Crash avoidance: Do I brake or swerve?

dduelin said:

Deer collisions not withstanding I believe the take away from the article is to intensively practice both threshold braking and swerving so you are familiar with the techniques and what you can do on your bike. The number of riders that do nothing added to those that do not successfully execute the chosen maneuver is nothing short of amazing to me.

I'm writing this in full belief that practicing swerves saved my life when a farm tractor came out of the woods and began to cross the road ahead of me. At 70 mph I juked left / right and went around him. If I did nothing or braked I would have center punched him. My riding partner behind thought I went off into the woods on the left as the tractor blocked his view. He saw me swerve so hard he thought it was impossible to return back to straight ahead.

I suggest reading The Upper Half Of The Motorcycle by Bernt Speigel. As riders we do what we train for. The time to practice emergency maneuvers is well spent if we only use it once a lifetime.

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Amen to that. I haven't had to do anything but severe braking but I practice pulling my turns every corner I go into in case I need to crank it down some day. God willing I never will.

As far as wildlife goes I have spent a lifetime slowing down for critters but not swerving. Except for the first time I hit a deer I sped up so he would hit me on the side instead of me running into him. I didn't have time to jam on the brakes so I gunned it and probably saved my truck from being totaled. But on my ST I will be standing on the brakes. ( can you do a front-y on an ST? )

Stay sharp, everyone.

It depend on the space but: Brake hard and look up for evasive maneuver than do what you have to do to stay up right..

Training for those situation is always good

ZIAMON said:

"Crash avoidance: Do I brake or swerve?"

With many years of riding in cattle country where the "rats" are 4 times bigger than any deer....I say keep your insurance's paid up. Be it life, bike or spiritual.

I've braked hard far more times (for deer, dogs, small animals) than I have ever swerved but when a 900 pound cow steps out from a bush beside the road I swerve!! And it's been two days since I've had cattle in the road.

Oh and you DUCK for pheasants, vultures, pigeons and turkeys.

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Unless your Byron! A true hunter!

Dave and I encountered several dear and a cow on our WeSTOC 2016 Adventure. I think the cow was the only one to actually cross the road, all the dear took tail and ran the other way when they heard my horn!

Ashley and all,

If I am going in a straight path when I see the hazard ahead, I have found it repeatedly useful to:

1. Brake immediately (if it is safe to do so, in terms of what is behind me).

2. Decide, while I continue to brake, whether it is better to swerve left, or to swerve right. (Even if I might not need to swerve, I prepare for that option anyway.)

3. Ease OFF the brakes; look at the clear path I have chosen as the place to swerve; and then do that swerve!

(Steps 1 and 2 give me a moment to study the animal's movements and try to predict which way it will go next. They also make it easier to do a good, controlled swerve because they slow the bike down some. And slowness can be a life saver if, despite my best intentions, there is a collision.)

Edit: I just noticed the following statement in the research paper that Ashley gives a link to in his thread starting post: "Combining swerving and braking as suggested in MSF training materials may be an effective tactic for obstacle avoidance. However, this combination maneuver is not studied in this present research."

One time a Buick turned left in front of me and I did both. Swerving probably saved me from more serious injury and luckily I had already reduced speed. I locked up the brakes and glanced off the rear fender instead of a t-bone. I totaled the bike and walked away.

Don't brake and swerve at the same time. I've picked up quite a few bikes from people doing just that during their MSF eval.

OhioDeere said:

I just thought of a good farkle to put on the bike! A machete ! Long machete mounted an the front. Slice right through? I'll get started on some preliminary concept drawings.

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Well, hunting and mating season are approaching for deer, so I guess this old thread is appropriate. A lot of good thoughts here, but the one that stands out is we frequently do not have time to react. If the animal/car does give us warning, practice and training will take over, else blind luck.

Doug, the knights of old came up with a better solution - its called a lance. After you skewer the beaste, he is now on a spit ready for roasting.

My thoughts after riding for some 40 years you need to have a game plan before hand. Because it happens so fast you don't have time to think option 1,2, or three. To me my experience has taught me not to assume anything. Always ride defensively and this is the greatest lesson I have learned, even if drivers make eye contact with you doesn't mean they see you.

Never run over anything you can't eat in one sitting.

I've had 3 encounters with animals , the 2 medium-large dogs I've hit hard many years ago , I just stiffened up on the handlebars to not let them deflect my steering - no damage to the bike or me. ( Actually both dogs were seen alive months later . )
Coming home from the 2013 WVSTOC , the deer that jumped up out of a ditch straight at my left elbow got smacked in the face by my CB antenna - antenna bent around it's snout & 1/2 the antenna mounting brackets broke . But I was fine - bike stayed up straight . I have been lucky , until June 2015 accident when ChatterBox brand , but chinese-made theft alarm suddenly turned the ST completely OFF at 75 mph on I-80 in Iowa .

OhioDeere said:

I just thought of a good farkle to put on the bike! A machete ! Long machete mounted an the front. Slice right through? I'll get started on some preliminary concept drawings.

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It was tried once. Never really caught on, though.

From the inventor of the Windjammer fairing himself...

How about mounting a Klingon Bat'leth on the front ? Machete is too short !

