Motorcycle Safety - Gear - Accidents - Personal Experiences

Sorry if I seem to be beating a dead horse here but the recent (and preventable) deaths of two expats have been eating at me since it happened and helmets are a very rare thing to see here.....on both expats (who I would think would be a bit more educated on the subject) and Filipinos. So thought I'd share one of my "experiences" (again) to explain why I always wear a helmet....unless going to the Valencia market on the Honda Scoopy at jogging speeds.

When I first learned to ride I only wore a helmet when I went on a longer rides and even then sometimes I would not wear one. I had completely backasswards thinking and I honestly can't believe how idiotic I was then, if I could go back and slap myself I would. Note: I had never even touched a motorcycle before I came to the Philippines. The closest things I had driven were 3 and 4 wheel ATVs as a teenager. The first motorcycle I ever drove was a Honda Steed (at the time I didn't even know what "cc" meant so couldn't tell you anything more about the bike ) on one of my first vacations to the Philippines (in Pampanga). The first bike I ever owned (which was also the second time I ever rode a bike) was a 650cc Kawi Ninja (not exactly a "true" sports bike but still way too fast and unforgiving for a second time rider). Somehow I managed to put not one scartch on that bike for almost 2 years......which included at least a dozen round trips from Dumaguete to Cebu and Bacolod and 3 round trips to Manila and back.

Two years later I owned a couple scooters and had traded my 650 Ninja for a 1000CC Fireblade, which I still have today, and I had my first and only (knock on wood) accident in Kalibo (Aklan) on the way back to Dumaguete from Manila. It was completely unavoidable, a girl ran....more like teleported....out in front of me from behind a parked vehicle. There was no time to honk, counter-steer or to even touch the brakes.....open road one moment then a split second later all I saw was an 8 year old girl directly in my path. Luckily I didn't hit her dead on and she took a glancing blow from the front and then clipped my handlebar which threw me into a vicious tank slapper. Luck struck again and I went down on the gravel shoulder on the right instead of the Ceres Bus in the oncoming lane (and luckily the girl didn't get knocked into the path of the bus either).

I have no idea how long I was down after hitting the road but it was enough time for a crowd to gather and start taking pictures and for a trike driver to take the girl to the hospital. After I got up it took about 15 minutes before I started to feel the my injuries. An hour after the accident the police showed up, put my bike in the back of their truck and took me to the hospital. Took some x-rays and found out I had torn some rib cartilage (and possibly some some fractured ribs....those x-ray pictures were kinda fuzzy) and a partially torn acromio-clavicular joint (which a nurse and myself figured out on our own by looking at the x-ray image and searching on Google while we waited 5 hours for a doctor to come give his "expert" opinion.....and all he did was confirm the assessment we had already made ). Thankfully, I was wearing this helmet -

- and had no head/neck injuries. Not sure if those marks would have been deadly if they were on my head but I'm quite certain it would have been extremely unpleasant and I most likely would have needed more than a couple minutes to get back on my feet.

BTW: the little girl was perfectly fine. She had a tiny scratch on her head and her initial hospital bill was around 10 pesos (for some Tylenol). The family later pulled some sh*t to get more money out of me but that's in another thread somewhere on the forum.

Here is the original thread: Long Overdue | Dumaguete Info

This accident is one of the main reasons that made me start thinking straight about proper head protection. It still hurts to sleep on my right shoulder for more than a couple hours (it's been more than 2 years since that accident). I know a guy who has chronic head pain and neurological problems from an accident he had almost 3 years ago when not wearing a helmet. My biggest fear is not dying from head trauma in an accident but more from living with those injuries.

I know that this post probably won't change the mind of people who refuse to wear a helmet for whatever reason but hopefully it will, at the very least, get them to think/consider the benefits of wearing one. However, there was another thing that I found that sealed the deal for me putting on a helmet after I had this accident:

Spoiler: Warning: this is a nasty, vile, cruel, despicable, abhorrent, infuriating, completely immoral and socially unacceptable information!

There is a website called.....

Spoiler: don't open this spoiler until you have read the rest of the main spoiler....curiosity is a b*tch!

"Best Gore"

....if you go there and search "motorcycle" in the search at the top you will find the true dangers of riding a motorcycle.

Note: If the pictures of accidents Filipinos post/share on FB makes your stomach turn or ticks you off DO NOT GO TO THIS WEBSITE!!!! This site can and very well may emotionally scar you!

I do not enjoy viewing that website and I am certainly not going to link it on this forum but it did make me change my driving habits, get serious about improving my riding skills and it most certainly convinced me that a helmet is the bare minimum protection needed to even sit on a motorcycle....also, if you know someone (or you are that someone) that rides a motorcycle like a retard, drunk and/or refuses to wear any safety gear at all this could very well get them/you to change their/your thoughts on safety gear.

And to close here are some stats on motorcycle accidents (I believe that data was collected from the US but I'm sure we are all smart enough to see how it relates):







If anyone has any stories to share I would be more than interested in reading them.

 

Sounds painful! What kind of speeds are we talking about here?

What happened with the drunk driver? Were there any repercussions for his actions?

I can certainly respect the ATGATT attitude towards PPE but I just can't bring myself to do it while riding around town. MOTGMOTT (most of the gear most of the time) works better for me on the day-to-day riding....risk vs reward I suppose. I would like to wear "all the gear" for the longer rides but I can't bring myself to spend that much money (I know the gear has the potential to save me tons in medical bills but full, top of the line, gear would run in the thousands).

In the US it depends on what state you live in. Some places it is considered manslaughter, some will give you second or third degree murder and in others you might just be charged with reckless endangerment for first time offenders.
The Philippines new anti-drunk driving law says this:

Not sure what the actual charges would be in the Revised Penal Code or what would happen if the drunk driver dies in the accident as well. There was a thread a while back about this law. Might be worth looking up.

I think it really depends on how we define "drunk" when it comes to drinking and driving. Alcohol slows reflexes, reduces coordination, impairs thinking and results in poor judgement. Some people might not be as impaired as others at the "legal" limits but drunk is drunk and people cannot safely operate a vehicle while intoxicated. I believe that most legal intoxication limits would be the limit for the vast majority of people.

 

That's the one with a heads up display and a camera/optics for rear view? (My internet is too crappy to watch any videos right now.) I believe I remember seeing that when they were in the development stage. For $1500 bucks I be scared to wear the thing in case I actually did take a fall. And if I did wear it there would also be no way in hell I would deposit that thing before going in to any of the stores here, it'd be permanently attached to me. I've had too many helmets stolen (I suppose because some locals were in some dire need for some elbow protection. )