33 years of driving. 3 accidents.
#1. 1980, on the back roads of Abbeville, Louisiana at 4 AM. I come around a sharp corner and there are 2 cops, a local and a state trooper, parked in the road talking. No flashers, just head and tail lights. My only choice was the ditch. The trooper took off and the local checked on me. Then he hooked a chain to his trailer hitch and pulled me out of the ditch. Other than the alignment being knocked out my Pinto was fine. I don't think he said ten words to me the whole time.
#2. 1983, on my Yamaha 750, sitting at a yield sign waiting for an opening for a traffic circle. 40ish bimbo in a red Corvette from New York bunts me across the traffic onto the center island. The bike is bent, but fixable. I sustain 2 dislocated fingers on my right hand, bruises down the whole right side of my body, a badly road-rashed leather jacket, and a cracked helmet from hitting the war memorial cannon in the center of the island. The bimbo drove away, but there were 10 witnesses who stayed with me waiting for the police and ambulance who gave info that tracked her down.
#3. 1986, stopped on a busy street waiting to make a left turn into an alley. When an opening in the opposing traffic occurs I shoot across the road, just as the person in the first parking space after the alley backs up to try to get into the flow. His car gets pushed into a light pole. It turns out he has no license or insurance. A month later I get a notice from my insurance company saying that his fat cow of a wife now has neck pain, and they settle for $5K+ $750 for totalling his Vega.
In the ensuing years I've had some close calls on my bike, but my riding buddies were less fortunate. In a 2 year period in the '90s I buried 3 of them, so I gave up motorcycles. Looking in the newspaper this morning I see that another just died in an accident on a wet road near his home. Every time I get the itch to get back on 2 wheels I get a reminder of why I gave it up.
