How to CRASH

[dlaing]

A quick google and I turned up this article

http://www.oldguy.us/easy-riding/articles/sa-crashing.php

But I am looking for more tips for all the various scenarios and how to keep your body position so that you slide and don't tumble and break bones.

Do you stick your arms out?

Palms out?

Knuckles out?

legs crossed?

What do you do when you are sliding quickly towards a guard rail?

High side scenario, low side scenario, collision scenarios, etc.???????

I like watching racers crash, as they seem to walk away much more easily than the people I have seen or heard of crashing on the street.

[g.forrest]

''WHAT'' you havn't had one crash yet..ah yee hathent ridden..

[mike wilson]

A quick google and I turned up this article

http://www.oldguy.us/easy-riding/articles/sa-crashing.php

But I am looking for more tips for all the various scenarios and how to keep your body position so that you slide and don't tumble and break bones.

Do you stick your arms out?

Palms out?

Knuckles out?

legs crossed?

What do you do when you are sliding quickly towards a guard rail?

High side scenario, low side scenario, collision scenarios, etc.???????

I like watching racers crash, as they seem to walk away much more easily than the people I have seen or heard of crashing on the street.

 

My personal scenario is to keep limbs tight to the body for first impact then spread them out to both assist with reducing the possibility of tumbling and to change areas of friction.

 

DON'T try to slow yourself down by scrabbling at the road with your fingertips (first time) OR try to sit up or stand whilst you are still moving (second time) as both will cause further injuries.

 

Never, ever fall off where you might slide into a guard rail.

 

Racers walk because there is nothing to hit by design. It's not a real-world scenario.

 

Even if you are lucky and manage to avoid immediate injury, falling off will probably have long term repercussions on your joints and suchlike.

[g.forrest]

OK then! first find the right place to crash..

 

 

never ever crash in front of a range rover...

[Frenchbob]

My personal technique, arrived at through years of experience and practice, is to say "Oh f**k" while flying through the air towards something harder than me. It's a good way of meeting nurses. Or your Maker. [i believe in nurses, though]

 

These days I'm a little frailer and try to ride as though every b*****d on the road is out to nail me. I would rather slow down unnecessarily than experiment with the stress capabilities of tired old bones.

[Martin Barrett]

I had lots of practice as a youngster trials riding.

 

I think the secret is to relax and not stick limbs out where they might flail or get trapped, and not to hit anything.

 

In short 93 - put my Ford Sierra end over end on to its roof into a field lower than the road, having gone through the gap in the hedge made by all the others who'd lost it on the bend (I fell asleep). Once headed into the blackness knowing I could do nothing just relaxed into the seat and pulled feet and arms in. Only injury a glass piece from the sun roof into top of head. If I had a passenger would have to be a lot shorter than me to be unscaved.

 

In 91 put my XJ550 in to a gate post and slid in to it , heavy bruising to hip area a bit of a limp for a couple of days. Over cooked a corner in the wet went for the escape road - field entrance, but as leaving the road at a shallow angle lost the front with the change of surface. Only a short slide so no time to loose speed. Wearing leathers.

 

In 86 same XJ550 lost front going into a roundabout (insufficient attention) slid in to kerb, stood up clouted armco barrier, end over end on to other side and continued down the road. Had to replace everything above the head gasket . I slid following it. I remembered to try and spread my self out with weight on boots, jacket(wax cotton) and gloves to scrub sped. Followed into the armco, made a conscious effort not to stick my arm out to protect myself so not to break wrist and collar bone. Struck kerb with hip and clouted head (crash helmet) on to Armco. A bit of a bang but no concussion. Was able to get up and run down road to pick it up. Got away lightly as on legs had only trousers and some thermal long johns under, both heavily abraded but no damage underneath other than light bruising. Went and bought leathers afterwards.

 

Dropped my light weight motorcycles RD200/RS100 on ice once each and gravel for the 100. again just slid, wearing Wax cotton, just slid no damage just a few scuff marks.

 

So don't get involved with another vehicle. All mine have been single vehicles and all my fault, inattention I'd even put the black ice into that category. Don't hit roadside fixtures esp poles, trees, and wear good gear. Do it when you're young fit and flexible. Most importantly hope luck is on your side.

 

Addendum; - just read your link - my experience is all consistent with his low-side theory.

However I have real doubts about the "laying it down" I'd rather use that time to be on the brakes and scrub speed off or take other avoiding action.

[mike wilson]

Addendum; - just read your link - my experience is all consistent with his low-side theory.

However I have real doubts about the "laying it down" I'd rather use that time to be on the brakes and scrub speed off or take other avoiding action.

 

"Laying down" is the most unmitigated balderdash. If you have time to think of that and execute it, you have time to brake. Twice I have braced myself for a severe impact _knowing_ that I was going to collide with the top of penis :-) who pulled out in front of me. Both times I stopped short, once embarrasingly so. Neither time with disc brakes, I have to add. Despite having practiced regularly, it is amazing how necessity will always find that extra bit of stopping force to suprise you. With modern tyres and brakes, stopping distances from high speeds are excellently short.

[Frenchbob]

"Laying down" is the most unmitigated balderdash. If you have time to think of that and execute it, you have time to brake. Twice I have braced myself for a severe impact _knowing_ that I was going to collide with the top of penis :-) who pulled out in front of me. Both times I stopped short, once embarrasingly so. Neither time with disc brakes, I have to add. Despite having practiced regularly, it is amazing how necessity will always find that extra bit of stopping force to suprise you. With modern tyres and brakes, stopping distances from high speeds are excellently short.

 

This is the sort of thing, to be serious, I have experienced, too. Almost consistently with cagers pulling out in front of me. I would add one thing: don't suppose that your Tonti with its old, original Brembos will do what a modern Brembo set-up will do. It won't: instead it will lock the front wheel and have you off before you can say "My wrist's just broken". Really.

