2024 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa
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Man that is rough. Glad you made it through. Did the kid ever fork over any $$ to you?
I was just about to type that exact word.......
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Those last two pics look like commercial shots!
Those last two pics look like commercial shots!
One of my all time favorite shots of the Gen3 in the Sierra Nevada Foothills!
The epilogue of the getting hit head-on story is cops were there within minutes and asked if I wanted an ambulance. One was nearby & showed up a few minutes after the head-on. I didn't think anything was wrong with me and turned down the ambulance that showed up. Yah, I'm fine, I'll walk off getting hit head-on by a truck, rub some dirt on it.
The ambulance left and the CHP looked at me and said how about I give you a ride to the emergency room. He had been an helicopter pilot in the Army & we chatted away about the military after he learned I had been in the Marine Corps. So we first put the 18-yr-old kid in the back of the squad car and the CHP drove him home to his house and dropped him off. He lived a couple miles away. How's that for a little uncomfortable to have to ride with the guy you just hit with your truck and totaled his motorcycle and getting dropped off by the cops. During the drive to his house, I put on my dad hat and scolded him like he was my teenage son. You could have killed me I said to the kid. Head on with a pickup is no joke. He was quiet and just took it. Oddly, I felt a bit sorry for him. We were all 18 once, and we've all done some stupid things back in those days.
At the same time, my bike is pretty messed up & not rideable, CHP had called a flatbed which comes gets the bike and takes it my house about an hour away. Worst part of this story (for the married guys) is the wrecked bike showed up at my house with no me, I hadn't been able to reach my wife yet that I had been in a wreck as the hospital I was at had no cell signal and I hadn't called her. Yeah, I'll let you process that for a moment. Wrecked bike, no husband. She wasn't too happy about that because she had no idea what had happened. We got a hold of each other shortly thereafter and she came and got me at the emergency room. The swelling in my leg from the blunt force of the pickup was extreme but no broken bones. The bumper had hit me squarely in the ankle/shin right below the knee. (no armor there) Emergency room doc mentioned something about Compartment Syndrome & insisted I stay overnight. I had never heard of that & had no idea what that was. Plus I was afraid of the emergency room bills. Turns out Compartment Syndrome is pretty serious and worst case you could lose the leg. The swelling was so extreme, it pushed interstitial fluid into my pores and my leg would bleed clear fluid through my pores for days. But I led the next motorcycle tour 14 days later as the swelling went down just enough I could get my boots on by then. I had to do physical therapy on the knee for a long time & the ruptured ligament in the back of my knee slowly healed. No surgery. Lucky.
Terry, to answer the original question, he's an 18-yr old kid with no insurance & no registration for his unplated pickup, he has no money. However, I've been doing this a long time & I'm heavily insured. Normal insurance covers the bike & my medical bills. I loved that Z1000 and should have probably kept it & fixed it, but I let insurance total it & I got another Z1000 nearly identical to the one the kid hit. Moral of this story is he's uninsured. He has nothing to give. However, I have uninsured motorist endorsement on my bike policy. That means in a wreck, I can sue my own insurance company (Farmers). I got a motorcycle lawyer and sued my own carrier (Farmers) for my medical bills and bike replacement. What I didn't know about the insurance world is the settlement worked out to 3x the damages (including medical bills).
The big thing I had going for me was it was plain he hit me and I had witnesses (the guys behind me that saw the whole thing), their eye-witness version of what happened all matched the police report so there was zero dispute by the insurance carrier of what happened & who was at fault. The settlement was $70,000 (3x the total damages + medical bills). Lawyer gets 38% of the award & I got a check for $43,000 out of the accident. Wife and I paid off all the (medical) bills & used the remainder for a down payment + closing costs on a house. We had been looking for a house for awhile and had no idea if we would get anything + the litigation took forever. The litigation finally settled 2-1/2 years after the accident.
Worth mentioning if I wouldn't have had the uninsured motorist endorsement on my insurance on the bike, I would have gotten nothing other than a new bike. The kid has no insurance and vehicle he hit me with was uninsured so I can't sue him. However, uninsured motorist endorsement allow me to replace the kid with my insurance carrier (Farmers) and I can sue my own insurance carrier for my bike and my medical bills through the motorcycle lawyer as my advocate. Don't ever ride without Uninsured Motorist Endorsement on your insurance policy.
You shoulda taken the ambulance ride huh? I’m glad the payout was as much as it was. Ins. Companies make soooooo much money from us that I never feel sorry for their payouts. It certainly can take a long time to finalize a case though. I investigated workers compensation fraud cases for a time dealing directly with Ins. companies. I didn’t realize it until I moved over here that collision coverage doesn’t cover me hitting a deer or bear etc. That’s comprehensive, the same that covers vehicle theft.
