bad could happen based on rapidly changing weather. I was not overcome by this fear, just tried to be more alert and recall things I've learned about riding in poor conditions. I started talking to myself, "Loosen your grip", "Look where you want to go", "Stay off the brakes", "Easy on the throttle".

Fright: During the first right hand turn I made after leaving Beck Lake. The bike slipped a little on my approach to the intersection, but I eased off the brake and the bike settled down. I tried to take the straightest line through the turn and so said "outside-inside-outside". At about the apex my rear tire slid out a little and I had that "sudden intense fear" that is the definition of fright. I corrected, over-corrected, causing a little fishtail. I remember both feet came off the pegs and saying to myself "Keep your F*#king feet on the F*#king pegs" and continued on. The next two turns were similar frightening moments including the last left before I dropped it.

Panic: As I went down and while I was laying on the street wondering how badly I was hurt. "Someone's going to run me over", "No one is stopping to help", "Can I get up?" "Why am I so cold?" "How bad am I hurt?" Questions like this firing in my brain uncontrollably for several seconds until I was able to answer them in my head. "I can get up", "I'm not going to get hit", "Other people are around", "I'm cold because I slid on the ice, not because I'm in shock". By the time the paramedics arrived, I was much more composed and was quite sure that I was going to be fine. My only remaining "fears" were of how badly the bike was hurt and of getting "the look" from Cheryl.

Now, I would say that fishtailing at the turns would be considered "near-miss" situations, but because the hazardous road conditions were ongoing, I didn't have time to replay it in my mind. I suspect that the scared (frightened) feeling we get at a near-miss is more pronounced because we have time immediately after the event to feel our hearts pounding, our breathing rate increasing, and to think " Cuss, that was a close one". When we fall, I think we may have all of the same physical feelings, but we focus our thoughts on our immediate circumstances and not on what happened seconds before.

I think my session is up, though, Doc. I can talk about the dreams I have about cigars and trains next week.

[Houtman_imp]

The most scary thing I had was last year , going into a tunnel on the BRP at 40 miles and suddenly had no lights at all as the main fuse for the lights had blown because of a bad LED replacement bulb I had put in and for a few weeks it was ok. Another time was in a sharp corner in the mountains when a large truck was well over half into my lane but I was way on the right side of the road , if a little more to the middle I would have been dead. You never know if tomorrow comes.

[Gone in 60]

For me, I think it has to do with how my actions either mitigated or contributed to the situation. This year, I had my first motorcycle collision with another vehicle after years of riding. A car turned in front of me, then noticed me mid turn, panicked, and stopped dead in front of me. This removed any possibility of avoiding a collision. Running through it in my mind, I'm not perfect, but I cannot think of anything I could have done to further mitigate what became a very minor impact. I was travelling at a reasonable speed when the series of events began, I started braking as soon as I could detect that the oncoming vehicle was going to try to beat me across my path, and I utilized the woeful braking capacity of a Bonneville as best as it could have been applied. Yes, it was a collision, but I didn't walk away thinking about how I screwed up.

I'll compare that incident with my worst near miss. I had been riding for about two years, and was on a large Honda cruiser, going about 65 in the car pool lane on my freeway commute. I was behind a motorhome, which I could not see past. This diminished my ability to monitor traffic conditions in front of the large vehicle. At some point, I was momentarily distracted, probably by a weird looking car in another lane, or perhaps a pretty girl in a car, who knows. When I turned back, the motorhome was braking sharply as traffic was coming to a stop. I panicked, locked up the rear brake of the cruiser, and could feel the bike swerve, then stand up quickly. Fearing a high-side, I released the brake, and, suddenly in a trajectory toward the freeway shoulder to my left, went around the motorhome and several cars while I brought the bike to a stop. I was extremely lucky that at that spot on the freeway that the shoulder was wide enough to do so. I mulled that situation around in my head for weeks. I was in complete control of my actions at that time and I used that control poorly. I allowed a moment of inattentiveness to put myself in a bad situation, and it was only by luck or coincidence that I did not crash. What did I learn? First, if following a vehicle I can't see around, I can't react to traffic ahead of me. Either pass the large vehicle or allow more distance to react to emergencies. Second, do not allow myself to become distracted. Third, practice emergency braking. I found a quiet, abandoned street near my house and practiced my stops until I could wrangle my big cruiser down from speed without locking up the brakes. And, I moved on.

[Houtman_imp]

The mistake you made was buying the Bonneville with the woeful braking .....
Give yourself enough room behind a large vehicle , you never know what is laying on the road besides what the traffic is doing.