[Guzzirider]

My 2 recent crash experiences:

 

Glen Shee, Scotland

 

Shit, @#!#$#, sky, tarmac, sky, tarmac, oww, @#!#$#, whack, shit.......fucking hell I'm alive and my legs are still attached

 

Hull docks, England

 

Shit why am I on the floor? And why is Helen beating up that man in the blue Rover?

 

I'm afraid there was absolutely no thought on my part on how to crash- I must learn to improve my crashing technique

 

Guy

[Frenchbob]

And why is Helen beating up that man in the blue Rover?

Guy

 

I sincerely hope she did some damage before someone stopped her..........

[Guzzirider]

 

In short 93 - put my Ford Sierra end over end on to its roof into a field lower than the road,

 

Did you smash the blue lights on the roof, Martin?

 

Guy

[VA Sean]

When you crash (notice I didn't say "if"), try to make sure it isn't quite THIS dramatic:

 

 

[dlaing]

Thanks, interesting replies.

Good point about not laying it down.

There are only a few times when laying it down will pay dividends.

one might be sliding it under a truck, but that would be a rarity if there was a situation where you could pull that off, and thinking along those lines might just get you run over while under the truck.

My experiences have been almost all low sides.

The exceptions being I once I bailed from a turn when I saw sand in the road, and drove into a drainage ditch, breaking off front end like in that photo and through the woods at 50+ MPH through saplings and miraculously missing bigger trees, landing relaxed on my back in a pile of leaves.

And the other a low side that I fought and almost won, but turned into a high side, with ankle injuries on each side. I probably got away lucky with no upper body injury.

I hit black ice once and went down so fast there was no time to react. Took a while to get up, but no injuries.

I locked the front end up in the rain once, wearing no gloves...Burnt palm of hand on muffler as I pushed the bike from falling on me while sliding down the road. WEAR GLOVES!

The low slides went pretty smoothly, especially on wet street car rails and wet leaves.

Not sure what I did but about every time it turned out OK.

The worst injury was a broken shoulder and ribs. The cause of the accident was too much front brake, while having my weight off center because I was setting up for a turn. I was still a hundred feet from the turn and easily should have been able to reduce speed, but fatigue and maybe a little sense of panic made me grab too much brake.

I also may have subconsciously protected the bike by taking the impact with my shoulder, but it happened so fast, I could not tell.

A few months ago, the guy in front of me low sided and broke his collar bone. What scared me most was watching his bike bounce off the guard rail, and imagining that he could have gone into or over the guard rail. Not much he could have done other than go slower and not crash. But it was good that he separated from the bike and did not slide as far as the bike slid.

Stuntman train how to fall. The tips on staying relaxed and keeping limbs in, seem like good advice.

[dlaing]

Um, let me point out that in 99% of the serious accidents you might ever have the misfortune of being tied up in, it will happen so hard and fast the you simply won't have any time or ability to control your reflexes. You can, however, develop those reflexes, to a fairly substantial degree -- enough to prevent or lessen many kinds of injuries.

 

The best way to learn to fall is to fall. Many many times. The harder and faster the better -- up to a point, of course! I find that skiing (which I did for 26 years, some of which were 100+ full day seasons) taught me how to fall to the point where it completely changed the way I hit the ground at speeds of up to 40 mph. Some of my more notable falls were nothing short of spectacular, with Ski Patrol hustling over in several cases in apparent expectation of gathering up the remains in a bucket. . . Never broke a bone, but I did collapse 2 disks and had to be taken off the mountain for the first time in my skiing career on my last day and flown to Emergency by private plane. . . <_>

 

Generally speaking, snow-covered mountains make more forgiving landing zones than non-snow-covered, but o'course, there are exceptions. . .

 

The way I really developed my "falling technique" over the years was to ride dirt bikes fast enough and hard enough to regularly enough get in over me head, realizing early on after repeat experience, and ever since, that "throwing it away" just before things get blurry in the crash was about the only deliberate and conscious act possible. It saved impact with the relatively sharp, hot, and poky parts of the bike just before the serious tumbling began, of which there is simply no earthly way to attempt to plan. It's all muscle memory and reflex. You either develop the raw instinct to "tuck in", or you don't have any ability to do it. It can (and often does, by my observation) make the difference between broken bones and dislocations (and worse) and getting up and walking it off.

 

BAA, TJM, but I doubt YM is gonna V.

Thanks for the reply.

I have only skied a couple of times.

Falling is certainly an art.

My instinct had me roll out when falling in heavy wet snow, but this just tweaked my knee when the binding did not give

Forcing the slide would have been the better approach, and body positioning could also have made a difference.

 

As a kid I did skateboard a bit, mostly as transportation. At slow speeds I could usually roll to avoid road rash.

But rolling it out at more than 5MPH is generally a bad idea.

Protective equipment is a good idea! But knowing how to rely on them was a learning process.

One interesting exercise to increase confidence in sliding while wearing pads is to stand at the edge of a pool or halfpipe and drop over the edge sliding to the bottom on the knee pads while keeping upright. The instinct is to roll, but injury is less likely if you slide rather than roll.

I think some of that can translate over into the motorcycle world, but you are correct that often it happens so fast there is little time to decide how to fall right.

[Guzzirider]

I sincerely hope she did some damage before someone stopped her..........

 

Le con était très chanceux pour maintenir ses couilles.........

 

 

After Helen had screamed blue murder at him for 10 minutes, I almost felt sorry for him until he offered to only pay £10 towards my broken footpeg. I had to point out that he hit me from behind in front of 8 witnesses and I would be pursuing an insurance claim unless he coughed up, which he did reluctantly!

 

Guy