Sideswiper

Your wife's last statement says it all.... :loco: - Actually the answer on the highway probably would be suicidal. :rip:

One crazy B, huh. Glad you came through with no obvious damage, and you got to deal with a savvy/common sense CHP. :thumbsup:

On a side note though, while lane splitting is perfectly legal in California, and almost an accepted behavior there, two of the worst car/truck-bike accidents I know of happened while they were lane splitting. The process, while tempting to do, is illegal everywhere else in the US, and peoples - "that's not fair, so I'm going to f you up" road rage attitude would make me unlikely to lane split ever - too much can go wrong, and you end up putting way to much trust in the least stable :wacko: :drool: :mad2: :boozer: cager drivers out there when you lane split (IMHO). - Just part of my riding risk management plan. :defence:

 

A tenner sez if ya lived in Cal you'd lane split.

 

Hey Reg

Glad to hear you are ok and suffered little in terms of damage to yourself mainly. The nudge could have easily gone the other way. I would hazard a guess that if she got your plate number, then she likely mentioned the plate number of the truck as well. My bet is that you will nothing more about the incident. While doing my day job in Paintless Dent Repair I see quite a lot of people that own higher priced automobiles like BMW's and Benz's and they all say, without exception I might add, that they are never responsible for the dents in their car. Almost as if they are immune to damage because they drive said high priced automobile.

I remember going to a boat show in Vancouver one year and I parked my Mazda in the hotel parking garage between a Benz CLS500 sedan (approx 95 grand Canadian) and a BMW 750iL (approx the same value). When I went to go to the boat show the next day, both cars were still beside me and I had a dent on both sides of my car. The guy with the Benz left an apologetic note, and offered me a contact name and number, and said he would happily pay for the damages. The BMW owner, mmmmm, not so much.......... I should mention that my company name and what I did for a living (complete with before and after pics on the vinyl vehicle sign wrap and cell phone number) was emblazened all over the car, and it was bright yellow, so kind of hard to miss.

I say this because, when I returned to my vehicle in the parking garage I noticed the BMW (on the passenger side of my car) was parked quite close to my vehicle and of course, since I do PDR for a living, I checked for a dent. Sure enough there was a dent and a big blue mark on the side of my pristine yellow car. Need I mention what color the BMW was. Anyway, I took out my trusty cell phone (complete with camera and took a picture of the two vehicles showing both his plate number and my own. Then, since I had just come from a boat show and my friend had a tape measure (we were measuring an alcohol stove for our sailboat)I measured the height of the damage (also took pictures) on my car and the height of the offending body line on the BMW. They matched perfectly, right down to the yellow paint left on the edge of the BMW's drivers door. When I went back in to the lobby I asked the desk clerk who owned the offending vehicle (the plate numbers are recorded to prevent people using the hotel parkade without being checked in) and asked if I could leave them a message. I got a message back all right, and it was certainly colorful, and he denied doing any damage to my vehicle and instead said I damaged his car. RIGHT, sure. When I got home their was a message on my answering machine to call my insurance company about the damage I had done to the BMW. I went in to the insurance company and told my story to the insurance adjuster and mentioned that I had taken pictures and documented the going's on at the hotel. I gave him the name of the hotel, name of the desk clerk, and a copy of the note the BMW owner left at the desk for me.

Long and short of the story, for those still reading this epic reply...............The owner of the BMW, wound up having to pay for the repairs to my vehicle, which included having to repaint the front and rear door on my car (the dent was close to the rear edge of the door so the body shop had to paint in to the adjacent door) and replace the vehicle wrap on that side of the car since the wrap started on the rear door. The repairs wound up costing him over $1000. The insurance adjuster said that considering the damage to my car, after seeing the assessment of the BMW owner's claim, it was unlikely that I had damaged the BMW and instead the damage occured the other way around. The adjuster said that it was unlikely that there could be yellow paint transfer on the edge of the BMW door, and a dent with blue paint transfer on the side of my car, if I had intentionally or mistakenly hit the BMW with my door. Apparently the insurance company called to talk to me asking me if I would be a witness when they filed suit against the BMW owner for filing a false claim. I was happy to give testimony though I never actually got called to go to court.............

The moral of this story, KARMA is a bitch. Your lady in the BMW will likely wind up in more hot water than what she thinks. I think the local police would find that you are not to blame and that the lady in the BMW hit you. After all, why would you intentionally attempt to side swipe a car while riding a motorcycle. Not to mention if the damage was to the front of her car and the rear side of your motorcycle, that would indicate that you were in front of her and thus she is at fault. In Canada, if you hit someone from behind you are automatically at fault. This would seem to be the same from the situation you are describing. If you were ahead (seems obvious since you did not see her contact your bike), then lady in the BMW should have been able to see you were there and avoided a collision.

