Fulton Street Crash

[paladinnorcal]

Jan. 17th, 2007
8:45 a.m.
Traveling east on Fulton Street approaching 33rd.

One of the little yellow school buses is in the left lane, signals for a left, slows down and stops in front of the crosswalk, three other cars behind it come to a stop. I'm in the right lane, slow down from 30 to 20 ready to swerve, accelerate or brake if someone decides to move suddenly to the left. I'm about half way past the school bus when a pedestrian who is running to catch a Muni Bus that is half a block behind me, runs out from behind the school bus, sees me and freezes in place. I start using the front brake, but with the road being wet I'm still moving towards her and feel like I'm going to hit her. I apply more brake and the front end washes out, at which point she unfreezes and hops forward, the sliding bike missing her by about three inches.

I get up move to the shoulder. The woman asks if I am alright, and I respond yes. Muni bus pulls up she gets on and rides off. I pick up the bike. Bent shift lever, fairing rashed and has broken off of the upper mount, and engine casing is scored (generator cover). Damage to me is a jammed big toe (another big toe nail bites the dust) and my right wrist is sore.

About $400 in parts damaged.

Primary failure on my part was not seeing the pedestrian when she started running, I was focused on cars switching lanes in front of me.
Secondary failure: Not continuing to cover the brake when I got even with the bus and then overbraking the front. I don't think I touched the rear brake. This was after practicing emergency stops during the weekend. Obviously I need to practice them on wet pavement as well.

Luckily I didn't hit the pedestrian, that is the silver lining of this particular cloud.

Lessons learned: Scan for peds. Beware of passing a stopped vehicle that you can't see around or over, and practice practice practice emergency stops under
diffrent road conditions.

Guess I'll go ahead and order those frame sliders I was planning on getting. Wish I already had them on.

Thanks to the motorcyclist who stopped and offered to help. The only other folks that asked if I was alright were two pedestrians who waited untill there was no traffic to cross the street.

[cold100onhw1]

dang, glad it was not worse and you are not hurt to badly. you can do everything right and when you go down there is always somthing that you could have done diffrently.

[paladinnorcal]

I think I may have broken my big toe, I'll get it looked at on Friday. They don't really do anything for broken big toes, but it will at least give me ETA for it to heal.

Took off the fairing to assess damage, I was starting to think about getting repaired rather then replaced, but one of the inner tabs snapped off as well, so I tink I'll just get a new one. The tail piece plastic has some rash on it, that I'll get repainted.

Part of what happened is that on my previous bike, a Ninja 250, you had to exert quite a bit of pressure on the front brake (single disc) to stop quickly. In panic mode I applied that much pressure to the Ninja 650 brakes, which although not that great, are dual disc and don't require the same pressure.

I'm glad I wasn't driving the Xterra, even with ABS I don't think it would have stopped in time.

[pepperell]

i encountered a similar situation the first year i had a bike. i was going down the timed lights on bush and a pedestrian crossed at the last moment. my view was obscured by a bus.

my lesson learned was, when riding in the city, be very wary anytime something blocks your view and approach with caution.

[paladinnorcal]

Yep, next time I come up on an intersection with a large vehicle blocking my view I will be reducing speed, covering the brake, and ready to do a controlled emergency stop.

I don't think I ever driven in a city where people are more likely to walk blindly into traffic. The 69 year old woman who died on Geary this morning being a case in point. Apparently she fell down in the cross walk prior to the person turning right on to 2th running over her.

The crosswalk does not have a force field.

[zimi...]

um, doesn't the pedestrian also have some sort of duty of care.

sure, you should be especially careful around crosswalks but when people "dart out", like in this instance, shouldn't she be held accountable for the damage to your bike?

:mad

[paladinnorcal]

Well after going back and looking at the scene of the accident and replaying it in my mind it appears I was totally at fault.
I think the bus stopped because she ran into the crosswalk trying to get across the street to the Muni stop. I remember several of the cars nose diving on their shocks because of the sudden stop. At the same time I'm coming up to the fourth car stopped behind the bus, at this point I can't see her running and she can't see me coming on.

I hit the deck about five feet from the crosswalk and the bike slid past the cross walk to the edge of the bus zone, which is probably another 10 feet.

So at this point, I'm really glad I didn't hit her. I think my main screw up besides hitting the brakes to hard, was being so focused on whether cars were going to cut over on me from the left that I didn't register what was going on.

Failing to scan ahead and tunnel vision put me into a position where the distance to stop was less then my skill at stopping. Someone more experienced would have realized what was going on, or been able to stop or swerve around her.

She was in the crosswalk, so in California she had the right of way. Hell even if she wasn't in the crosswalk she has right of way.

So lesson learned at the expense of my toe and some plastic and metal. Could of been much worse.

As Master Yoda said "Do or do not. There is no try."

[cRa1g]

Oh man! I didn't even get the chance to congratulate you on the new scooter yet. Glad that nobody was seriously injured (hope your big toe heals quickly) and that you're able to walk away from it.

Take care amigo!

[paladinnorcal]

Well my shifter came in today, and I epoxyed the fairing together until my parts come in later next week at Misson Motorcycles. They said they had been doing a lot of crash work last couple of weeks, cold tire, cold roads, icy conditions.

Learned a lot about the bike in the process, like having to take the windshield and tach speedo cover off to get that last middle fairing bolt. Very educational. Ordered some R&G Sliders which should come in next week as well, so by Saturday of next week it will be as if it never happend, well except for my broken big toe. Just have to slide the boot up a little further on the shifter when I upshift.

