Here's what happened, for those who are curious...
I was on a neighborhood street, traveling between two fairly close stop signs, so I was moving at 20-25 mph max. The '99 Taurus that hit me was parked on the right side of the road. When I was about two driveways away, the brake lights illuminated, alerting me to the fact that it was occupied. Since there was no oncoming traffic, I moved over a few feet to the left, putting me in the other lane. At about one driveway way, the left turn signal came on, and I moved over almost to the curb on the left, figuring if they for some reason started to drive off, I'd be past them without a problem.
As I started to pass the car, it suddenly pulled out and hung a left turn towards the driveway on the left side of the road, to use it as a turnaround to go the other way. I felt it hit my right pannier and instead of stopping, the car seemed to accelerate, as if the driver panicked. I cut the handlebars to the left in an attempt to keep the ST moving more or less straight ahead, but the car completely shoved me off the left side of the road. At that point, the ST was pretty much sideways and the tires were digging into the grass, and it started to fall over. I decided it was time to depart the ST and I jumped as hard as I could away from the ST.
I impacted on my left side in the grass, in a motion kind of like when you dive over something. I do that fairly often playing indoor soccer. I immediately went into the "hit-n-roll" motion so that I'd continue to move away from the ST. Unfortunately, I had my cell phone hanging on my left hip and it took the brunt of the impact. I wouldn't be nearly as sore if the cell phone hadn't been there, so lesson learned! It’ll be tucked in a fairing pocket from now on.
After a few rolls, I came to a stop on my back. The couple that lives in the house of the yard I rolled in happened to be standing near their front window. They heard the impact, looked out the window, and saw me rolling across the grass. They immediately dialed 911 and headed out the door towards me. I laid there for about 30 seconds, checking myself out. Other than my hip, I felt fine. I sat up, then stood up, and declined having an ambulance sent to the scene. I told the 911 operator that I'd head to the hospital on my own to get checked out, which I did.
Three X-rays confirmed nothing was broken. When the doctor first came into my private “curtained” area, I could see his face cringing a little as he was anticipating the worst. I guess they assume the worst when they’re informed they have a motorcycle accident victim to check out. One of his first questions was, “Were you wearing a helmet?”. I said, “Yes, and a motorcycle jacket, and motorcycle pants, and boots, and gloves”. His face lit up and he said, “Oh really? That’s incredibly refreshing to hear!”.
My '99 ST is not a small bike as you all well know. I have the brighter bulbs in the headlight and I wear a day-glow First Gear mesh jacket. I by no means attempt to hide from anyone. The '99 Taurus had the stock side view mirrors without additional convex mirrors, so I imagine the little old lady driving it may have glanced at it, but didn't move her head around to give her the complete picture. In retrospect, I should have given her a quick blast of my Stebel horn, but the scenario of what happened didn't occur to me. It sure will from this point on! My mindset while riding is that it’s my responsibility not to allow anyone to hit me, rather than assuming it’s everyone else’s responsibility not to hit me.
I do a lot of cycling as well and approach it the same way. It kills me though, to think that I’ve pedaled my bicycle from the Canadian border in Maine to Key West Florida over six trips (2400+ miles), and I’ve never had an incident. I even spent 6 hours riding around Manhattan without a problem. And within a half mile of my house on a quiet neighborhood street, some little old lady about takes me out!!!
