Fear of being T-boned is ruining riding

I have people pull out on me every single day of the week im on a bright yellow bike making a right racket.
Coming upto junctions an easing off the throttle a little bit isnt really a bad thing as it helps you slow a little just in case.
i work on the principal that every single car on the road is going to do something stupid as 80% of them normally do.

I had an off a couple of weeks ago when someone pulled out on me. I missed them but lost it on some gravel on the side road I swrved into. Bike down and then worse still it got dropped off the lorry. Now written off unfortunately.

I'm a little nervous of going out again but I'm taking my dad's bike out next weekend to try to conquer those nerves. Hopefully it'll all go ok!

This has been posted before but it never gets old ) Like the soundtrack a lot!

http://youtu.be/4BWMDWCQ-Lc

[DJ123]

if you don't think that people are noticing you at junctions, give a beep on the horn to make them notice you. You need to make sure they see you, whether you allow them to pull out of the junction in front of you or they see you before they start to pull out.
Is there anything you can do (at reasonable cost of course) to make the front of the bike more noticeable, i assume the headlamps are constantly on. A bright coloured helmet, DRL's, reflective strips etc etc.
What is your riding position like, road reading skills, riding competencty level?
You may find doing advanced/extra training an extra benefit. I have heard very good things about the days training you can do with your local Police Force
Sorry if i have repeated andything already said within this thread, i have skimmed through it.
Happy and safe riding!

You need to regain control of the situation.

Stay calm. Give yourself the time you need to plan, process information and react without needing to panic. Often that just means going slower.

Use the road signs, hedgerows, street lighting, etc to get advance warning of where these junctions are, and loose some speed on approach with a gentle roll off the throttle. Just by doing this you will feel more in control before you even get to the junction. If there's a car waiting treat it as a potential hazard and don't zip past it's nose at 70mph, travel at an appropriate speed for the situation. Position your self in the drivers line of sight. Plan and be mentally ready to take an escape route or stop in the distance you can see to be clear if the other vehicle moves. Watch for the signs people have mentioned on here, such as eye contact (be wary, looking directly at you and seeing you are two different things), wheels starting to turn, brake lights going off, etc, so that if the vehicle does move, it's not a surprise.

If there isn't a vehicle there, look over hedgerows, etc, and as soon as your satisfied a hazard is not going to appear from that junction, roll back on the throttle and get on your way back at your normal speed.

At the moment you are not mentally or physically calm, you are getting anxious, dealing with the threat only as you are faced with it, tensing up, throttling off and watching like a hawk which is target fixation (allowing your brain to focus your eyes on the threat).

When you ride you need to look like you have all the time in the world. When a car does pull out on you, you shouldn't be having a panic swerve or brake. You were expecting it and should either be riding round a planned escape route, or braking to a stop, whilst shrugging your shoulders, shaking your head, and thinking calmly to yourself "silly *****, I knew he was going to do that!"

[yorkie_chris]

Planning.
Run through every possible situation in your head, work out all the angles, work out which angles, timings and speeds would give rise to a particular reaction, there are only a couple of possible reactions* so it is relatively easy to select one. Run through it mentally so many times that this is the only thought you have about it, crashing is NOT compulsory. There is no such thing as an unavoidable crash, you can ALWAYS prevent them with skill, planning and preparation.

Performance.
Learn how the bike works, learn how powerful the brakes are, how small a gap you can get through, what happens after you ride up a kerb, how much immediate grunt you have to pull yourself out of trouble, how quickly it can go from side to side. Learn the machines abilities and your own, this bit is pretty good fun too.

Practice.
No point having massively powerful brakes if you don't have the muscle memory to use them decisively and hard.

After this I reckon it's all down to planning (the second by second sort while you're riding) and general defensive riding to avoid needing to use the above plan. One that you hope to never need but is still worthwhile. The mental preparation to avoid freezing up is IMO what lets you take immediate and decisive action.


*Roadcraft is pretty good for this, I've got a copy you can borrow if you don't have it.

[dizzyblonde]

Funny we had a similar conversation in the pub after the AR about one or two of us having a mental block about things flying out at us.......but then those who were in this conversation had experience of flying objects such as cars or deers hitting them, there was only one, who did not, so couldn't really begin to think what its like to get hit by something, and IMO couldn't begin to imagine what its like to feel the fear that comes after such an incident.


If you go around thinking you are going to get T boned, you'll make yourself so scared you may end up just being a jibbering wreck and dangerous. However once you have been hit by somthing, its exceedingly hard to get it out of your head, and every leaf, car, twitch of a branch makes you think somethings coming to knock you off. Its taken me four years to stop veering off into safety only to see the car ain't going to come at me from that side road.

Have you been hit/nearly hit by something Ed, or are you just feeling a little flappy on your bike in general?

...and trust me, all the planning in the world ain't going to save you if some git comes for you!

[fizzwheel]

I can relate to this a little. Its not the same but I got knocked off my pusher in March by an old guy who turned right across my path he left it so late he hit my front wheel with his bumper and I went over the bonnet and landed on my head.

I had an escpae route planned and I nearly avoided him. I had the junction all mapped out and made eye contact with the driver and those of the other two drivers waiting to come out of a side road, but alas I did me no good. I very nearly avoided being hit taking to my planned escape route, but I didnt.

I had flashbacks, and even now 6 months later every now and again a car will approach the road I'm on from a side road. I'll see it, make eye contact with the driver, escape route planned etc and I still sh*te myself because I dont think the car driver is going to stop.

I get it when I'm on the pusher or in the car and I havent ridden my GSXR at all this year because I dont particularly feel like it. I had a time when I was terrified on the pusher to the point where I would end up stopped or riding along at 5 mph. One night I got home and I was pretty much reduced to tears utterly defeated and completely frightened.

My point is that if you keep practising the techniques as described in this thread and give yourself plenty of time to get over how you feel it does go away. I'm hoping it'll go away completely eventually. The other thing I found helped a bit was talking the through the situation in my head as I approached a junction or a situation where a hazard could develop or was developing and the helped me keep on top of my nerves as I stopped thinking about "what might happen" because I was concentrating on what was actually happening and dealing with and processing the information I had etc.

Well thats my take on it anyway...

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

Have you been hit/nearly hit by something Ed, or are you just feeling a little flappy on your bike in general?

...and trust me, all the planning in the world ain't going to save you if some git comes for you!

A few near misses, one on the A49 coming back from Ludlow, the other on the A458 on the way back from Quatt. One from a road joining from the left, another at a road joining from the right. At the left one, the driver's view (and mine of the junction) was partly obscured by a thick hedge, of course it's summer so they're all in leaf and this one had Russian Vine growing through it, so it really had grown out a lot. I wasn't going particularly fast - 50 or so in a NSL, riding towards the crown too - and out comes a middle aged woman in a VW people carrier thing. She did it to get a better view but I thought I was going to come off. The other was much worse, an old boy in a Fiesta turned right across me, saw me at the last few seconds and stopped in the middle of the road. It must have been obvious that a bike was coming. I had the back end fishtailing across the road and I was screaming to myself 'get off the f*cking brake' and passed the car on the inside with the wheels on the loose gravel. No point swerving, I was again towards the crown, I'd have collided. Going a bit faster this time, 60? 65? I had to stop, arms and legs were like jelly. Old boy didn't seem to think he had done anything wrong and drove off.

It spooked me

Thanks for input folks, some good ideas here

Nick a roadworks flashing light and gaffer it to your lid