What is the most motorcycle accidents you have seen in one day???

I went on another ride today and like most of my rides I hit the back-roads as much as possible. I was about 150 miles into my ride today on Lockwood Valley Road off of Hwy 33 heading towards Mount Pinos when I come around a corner and see dust and a cruiser type bike in the ditch on the opposite side of the road from me. I stop and check on the rider to make sure he is OK which he was other then some light road rash due to the lack of protective clothing. I help him get the bike upright and one of his buddies shows up that had turned around when they did not see him behind them. I had just passed them going the opposite direction a few minutes prior to coming up on this accident. We tried to get the bike road ready by straightening some items on the handle bars and other items that were bent. The sport bike rider that had come back to check on his friend tells me that this is the THIRD accident of the day for this group of five riders that were from the Los Angeles area. He stated that one had been hit in the head by something off of a trailer that hit one rider in the head which caused him to go off the road and wiped out his bike. He also stated that another one of their group had just crashed up the road. One of the things I thought did not make a lot of sense to me was the rider I saw go down asked me where the nearest bar would be, up the road or back where they had come from?? I told him I did not know and wished them well and got back on my way.

Eight miles down the road I come up on the other rider who had crashed his cruiser type motorcycle, there were fire units there, a sheriff, two CHP units, and a tow truck. I stopped and told the CHP about the other accident down the road and that this person was friends with this accident rider. I also told the CHP about the rider asking me where the nearest bar was. The officer thanked me and told me he was about to wrap up this accident and would be en-route to the other. I hit the road again and onto Hudson Ranch Road.

Within a few miles I see this lady waving her hands at me when she went by going the opposite direction, this got me thinking what?? Just around the next corner I see about four sport bikes and one had gone down, they had picked up the bike and moved it out of the road off to the side and everyone appeared to be OK so I kept going through all of the dirt and rocks the rider and bike had kicked out onto the road.

This ride just left me shaking my head thinking what in the world was going on today?

If you look at my SPOT tracker you can see where the first rider I saw went down today at ping 22, and 23.

All right now it is your turn to top this day!!

Wow! I have only seen accidents on a race track. I had an accident way back in 1978 on my RD400, and another minor accident in 1980-something on my GS850 but I didn't see either one of them, except in my minds eye - does that count? If so, my answer would be 1/day.

I went on a charity ride in NJ several years ago....around 400 bikes....TWO flatbeds following. I rode mid-group, next to a guy with a Gold Wing (most of the others were "cruiser" types) We got about 1/2 mile when the carnage began....s guy "forgot" to stop or turn and knocked four down......several miles late, a bit of gravel on the road caused several to opt for the ditch.....then a little further another "knock down"....at which point I abandoned the group.....rode to the destination, and took my own sweet time returning to the starting point. The flatbeds came back with four and three bikes on them, and at the dinner, I overheard a brave soul saying that he "had to lay it down"....
No more charity rides for me, thanks

Mike, I'm very familiar with those roads and what kind of riders you see on the weekends. I've stopped riding those roads on ANY weekend day. Way too many squirrels on the weekend. I hate to see any rider go down, but sometimes it's just to busy and wild on those roads. During the week you'll see me there at least once a month [emoji57]

Three. My place is in an area with lots of two lane twisties (alphabet roads of western Wisconsin) which tends to bring day riders from surrounding major metros. My theory is that people who don't spend much time on country two lane are unaware of the the unexpected that they can encounter there (gravel, sand, hay, tractors, deer, cattle etc.). You don't want to be going 75MPH into a blind curve if you don't know what you are going to find there. The worst tend to be sport bikes. Cruisers fall over but are less likely to be at hyper-speeds when they do. When a Hayabusa goes over a guard rail at speed its not going to be pretty, no matter what they are wearing. Having observed too much of this over the years its really made me think that the european model of graduated licensing is the way to go. Frankly put, if you don't have a few years of solid on road experience there is no way you should be on a 100HP bike, no matter how cute your racing leathers are. You can't legislate smart but you can make it illegal to be stupid.

One... mine. I think I may have come across one other sometime in the last 2 years. My take is too many noobs or idiots thinking they know how to ride fast on a slower road/curve (turn too tight for their speed or sand/gravel in the lane, etc) and reap their reward. I hear about a half dozen around the home area in the news each year. Almost always new riders, but occasionally "experienced" riders with new bikes (bigger or different than what they had). Most I hear about are just stupid stuff done by the rider on a curve where they should know better... but didn't. Only a few I hear about are multi-vehicle with some BDC who "didn't see" the mc doing a left turn in front or pulling out of the side street or driveway.

Two! A mile or so apart! Both were lane splitting heading south on I15 during the morning commute.

As the riders you came across found out, riding for pleasure is nice, but too many don't realize that one needs to keep the skills up! Riding 10 miles once every other month doesn't do you any favors, especially when you are on winding country roads! 4:

GET OUT AND RIDE!

