What Would You Have Done?

[Strave19]

Blaming whoever sweeped the road is ridiculous IMO, hell, if you cant sue the state for dirt, sue them because the roads blend in with the dirt...

You're riding a road at 9-11,000ft that gets snow, rockslides, god knows what else in all months of the year. They probably never actually sweep the road since it is closed through all of winter, and opens again when they get it plowed and the snow stops falling in heaps (usually late May). Probably just not enough traffic to wash the passing lane as clean as the other lanes. Probably not even sand from winter but blew in the day before... things get windy up there.

Expect the unexpected, especially on a mountain pass. I'm not trying to be a dick here, it could happen to anyone and its not like either of you were doing something unsafe in and of itself, but there is really nobody else to blame but the guy who hit you...

[Plaka]

Originally Posted by BCKRider

Duck and Larryboy,

I guess I must practice my communication skills as you BOTH HAVE THIS BACKWARDS. The guy who hit me DID accept responsibility. More importantly, so did his insurance company.

I AM THE ONE who believes most of the "fault" lay with the company that swept the road. When you have just ridden 50 miles of narrow, twisty mountain road that is "race track clean," you really don't expect the lone PASSING lane on the whole damn road to be covered with a thin layer of sand. At least I don't - and he didn't.

There is no question that the guy was passing at what should have been a very sane speed and that all his reactions when the bike started to slide out were the right ones. That is why I have trouble believing ours was the only MC crash on this little section of road that year.

Am I finally making myself clear?

I'd say he was being a bit too aggressive if he kicked out on sand in a corner. He had been stuck behind the 'homes and wanted to get on with it. Got bitten by the sand.

if the stuff was hard to see likely the sweeper crew didn't see it either. but the point is moot. Even with the most diligent sweeping every bit of road can't be swept instantaneously when it needs it. Road hazards exist, always will. If you didn't report the hazard I wouldn't be surprised if it persisted.

Cops have cards, always ask for one.

In that situation you don't have time for reflections. You use pure reflexes. I'd say the reflexes you want are to scrub speed and head for a hole. Very difficult to evaluate (in the moment) if gassing it would have put you in a better place and big touring bikes don't accelerate hard enough for it to matter. Getting rear ended is a non-issue. If you let someone get (and stay) that tight on your tail you've already screwed up.

As a rule, stay far right in a left hand turn. All sorts of things come across that center line from out of control squids to jackknifing boat trailers. There is the fast line and the safe line, y'know?

50 miles of clean road means nothing. Something fell off a truck just around the bend--and it might be in the oncoming lane and idiots are swerving around it. I have a nice set of rubbermaid garbage cans that fell off a truck and were rolling around on the entrance ranp to a freeway. I came across a very heavy small utility topper in the middle of the fast lane once. Saw a huge coil of steel fall off a ftat bed 100 yrds ahead on the free way. That one was on the bike. That coil looked kinda loose when the guy passed me and sure enough, there was a sudden immense cloud of dust as it fell and unwound into a gigantic tangle. I used to drive big miles on urban freeways in a work van. Scored all kinds of stuff...bales of insulation, those garbage cans, most of a wheelbarrow, etc.

All this crap is out there. ATTGAT, insurance, training and ride heads up is the best you can do.