A Chevy Cavalier jumped out in front of me 30yrs ago. I rendered it undriveable with a combination punch of Suzuki and right half of my body. Didn't and don't remember much, happened very, very fast, the tire mark was pretty short. Now I ride defensively and like I'm clinically paranoid.

RT

Shawn K said:

It was tried once. Never really caught on, though.

From the inventor of the Windjammer fairing himself...

Energy absorbing fairing

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I don't think that absorbs much energy at all, it divides to conquer and you slip right through. However, the possibility of your obstacle getting snagged on the points remains. Unfortunately, it won't work on @rwthomas1's Chevy. Maybe carbide tips?

I remember hearing a formula one driver (possibly Mansell) on the issue of deciding which way to go when cars in front have a crash. The answer was to aim for the point of collison, because by the time you get there, they will have moved somewhere else.

We rarely get deer, but we do get sheep. Now they have an attitude. Think of the aggressive teenage youth wanting to look cool with a swagger and you get the idea. They will stand in the middle of the road and wait for you to stop and then slowly walk across the front of you, waving two hooves in your direction. When the lambs are springing around, you can see mothers lining up at the side of the road teaching their young ones when to step out and how to time it so that there is no way past by the time you arrive. We have them in Ilkley, teaching the lambs how to cross the cattle grid just below Ilkley Moor. Generally, they are street-wise, and if they hear you coming they are OK. You can tell if they have heard you - they turn their ears towards you and continue to eat the grass. The ones that don't turn their ears will be startled and bolt straight across the road in front of you. Like the onlookers for a gunfight in a western - for some inexplicable reason, they have to dash to the other side of the road. Watch for those ears.

And if all else fails, ride behind them. They are not very good at running backwards. A quick rev of the engine is usually more effective than the horn. They are used to horns and will adopt the teenage response and do exactly the opposite of the result that you wanted to achieve when you pressed the button, but they do not like barks and growls. And that is what a quick red line rev of the engine produces. They will alway run away from those.

But something dashing across in front ? Getting rid of as much speed as possible has to be the way to go for me. It gains a bit more time and a bit less impact. But trying to outguess what a panicking sheep is going to do next is impossible. I don't care how used to traffic they are - you get stupid sheep and deaf sheep as well as normal sheep. The last time it happened to me, I was riding more cautiously because of the number of sheep near to the roadside. I stopped in time for the sheep that had decided to leap out from hiding in the roadside ditch but the biker behind me had been wanting to go faster, hadn't seen anything, hadn't noticed me stopping and as he passed the front of my bike the sheep just in front of my front wheel brushed his tipover bars. The rider came to a halt 10 yards up the road having so very nearly been taken out by it. I have no idea why he was riding so close to me, but he was so shaken up. Me too, but not by the sheep.

That was the day I stopped riding with the motorcycle club. I decided I was more worried by the antics of the rider behind me than I was about what the sheep would do.

But deers ? No, sorry, can't help with that.

RCS said:

My plan for a Deer only, if it ever happened to me, was to tuck and accelerate through it for three reasons

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I have followed someone, I think it was in the Lake District UK, who did just this (I don't know if it was intentional or not). Deer jumped out of a bush and the rider (SV650N) later claimed to have never seen it. The result, as I remember, was a rather impressive red cloud, fur stuck in all sorts of strange places (like between the tyre & the rim on the front wheel), and one awesome BBQ. I'm sure one of the indicators broke, but someone had a spare and it was exchanged for beer. Not much else on the front of the naked bike to break.

I've hit a pigeon in much the same fashion, jumped out of a bush, went "pop" pretty loudly as it hit the radiator on the 13, I rode through a cloud of feathers wondering what the hell just happened. Mass of a pigeon isn't much to write home about though. Pheasants, are evil little buggers and I swear can read minds... doesn't matter where you aim, that's where they want to go! Luckily I've not hit one yet, but had enough close calls.

JQL said:

I used to do a lot of off-road riding of bikes and quads. That teaches you how to manoeuvre under braking in "interesting" conditions (though, usually, at lower speeds). I advocate that we motorcyclists should have at least one day off-roading on a bike every year to hone our skills.

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This. I grew up riding off road bikes and farm quads, using farm machinery to build ramps & do silly things that should have killed us and would break most Health & Safety laws these days. One of our "off road bikes" was a CB500 with knobbly tyres fitted, plastics removed & straight exhaust. My kids would be grounded until they're collecting a pension if they ever get caught doing the things we used to do.

These days I ride trying to anticipate what I can, trust the "look where you want to go" mantra, and hope that if I have time to think about it, I would be HARD on the brakes, with a little let off to swerve if needed. If I'm going to hit something, I figure the slower I hit it, the better I'll do. But if it's softer than the 13 is, and if I probably have physics on my side, maybe throttle would be good.

I've also flirted with the idea of "if I'm going to hit a car, straighten the bike up & stand on the seat to get thrown clear." But then, if I have the time to stand up, I have the time to realise that hitting the street furniture & spinning away is probably a bad idea.

Just get deer whistles... problem solved

For me I've had far more encounters with Vultures then any other single animal. Then probably deer. The best was a beat up doe in Iowa, came out of the corn field limping, looked liked she'd been hit several times. Was happy the guy behind me didnt miss his brakes.

Sometimes, you just don't have time to react!

November 2019

And this is what it looked like from my perspective!

Onboard Camera