A guy on my 650R forum killed a guy the other day. Thought the story was interesting and wanted to share it.
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Long rant. Just felt like sharing…
I was doing a 800 km two-day round trip around the Marmara Sea, Turkey (Istanbul is in this region) to fetch one of my closest friends from his military service and bring him home. He had completed the 5 months obligatory service. Anyway, it was an extremely beautiful coastside trip with tons of twisties and some straight highways between towns with a bright sun over our head. We were quite happy until we got back to Istanbul. Just to give some background, Istanbul has such a crazy traffic with so many fucking cages AND pedestrians with a totally fucked attitude that your typical world tourer in his/her 20s should bother to see it as a touristic attraction. I’m a local but even I feel like an alien if I stay away from my fair city for a while. You develop real survival skills to drive in the Istanbul traffic; to ride a bike you have to be even tougher.
Anyway, we were just 10 kms away from our destination around 9 in the evening. We had just got some fuel and were back on one of the main freeways along the coast. It is a fast, two-way, 6/8 laner with a concrete seperator in the middle. The SUV we were following at just 60 km/ph suddenly swerved hard with screaming tires, a near miss and the SUV revealed the guy that had evidently jumped from the middle seperator into the middle of the left-most lane. We were left face to face with the man. I decided not to try braking too hard risking a block and slide over the man. The traffic to the right was crammed enough to start a chain accident so turning right was not an option as well. I also thought he was trying to cross the road towards the right so I decided to turn towards his left, to the empty space between him and the seperator. He was probably so drunk and his reflexes were kicking in so late he got afraid of the latent windblast from the SUV that missed him with an inch, he jumped backwards to the space we were trying to escape to. We had a head on collision. The back/side of his head hit me in the face and broke my nose on the spot; my flipup helmet was open at the time. The right handlebar hit his side at the same time and we fell of the bike sliding. He probably bounced in the air a little and hit the ground. Still sliding, the moment I got my orientation back I turned my head to see if the oncoming traffic would kill the three of us. Ran back towards the man lying on the ground. He was not conscious so I avoided dragging him if he got spinal injuries so I got up waving frantically at oncoming cars to stop.
He was lying face down. Turned him over carefully and finally got his pulse. Saw blood coming out of his ear, the thought of him getting a brain trauma freaked me out. Turned his head to the side to let the blood flow and held it slightly off the ground in my hands. People finally started to stop, a passer by doctor popped up, the police popped up and we tended him together till the ambulance came. The abulance crew said it wasn’t a brain trauma but that his outer ear was torn and bleeding. They took him into ER but we learned at the police station that he passed away in operation because of multiple complications.
The rest is dealing with the police who were unbelievably understanding and not driven by the motorcycle-punk-with-a-rich-pops-ran-over-a-decent-civillian prejudice. Then dealing with the law, then dealing with my broken nose bleeding all over the jail where they held me for a day and a half till I went off to see the pre-trial judge. He decided that I could be released and tried like a civillian which is yet another surprise. With accident cases involving another’s death it is almost impossible to be let free until the trial.
My friend and I were completely OK since we had full gear. Only I got my nose rebroken and set in place and even that could be avoided if I had shut the face part of my helmet sooner after getting out of the gas station.
BUT the accident could not be avoided since it involved a reckless, suicidal third party and the will of chaotic order.
We contacted the other family to try and help them in some way we can. That’s another story on its own.
I got my ER-6n back today after three weeks. I’m feeling uneasy about its handling. Feels somewhat alien. I’m just hoping nothing critical is bent out of shape altough the mechanic says it’s OK. But the small damage and details I see somehow beats his eye so I don’t feel like taking his words final. He doesn’t feel like checking everything I suppose. Still, it seems the damage was only cosmetic. They changed the left fairings we slided on, the alternator cap and some small parts were painted, the gear lever and the brake pedal were bent back into shape till the replacements come overseas. They reassured again and again that there was nothing wrong with the running gear. They even found it hard to believe the bike got involved in a fatal accident.
How about this one? Not feeling the least bit of guilt but it still sucks to be me. Anyone had similar experiences
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