I don't think I would lose any sleep over the incident. You might even prosper with some new parts for the VFR if they find The BMW owner at fault.

 

It's a darn good thing this chica who tried to nail Reg was driving a BMW. Otherwise the story would not be half as good and might sound like an ad for a business or the sermon part might sound like some of us just fell off the cabbage wagon.

 

Epic reply indeed!! Good job Zoom for excellent documentation and likely gettin that dumbass in a world of shit. Sorry to hear of another shitty encounter there Reg, people are idiots and most have NO clue what the laws are or aren't, much less a clue of how to drive.

 

In Feb this year I was going through an intersection and got t-boned by an idiot who "thought" my green light was hers. I took pics of the entire thing, cars, locations, directions of travel, traffic, lights, pretty much everything I could aim a lens at. Once the LEO got there, I told him my side then the fun and games began:

1) Idiot points at my light saying it hers and green.
2) Idiot, after LEO tells her she was wrong and points out the light that was hers, says she's from another state and "the traffic here is so confusing."
3) Idiot, after a few weeks, tells insurance investigator I came from behind and hit her
4) Idiot, after her insurance investigator asks her for written statement, then says she "can't really remember where he came from or what color the light was."
5) Idiot's insurance signaled surrender, paid me 4 times the KBB value of my car and let me keep the car I then sold as-is.

Excellent documentation can ensure idiots do not BS their way out of owning up. Always cover your ass and document: pics, vids, the works.

 

Fault is not automatic in a rear end collision in Canada. So stated in section 162 of the vehicle code.

Just for fun, let's say you're in a car and get smacked in the ass by someone and it pushes your car into the car in front. Are you at fault?

Or let's say you are rollerblading naked on a freeway in Minnesota at 0300 in Februrary.

 

If I was in Cali, I'd take that bet. :rockon: As tempting as it would be - especially if a bunch of bikes had already split in heavy traffic, my instinct for self preservation would override the desire to follow the crowd :flock: - legal or not. But I will probably never know.

On a side note, again I'm glad Reg didn't get cited for something he didn't do, and that he wasn't squished under the truck's tires. Crazy :crazy: and inattentive :whistle: :lalala: :cell: cagers :car: are the greatest risk to riders - the next greatest risk to the rider is the person under the helmet. :ballchain:

:focus:
op2:

 

Sounds like just another day in the life of a motorcyclist.

 

This is why it's wise to carry really dense, heavy, stubby steel bolts in your pocket to fling over your shoulder at these people's windshields...

 

I'll give you 2:1 that you would. Your assumption is that that heavy traffic is moving. Sometimes it is and sometimes it ain't. One example is coming out of Laguna Seca on a scorcher and they have all traffic exiting on inadeaquate roads out. Another. Gridlock on the freeways. An accident miles ahead will paralyze traffic for miles. Also the freeways are by law wider than in most states.

Reg was probably interrupting this nutcase chica from doing her hair, nails and makeup and talking to her SO about some shitty thing he did six months ago..

So now we need to know if this dentless repair thing is good for skidlids?

 

I maintain that luring her into a vacant lot and cutting off her head and throwing it in the river is the best solution.....or in your case I suppose the ocean.

 

I deal with ass wipes like that here in SoCal DAILY------ It seems everyone out here are nascar drivers drafting off each other, even motorcycles- CAN YOU SAY TAILGATING-----------------------------------:hss:

 

I'm curious how long it'd take for me to be comfortable lane splitting, not having that happen here it seems very foreign and crazy. I'm not sure i'd ever trust the cars as i passed. When I drove through from vegas to san diego and witnessed it first hand I thought it the craziest thing, I wasn't even on a bike and my danger alarms were going off (like if i was riding and a car starts taking your lane).

 

Makes sense, I really hadn't fully considered the traffic dead stopped variant. The incidents I know of occurred with both bike and traffic moving. Like I said earlier, in these cases, it seriously puts the rider at the whims of least stable cagers out there.

Generally I prefer to completely avoid heavy traffic on the bike - even if it means a long detour. I realize that may be a complete impossibility in SoCal.

I usually try to go around Atlanta.

 

Damn Reg... just damn.

 

Send the tenner to The Shrine Childrens Hospital..

Going "around" LA may prove to be a chore..

I do know one guy who never did get used to lane splitting. His first time out nobody told him he had to go with the flow of traffic, not against it.

The alternative is allowing bikes to use the HOV lanes.. I heard tell of somebody proposing that bicycles be allowed in HOV lanes too. Probably from someone who sells bicycles.