Flashback to March 2015. 

After travelling over 15,000 km on our VanExtraOrdinaire tour we’re not back in Newy for more than a day, when this happens…  We spotted this motorbike ducking & weaving thru traffic a few minutes before. Then we pulled up at a set of lights in Charlestown & felt a decent thump in the rear end and the scream of a motorbike over revving. To our surprise, the same guy we’d seen earlier had planted himself into the back of the Cruiser after we had stopped at the lights.

We jumped out & with the assistance of a couple of bystanders, helped the young guy off the road. He was pretty shook up, winded, with a few scratches & appeared to have a possible broken rib or two.  An ambulance was called.

After he was able to catch his breath he said he had been on his way to get his front brake fixed which had been giving him some trouble. He said if it had been working OK he would have been able to stop in time. I wondered about the logic of why someone who knew his brakes weren’t working would charge thru traffic in the manner that he did. Go figure? I suspect that driving under the influence of being young & indestructable has a use-by date…

After a while a couple of policemen turned up. Their take on the situation was that if no one was hurt then no further action was required. If someone was hurt then the person at fault would most likely be charged with negligent driving. The guy on the bike adopted a cornered & fearful expression from this point. “No, I’m not hurt” he declares.

This seems like an injustice to anyone in this poor young guys position. Yes, he make a stupid mistake. But to have a system that encourages a person to pretend they are not hurt & then leave an accident scene with a potentially serious injury just to avoid a fine or loss of licence seems to be a serious failure of the system.

He was an under 25 year old, on his “L” plates, uninsured & in the wrong. Like a scared & cornered animal he put on a brave face & said he wasn’t hurt. He exchanged details & crawled back on his bike (now minus some bits, one rear view mirror & still no front brake). He left before the ambulance arrived. 

 

I fear for this guy’s future. This was not the first time his bike had hit the road & he’d already broken a collarbone in a previous accident. I get the feeling that with his current set of riding skills and mad duck & weave attitude, he may not live into his thirties.

The cruiser looks like it needs a new coat of paint on it’s bumper, a tailgate re-sprayed & some towing bits reattached . It was checked out & assessed by AAMI & repaired soon after.

I feel sick every time time I think about it. He was a very lucky guy in more ways then he will ever know. 

I’ve since spoken to a friend of mine who works in health & he said this sort of incident is quite common. I.e. Someone will leave the scene of an accident saying they are OK & then present to emergency/outpatients later with serious injuries. 

Evidently there are two types of motor bike riders, those who have fallen off & those who will.

12 Apr This entry was published on 12/04/2016 at 9:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.