Some years after I had the Busa I was on tour somewhere and at a motel one night, several rowdies checked in and I got kinda worried about it in the parking lot. I had dropped my coverage to the bare minimum long ago so being worried, I called the Ins. company and increased my coverage right then just in case.
BTW ever since my low side a couple decades ago on my Suzuki 1400 Intruder and the resultant knee surgeries, 16 staples, stitches etc and a skin graft (no knee armor) I’ve worn MotoX style hard shell knee and shin guards under my boot jeans. My overpants and my leather pants have their own armor but I seldom wear them. I still have kind of a bum knee but I’m not going to suffer that again. Plus, I hate hospitals.
Some years after I had the Busa I was on tour somewhere and at a motel one night, several rowdies checked in and I got kinda worried about it in the parking lot. I had dropped my coverage to the bare minimum long ago so being worried, I called the Ins. company and increased my coverage right then just in case.
BTW ever since my low side a couple decades ago on my Suzuki 1400 Intruder and the resultant knee surgeries, 16 staples, stitches etc and a skin graft (no knee armor) I’ve worn MotoX style hard shell knee and shin guards under my boot jeans. My overpants and my leather pants have their own armor but I seldom wear them. I still have kind of a bum knee but I’m not going to suffer that again. Plus, I hate hospitals.
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That's one thing I've always kept on my bikes is full insurance coverage...I even have my riding gear covered...I get full replacement value.You shoulda taken the ambulance ride huh? I’m glad the payout was as much as it was. Ins. Companies make soooooo much money from us that I never feel sorry for their payouts. It certainly can take a long time to finalize a case though. I investigated workers compensation fraud cases for a time dealing directly with Ins. companies. I didn’t realize it until I moved over here that collision coverage doesn’t cover me hitting a deer or bear etc. That’s comprehensive, the same that covers vehicle theft.
Some years after I had the Busa I was on tour somewhere and at a motel one night, several rowdies checked in and I got kinda worried about it in the parking lot. I had dropped my coverage to the bare minimum long ago so being worried, I called the Ins. company and increased my coverage right then just in case.
We have no fault insurance here so if someone whacks you that doesn't have coverage, my insurance company covers me for everything. And we have national medical coverage so the ambulance ride and hospital fees are non-existent so that's an added bonus.
Then I have CAA plus-an enhanced version of AAA so any towing and such is covered.
And as a veteran, if I require home care or rides or anything, that's covered as well....
SPECIALFORCESOFGOD
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Daaang, duuuude!!! That poor leg looks crazy! How was the pain?
It was painful for quite a while, mainly due to the swelling. All that blood under the skin started at the shin & gravity pull it all the way down my leg into my toes (which turned black). Once I started riding two weeks after the accident, the swelling even got worse due to sitting on the bike & being stationary all day. My ride partner who is an RN took one look at the leg at the end of the ride day and said, That's a Class 3 edema. I had no idea what that meant. 
End of ride day, stick your finger in & it wouldn't spring back, so weird! Like sticking your finger into clay.
Edema after a day of riding. The lines in my shin are from the knee armor in my leathers.
Do not recommend. But I was back on the bike & that's all that mattered.
End of ride day, stick your finger in & it wouldn't spring back, so weird! Like sticking your finger into clay.
Edema after a day of riding. The lines in my shin are from the knee armor in my leathers.
Do not recommend.
But I was back on the bike & that's all that mattered.
Nearby is a destination road. A road that has become a destination just to ride it.
Jesus Maria Rd used to be a goaty backroad and they paved it. Single lane and great fun!
www.pashnit.com
Jesus Maria Rd used to be a goaty backroad and they paved it. Single lane and great fun!
Jesus Maria Rd, Calaveras County | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit
Ride Calaveras County Motorcycle Roads, Sierra Nevada Foothills
www.pashnit.com
Jesus Maria Rd used to look like this & I've really got to swap my pics out for new ones in this article I wrote.
It's not 2. It actually goes like this for 15 miles. Great fun!
It's not 2. It actually goes like this for 15 miles. Great fun!
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Now with the new pavement, Jesus Maria Rd looks like this. Nice!
Starts off in a canyon & climbs out. Great fun. Watch those blind corners!
Not a short road. Goes single lane for 15 miles like this the whole way.
Starts off in a canyon & climbs out. Great fun. Watch those blind corners!
Not a short road. Goes single lane for 15 miles like this the whole way.
Imagine having an estate large enough that you have roads like that running thru it, all private, not a public thoroughfare.
That's a lot of "road snakes"
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