Safety observations...

[keltex78]

I've seen enough of the two-wheeler world to know that safety gear is critical. I've got a couple of stories of instances I've seen to share here:

A year ago this month, my pastor and his wife were bike-touring in Arkansas. As the weather was perfect and they wanted to enjoy their ride to the fullest, they chose to NOT wear their helmets.

During the drive that morning, they had an unfortunate incident when a deer jumped directly in front of them landing on the front of their bike. The bike was immediately knocked over, and my pastor hit the pavement face-first getting knocked unconscious immediately. He ended up under the bike with the hot exhaust burning through his throat to his esophagus. His wife fared much better, but slid on her forearms resulting in a lot of lost skin and severe road rash.

They had to bring in the helicoptor to fly him to the hospital. He had a broken face, broken jaw, ande severe abrasions all over his body from the slide, in addition to the severe burns from the hot exhaust.

The recovery was a very long process, but fortunately, they both recovered and are doing well. This close call was a very frightening experience for all of us, and has served as a reminder that safety gear is very important.

A short while after this incident, I was driving along the Interstate with my wife in the car and we were passed by a biker travelling ~75-80 mph without his helmet, and we both commented on his failure to wear one. A couple of miles up the road, we crested a hill and had to come to a very sudden stop as traffic was backed up for a significant distance. As we inched forward, I saw a large puddle of what appeared to be blood in the middle of the lane. About a mile further, we saw the actual accident that had caused the delay in traffic, and saw the same silver cruiser that the biker had been riding on the back of a wrecker at the scene. I was never able to learn the details, but can only surmise at to what happend: It would appear that the initial accident occured, and the biker crested the hill to find traffic stopped. He was either unable to brake in time, or braked poorly, resulting in his dropping the bike or colliding with another vehicle.

Incidents like these demonstrate how anything can happen at any time, and have served to emphasize the importance of wearing safety gear at all times.