Ouch!
Hope you heal quickly, dude!
PS – are you wearing armor yet?
why am I not seeing any pictures. THe only nice thing about falling is the sympathy you get and the cool pictures.
[quote=“Battery9”]why am I not seeing any pictures. The only nice thing about falling is the sympathy you get and the cool pictures.[/quote]The best pic would be of my hip, and I’m not pulling my pants down in public! 
It
marboulette
ok, then can I come over and see??? 
Glad you came thru ok marboulette. Thats why IM shit scared to ride a two wheeler in TAiwan (or anywhere really).
Six years and six crashes is a lot. Whoever leaves oil or rocks or ball-bearings on a road is a dumbass, but you can’t really blame them for your fall. Do you think there was anything that you could have to done to avoid hitting the pavement? For instance, judging the road surface in front of you in advance? Maybe slowing down a little more before the turn? I’m not trying to be an ass here. It’s just that eventually, you’re definitely going to kill or cripple yourself if you keep averaging one crash per year.
when i worked as a courier in sydney (23, all dick and no brains) I used to fall off once a month or so. if i didn’t, i rode harder until i did, because i made much more money that way. it did end in tears, or two months in hospital. used up several shitty 250s in my time. highly recommend the Kawasaki GPz 250 for that kind of work: belt drive, light, powerful, and very flickable.
here in Taiwan i have not crashed on the scooter yet, but have also averaged one crash per year on the bicycle instead of the bike. you’re doing Ok, marblehead.
I had a couple of crashes and one broken bone in Korea, so I’ve seen similar pain. Among Asian countries, the concept of “defensive driving” only exists in Japan, and nowhere else.
I rode a lot when I was in Chiayi for a year. With much less traffic it was fairly safe to ride, plus there are many less-congested side roads and parks. Even with the amount of traffic and the speed, riding on the city’s “loop road” (a 10km highway encircling the city) is fairly safe because of its width.
I had one incident in Chiayi, though fortunately I wasn’t hurt. I was riding down a major road and as the corner neared, with a quick look over my shoulder, I moved over to the left side of the rightmost lane. There were no cars coming, but there was a scooter in the centre lane, where people would ride if they want to make a left hand turn or go straight.
Not that moron. She decided rather than slow down and go to the right of me to make the right turn, she would go from the centre lane to my left and across my path and around the corner at speed.
Fortunely for me, I was able to keep control of the bike as she hit my front wheel with the back of her scooter. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t able to control her scooter and she went over onto her left side, the scooter overtop of her leg as she slid on the asphalt. The moron had a well-deserved gash up the leg, long and bleeding. That’s what happens when you wear shorts and flip-flops on a scooter.
After a quick check of my bike for damage (there was none) and a dirty look at her without saying a word, I left the scene. I had heard numerous stories about “the foreigner is always wrong” in accidents, so I wasn’t taking any chances.
One has to wonder what she was thinking. That I would suddenly disappear as soon as she got in front of me? That foreigners and/or cyclists should slow down for people too stupid to obey the law? That I should read her mind rather than look for a right turn signal on her scooter as I was doing but she wasn’t? It boggles the mind.
I wouldnt leave someone , moron or not bleeding on a road. Even if it could cost me. Im the first guy to call 911 and run to assist if I see an accident.
I was once late for work. I was going down Heping East road…not driving in the right lane, because I needed to go straight. A car wanted to turn right into Jianguo, but was in the furthest lane…so he just decided to sideswipe me…I was being pushed to turn right too…and I thought, either I crash or I turn right so we don’t crash…but then I was having one of those bad days…and I just decided to stop. He had to stop quickly too…and unfortunately 3 scooters crashed into him.
I felt SOOOO bad. The guy jumped off the car and pulled me off my little Dio and shoved me around. I just put my scooter on the stand and sat on the pavement waiting for the cops to come. I tried to help the old lady that fell but everyone was convinced that it was my fault…and kept on shouting in Chinese about the waiguoren that can’t drive etc. People in Starbucks also came out to yell at me. In the end the police officers came and listened to everyone yelling first(this took about 10 mins) Then he walked over to me and I showed him my ARC, drivers license…and then explained what happened.
He looked at the car and at my scooter…and then asked if my scooter had any damage. I said no, the car never touched it, and he said, well, it is clearly not your fault…you can go. Only stay if you need to claim insurance.
I still felt like (*&( though…I could just have turned right and then dealt with being late. The old ladies jade bracelet broke and I can’t get the image of her, bleeding, trying to pick the pieces up. Other than that I’ve never been in any kind of crash in almost 8 years!(touch wood)
[quote=“wudjamahuh”]Six years and six crashes is a lot. Whoever leaves oil or rocks or ball-bearings on a road is a dumbass, but you can’t really blame them for your fall. Do you think there was anything that you could have to done to avoid hitting the pavement? For instance, judging the road surface in front of you in advance? Maybe slowing down a little more before the turn? [/quote]There are definitely some things I could have done better to avoid the crash. This last crash was unavoidable once I started slipping, but I think I could have avoided the slip in the first place. I was breaking really hard, you see. Other people were stopping at that intersection just fine, but I was breaking much harder than the average rider and that was my mistake. The time before that I slipped in oil, but while doing an illegal left turn. Had I pulled over and waited in the scooter box, I would have been fine. Out of six crashes, I’d say maybe two of them were not my fault and it would have been real hard to avoid. Wrong place at the wrong time type scenarios. The other 4 crashes, I didn’t do so well.