[DataDan]

This is a variation on a crash I call the "deadly gap". Traffic in the left lane (possibly multiple lanes) is at a crawl, and drivers open a gap to allow an oncoming vehicle to make a left turn or a vehicle crossing from the left to pass through. But a motorcycle in the right lane, which is moving freely, collides with crossing vehicle because neither saw the other. I've read about this happening to a motorcyclist who had moved into the bicycle lane to get around traffic and to a motorcop who was riding on the shoulder. This is also an extremely dangerous situation when lane-splitting.

BTW, lots of good thinking displayed in this thread.

[paladinnorcal]

"Deadly Gap"..that's a good name for it. I have seen variations of this on Lincoln Ave.

Took the bike out to the City College parkng lot where the MSF classes are taught early this morning and practiced 35 mph emergency stops. Realized that this bike really only needs two fingers on the brake, unlike my old 250 where you really had to clamp down on the brake lever to get the single disc front to bring the bike to a stop. Waiting the second it takes for the weight transfer to the front fork makes a the front much less likely to lock, although I found I could lock it even with two fingers.

Riding in San Francisco is complex. Lot of stuff going on. Tourist wandering all over the road, people who don't stop at stop signs and kamakazie pedestrians, muni tracks, you name it. Got to stay frosty out ther.

[RhythmRider]

I have a little advice that I feel might be helpful, but I am no expert, and I don't expect my opinion to be treated as such. Judge the situation as much with reflex action and raw coordination as you are with mental calculation. I think that part of the reason you spilled was due to the amount of thought going on. I think that you might have been distracted by over analyzing the situation, and that might've been what caused you to miss the running woman. Then again, I could be completely wrong, but I'm just going off of my own experience with over analyzing what's going on around me.

[dohun]

Originally posted by paladinnorcal
I think I may have broken my big toe, I'll get it looked at on Friday. They don't really do anything for broken big toes, but it will at least give me ETA for it to heal.

Took off the fairing to assess damage, I was starting to think about getting repaired rather then replaced, but one of the inner tabs snapped off as well, so I tink I'll just get a new one. The tail piece plastic has some rash on it, that I'll get repainted.

Part of what happened is that on my previous bike, a Ninja 250, you had to exert quite a bit of pressure on the front brake (single disc) to stop quickly. In panic mode I applied that much pressure to the Ninja 650 brakes, which although not that great, are dual disc and don't require the same pressure.

I'm glad I wasn't driving the Xterra, even with ABS I don't think it would have stopped in time.



did you have boots on?

[slydrite]

Originally posted by paladinnorcal

Took the bike out to the City College parkng lot where the MSF classes are taught early this morning and practiced 35 mph emergency stops.

:applause :applause :applause

[07chuck]

Originally posted by paladinnorcal
I think I may have broken my big toe, I'll get it looked at on Friday. They don't really do anything for broken big toes, but it will at least give me ETA for it to heal.


What moto gear, boots, etc were you wearing? Please don't say loafers.

Let's look on the bright side of this event. This could be way more complicated and expensive had you impacted the pedestrian or you had more severe injuries.

One key to staying shiny side up in this town is to always scan ahead for clear sailing. If there's a bus stopped in the street at a crosswalk or intersection it can create a situational blind spot. Might someone be running to catch the bus or what cars might be trying to pull into the intersection other the other side of that blind spot?

Without a clear view of unobstructed road ahead it's best to slow and be extra alert until the view opens up again.

*Account hijack by supertireguy*

[paladinnorcal]

Yeah I was wearing my penny loafers cause my flip flops were dirty. Nope AXO Primato motorcycle boots. Turned out the toe was just brusied rather badly. All better now, ran 8 miles on it this morning. Cortech Sport GX jacket (has CE elbow, shoulder armor). Tourmaster Caliber overpants with knee and hip armor.

Bike is imaculate now except for the scratched generator cover. I have the part and will replace it next oil change.

Installed R&G frame sliders to help reduce damage the next time. Yes I should have slowed way down when I saw the bus slow down, but this woman is lucky somebody in a car didn't kill her. Fulton at 8:30 a.m. is no place to be blindly running across the road in heavy traffic unless you have a death wish. Catching your Muni bus is not worth risking your life.

[paladinnorcal]

Postscript

I actually did learn something from this incident. Today, a.m. commute on Fulton, I'm in the right lane, a Muni bus is hangingout into the lane from the bus stop, the car in front of me is coming to a stop, I start to split down the middle, when I notice the white panel van to my left come to a stop, I hesitate, nothing...still braking slide into my split position...still on the brakes..out from behind the van comes a guy with a cane limping as fast as he can to try to catch the bus...which as all good Muni's do, pulls away as soon as he gets beside it. I was able to come to a nice gentle stop until he passed and then proceeded to split, got past the bus and on to work. My little pea brain actually said..."Hey we have seen this before...slow the heck down.."

[Nozzle]

:) not repeating mistakes is the best thing you can do if you made one in the first place.

btw, i need to start doing emergency stop training too..

[BARFONE]

i know fucking pedistrians. i almost hit one today too. my fauly though i was going a little too fast for a school zone

[paladinnorcal]

School should be out for everybody by now. Those lights will flash all summer. I had a sales rep from St. Louis go on about San Francisco pedestrians, how they wouldn't last ten minutes in St. Louis, how they just walk into the street without looking. My latest pet peeve is the ones who step out without looking and walk really slowly because THEY ARE ON A CELL PHONE or they ARE WRITING A TEXT MESSAGE!