Photo: Facebook capture
They say that nothing can save a rider when luck runs out, but, in this guy's particular case, we'd rather say that he could have avoided crashing. Unfortunately, there's no way of knowing how skilled this fellow is, or whether he was aware that he was riding in the wake of danger.
What experienced teaches seasoned riders is that danger lurks at almost anytime, anywhere, even though the road and traffic conditions may not indicate any precarious predicaments. In this case, riding behind a trailered boat that has a rather large foam mattress roll tied to its aft should have already triggered a higher lever of awareness.
Objects that are not properly strapped to the vehicles that carry them will often break loose and fall into the path of motorists approaching from behind, and the list of such obstacles is virtually infinite. We've seen almost everything, from king size mattresses to pieces of furniture, cardboard sheets, logs, sand or pieces of rock, all sorts of commercial cargo and whatnot flying from trucks, the back of pickups or luggage racks atop of passenger cars.
Experienced riders just know that riding behind such vehicles can turn ugly in a split second, and they will try to either stay a good distance behind, ride in another lane or pass them as quickly as possible, if possible.
In such scenarios, a rider's awareness should be at its peak, with keeping an eye on the vehicle that carries goods and another on the surrounding traffic being paramount until the overtaking maneuver is over and the alert level drops.
Now, this fellow can be seen braking late, after failing to spot that the foam roll is about to come loose. Making things even worse, he also appears to hesitate in making a decision to swerve to either side, even though he had plenty of room for a safe maneuver.
As a conclusion, he hits to foam roll head-on and becomes airborne along with his bike. Even though he is still in the saddle upon landing, he can't steer the machine to remain upright and crashes. Thankfully, the speed doesn't appear to be high, so even if he can be seen rolling on the road several times, we can expect that his injuries are not too serious, save from the inevitable asphalt rash from not wearing protective pants.
Someone in the camera car says that he got up, and this appears to confirm that he was not injured badly. As for the ATGATT fans, here's an article about the difference between riding a motorcycle in shorts and wearing casual clothing. The lack of difference, that is.
Objects that are not properly strapped to the vehicles that carry them will often break loose and fall into the path of motorists approaching from behind, and the list of such obstacles is virtually infinite. We've seen almost everything, from king size mattresses to pieces of furniture, cardboard sheets, logs, sand or pieces of rock, all sorts of commercial cargo and whatnot flying from trucks, the back of pickups or luggage racks atop of passenger cars.
Experienced riders just know that riding behind such vehicles can turn ugly in a split second, and they will try to either stay a good distance behind, ride in another lane or pass them as quickly as possible, if possible.
In such scenarios, a rider's awareness should be at its peak, with keeping an eye on the vehicle that carries goods and another on the surrounding traffic being paramount until the overtaking maneuver is over and the alert level drops.
Now, this fellow can be seen braking late, after failing to spot that the foam roll is about to come loose. Making things even worse, he also appears to hesitate in making a decision to swerve to either side, even though he had plenty of room for a safe maneuver.
As a conclusion, he hits to foam roll head-on and becomes airborne along with his bike. Even though he is still in the saddle upon landing, he can't steer the machine to remain upright and crashes. Thankfully, the speed doesn't appear to be high, so even if he can be seen rolling on the road several times, we can expect that his injuries are not too serious, save from the inevitable asphalt rash from not wearing protective pants.
Someone in the camera car says that he got up, and this appears to confirm that he was not injured badly. As for the ATGATT fans, here's an article about the difference between riding a motorcycle in shorts and wearing casual clothing. The lack of difference, that is.
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