[quote]I’m not trying to be an ass here. It’s just that eventually, you’re definitely going to kill or cripple yourself if you keep averaging one crash per year.[/quote]That’s what m wife keeps telling me. I do slow down after I crash, but the bottom line is while I consider myself to be a skilled rider(20 years of experience riding big bikes), I am not very prudent.
For example, my wife will not have proper reflexes and she will not be able to use her breaks to their max potential which makes her more likely to crash then me in an emergency situation. However, despite being less skilled than I am, she just rides more carefully and thus she has far less chances of finding herself in an emergency situation. The result is she went down twice in 6 years and I went down 6 times.
Point well taken, wudja.
[quote]marblehead[/quote] Wasn’t my head, it was the helmet, you idiot!
marboulette
So did I today. A car passed me in a curve inside the Dajong tunnel and he basically pushed me against the concrete wall…[/quote]
There’s your problem. Try doing twice the speed limit all of the time and you’ll never have to worry about cars passing you. And although I’m half joking…I’m also half serious.
I’m guessing someone will make a joke about me being half an idiot
[/quote]
Belgian Pie, glad to hear you’re ok. keep that rubber down.
I think the closest call I had was a car in the opposite direction coming down a hill and passing on the curve into my lane. if it wasn’t for the shoulder, i’d probably be hit head on or flying down the mountain side. This is the hill in Five Fingers Mountain. He was passing 4 cars…
That really pissed me off to no end and gave me a scare at the same time.
I’ve still yet to have an accident here involving another vehicle, other than (five years ago) being pushed sideways by someone trying to overtake (bruised my then-girlfriend’s feet a bit, as she was riding side-saddle), and occasionally someone bumping gently into the back of me for no particular reason at a light.
I’ve been down twice in the last year on my own, though – once at ~80kph in the rain, and once at about 5kph on a patch of oil in front of a McDonalds I was trying to get to. The time in the rain, I slid a long long way and somehow ended up with only a few scratches, and a working (albeit dented) bike. It happened just before a really built-up intersection, and it later occurred to me that people waiting at the light there would have seen my bike and I (separately) slide into view and out again on the other side, which must have been a bit surreal.
Other than that, I attribute my survival (so far) to driving quickly and assertively, claiming entire lanes for my own, and keeping my lights on full-beam in the day. Occasionally I have to ride a crappy green-plate scooter (while my bike is in the shop, say) and go slowly, and it’s a far scarier experience.
You mean you ran into her and then fled from the scene of the accident. Nice one. 
You know there’s a traffic rule that’s pretty much the same everywhere in the world: if you run into the back of someone, it’s YOUR fault.
You mean you ran into her and then fled from the scene of the accident.[/quote]She was passing/cutting him off and she cut too close. As if she pulled into his lane before she was fully ahead of him. You misread the post, sandman.
marboulette
You mean you ran into her and then fled from the scene of the accident.[/quote]She was passing/cutting him off and she cut too close. As if she pulled into his lane before she was fully ahead of him. You misread the post, sandman.
marboulette[/quote]
Right. So he failed to brake quickly enough. His fault. But don’t take my word for it – try it yourself in traffic court and see how easily you win your case.
[quote=“sandman”]
Right. So he failed to brake quickly enough. His fault. But don’t take my word for it – try it yourself in traffic court and see how easily you win your case.[/quote]Good reason to split from the accident scene, then, since the other rider was being a complete dickhead, and since she wasn’t seriously injured anyways. I wouldn’t want to pay her medical bills, that’s for sure. I don’t give a shit what the law says, idiotic riders don’t always give you time to brake quickly enough.
marboulette
First, as others have noted, the tendency in Taiwan is to blame the foreigner first rather than find out what happened. If I didn’t cause the crash, then I don’t want to take the blame for it by others falsely pointing fingers.
Second, if it had been myself and a local walking into each other around a blind corner and the Taiwanese had dropped a bag of groceries, I would stop to help, or if I wasn’t involved at all, say someone falling downstairs on their own, I would help. But in this case, the woman endangered my life, health and safety by breaking the law and ended up hurting herself, while I obeyed the law and had no blame for it. For that reason, I felt absolutely no qualms about leaving her there.
I wonder what you would feel if you made a mistake one day and got hurt and couldnt get up and was bleeding and forgot your cellfone or couldnt speak the language of the country you are in and the local didnt want to get involved because he/she felt he/she would get blamed and left you there.
Karma my friend. Do unto others…
You mean you ran into her and then fled from the scene of the accident.[/quote]
Actually, I think the rule is if you’re changing into someone else’s lane, you may be at fault. But yes, usually if you rearend, you’re at fault.