Well over a dozen. But given the context, this probably doesn't count. Maggie and I did Sturgis one year and even though we tried to stay away from big groups of other riders, it was pretty tough. On one of the outings, we saw at least a dozen accidents, the most tragic being a young woman with little gear on. Aid car staff were working on her.

John

SupraSabre said:

As the riders you came across found out, riding for pleasure is nice, but too many don't realize that one needs to keep the skills up! Riding 10 miles once every other month doesn't do you any favors, especially when you are on winding country roads!

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On the other end of the spectrum are the riders with good skills, that just keep pushing it until they eventually crash, AKA squids. From the description the OP provided it would appear the group in question did not fall into this category.

Back in my younger, crazier days we'd go out for long weekend trips with a group of 5 to 7 riders and get fairly squidly. Multiple crashes occurred on a few of those trips. But in the UJM era with a set of case savers and a few tools you were able to get back on and ride away with minor damage to the bike, and your insurance never knew about it. Somehow with all those crashes nobody ever got hurt beyond a little road rash. With all the plastic on bikes now I'm afraid to fall off because its too easy to total a bike, and every get off seems to require an insurance claim even if its not totalled.

dwalby said:

On the other end of the spectrum are the riders with good skills, that just keep pushing it until they eventually crash, AKA squids. From the description the OP provided it would appear the group in question did not fall into this category.

Back in my younger, crazier days we'd go out for long weekend trips with a group of 5 to 7 riders and get fairly squidly. Multiple crashes occurred on a few of those trips. But in the UJM era with a set of case savers and a few tools you were able to get back on and ride away with minor damage to the bike, and your insurance never knew about it. Somehow with all those crashes nobody ever got hurt beyond a little road rash. With all the plastic on bikes now I'm afraid to fall off because its too easy to total a bike, and every get off seems to require an insurance claim even if its not totalled.

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I was thinking of the first group he came across. I think that second group would fall into the squidly grouping!

What is interesting is that my ST1300s: 2010 and my 04#1 bikes were both totaled, but no insurance...meaning no salvage titles. My '04 #2 on the other hand was totaled and a salvage titled. Go figure...

SupraSabre said:

I was thinking of the first group he came across. I think that second group would fall into the squidly grouping!

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you know, I think my usage of squid isn't technically correct. Around here when I used to hang out with other riders in the area we typically used that term to describe the full-leather guys dragging their knees up on Palomar every weekend instead of going to a track day where things were more controlled. The guys who rode in shorts and flip-flops, or had little or no riding skills were generally called idiots, but I think the squid term applies to both groups equally. So both groups were probably considered squids.

dwalby said:

you know, I think my usage of squid isn't technically correct. Around here when I used to hang out with other riders in the area we typically used that term to describe the full-leather guys dragging their knees up on Palomar every weekend instead of going to a track day where things were more controlled. The guys who rode in shorts and flip-flops, or had little or no riding skills were generally called idiots, but I think the squid term applies to both groups equally. So both groups were probably considered squids.

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I've always associate Squid with anyone, no matter how well dress/not, acted while riding. If they were acting stupid, careless and/or were tempting fate, they are squids in my book! I see a number of them during my morning commutes! Usually, the lucky ones will give up riding after a crash or two, the unlucky ones will obtain a Darwin Award, sooner or later!

SupraSabre said:

I've always associate Squid with anyone,

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To me cruiser dudes are cruiser dudes, stupid or otherwise.....on the other hand, squids are what we all used to be back in the day and now we call ourselves sport riders or sport touring riders....we just grew up or through it or something.......2 cents.........ff

flyfisher said:

To me cruiser dudes are cruiser dudes, stupid or otherwise.....on the other hand, squids are what we all used to be back in the day and now we call ourselves sport riders or sport touring riders....we just grew up or through it or something.......2 cents.........ff

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+1. I had friends who were good riders, but I was just lucky, managing to limp away from two lowside wipeouts. Now I'm older and wiser, or at least I hope I'm wiser.

Well, maybe it depends on the crowd you hung out with...

Back in the early days of my riding, the term squid hadn't even been created yet. Neither had Cruiser, nor sport bike nor sport touring! There were just a bunch of dumb s**ts on two wheels. As the terms rolled around, I just associated squids with anyone that qualified as a dumb s**t on two wheels (with a motor).

In my terminology, Rider = good... Squid = not so good. simple

Six. But that is not uncommon when working turn 12 at Brainerd International raceway. Most are ride-off-fall-down incidents. A few are low side slides. The high side get-offs can be quite spectacular. Then there is the metal to metal excitement.

All result in waving yellow flags, safety workers running, and track safety/ambulance arrival. All good fun. The great majority of the riders are racing again later in the day (once checked by medical and the bikes by Tech). The reasons for so few injuries are simple: clear run-offs, protective leathers, the aforementioned emergency personnel, and the proper place to go fast.

It will make you a better rider on the street.


jim