Driving here in CO and on the highway doing 160 on way to the Erie exit. (Erie exit goes towards boulder)
I hit the exit and hang left to approach boulder. I am kind of a paranoid driver most of the time, so I drive the speed limit almost always OFF the highway or streets where I could have intersection collisions...
So... naturally I was driving the speed limit going down this long wide open stretch of road that I could have been doing VERY high speeds. The only gotcha to this road is the frequent intersections, no stop lights, along the way.
I am coming down a large hill doing 50 and I see a GMC suburban on one of the side streets wanting to make a left accross my lane. As I approach the GMC, I notice that this broad isn't even looking my way. She is waiting for oncoming traffic to pass so that she can make her turn. I am close enough to her when she decided to pull out in front of me that I can see her clearly in her truck. I hit the brakes; (I have steel braided lines/ HH pads) I had to hit them hard because I was so close to the intersection when she wanted to pull out. The front wheel starts to skid, I let go of the brakes, and squeeze hard again, the front tire starts to skid again...
At this point, I know that I am going to hit her if she doesn't look back and see me anytime soon. She finally looked back and at the point I was a few feet from her front driver's fender and I have shaved speed down to probably 20. She hits the breaks and I manage to swerve around her front bumper just to avoid the collision...
It happened so fast and so close to the intersection, all I had time was to hit the brakes. I couldn't rev the engine, or hit the horn, or nothing else for that matter; there was NO time.
All I could think about is the statistics that they tought us in Moto. school. (This is the most typical accident for motorcycles and that if I could get below 20 before I had the collision, I had a good chance of suriviving...)
Everything worked out luckily, but I was so close to wrecking, I pulled over to think about it. The lesson I came away learning is to take it slow, real SLOW, when approaching those situations. I would have plenty of time to break, if I had started earlier, but I didn't... I assumed she would see me eventually or had seen me... Guess I was wrong and it definetly would have cost me my "well being" for sure if I was traveling at high speeds like I could have been. Imagine if I was doing 100+ and had to the hit the brakes at the same point. I would have been road kill and not typing this today.
Watch the speed boys and girls; when there is the possiblity of cars turning in front of you on side streets, even if it is a highway, etc... Remeber, most cyclists die in collisions. You can generally even be traveling at high speeds and wreck and survive, as long as you can avoid a collision with a hard object. I was wearing ALL of my gear that day...
Cloud
I hit the exit and hang left to approach boulder. I am kind of a paranoid driver most of the time, so I drive the speed limit almost always OFF the highway or streets where I could have intersection collisions...
So... naturally I was driving the speed limit going down this long wide open stretch of road that I could have been doing VERY high speeds. The only gotcha to this road is the frequent intersections, no stop lights, along the way.
I am coming down a large hill doing 50 and I see a GMC suburban on one of the side streets wanting to make a left accross my lane. As I approach the GMC, I notice that this broad isn't even looking my way. She is waiting for oncoming traffic to pass so that she can make her turn. I am close enough to her when she decided to pull out in front of me that I can see her clearly in her truck. I hit the brakes; (I have steel braided lines/ HH pads) I had to hit them hard because I was so close to the intersection when she wanted to pull out. The front wheel starts to skid, I let go of the brakes, and squeeze hard again, the front tire starts to skid again...
At this point, I know that I am going to hit her if she doesn't look back and see me anytime soon. She finally looked back and at the point I was a few feet from her front driver's fender and I have shaved speed down to probably 20. She hits the breaks and I manage to swerve around her front bumper just to avoid the collision...
It happened so fast and so close to the intersection, all I had time was to hit the brakes. I couldn't rev the engine, or hit the horn, or nothing else for that matter; there was NO time.
All I could think about is the statistics that they tought us in Moto. school. (This is the most typical accident for motorcycles and that if I could get below 20 before I had the collision, I had a good chance of suriviving...)
Everything worked out luckily, but I was so close to wrecking, I pulled over to think about it. The lesson I came away learning is to take it slow, real SLOW, when approaching those situations. I would have plenty of time to break, if I had started earlier, but I didn't... I assumed she would see me eventually or had seen me... Guess I was wrong and it definetly would have cost me my "well being" for sure if I was traveling at high speeds like I could have been. Imagine if I was doing 100+ and had to the hit the brakes at the same point. I would have been road kill and not typing this today.
Watch the speed boys and girls; when there is the possiblity of cars turning in front of you on side streets, even if it is a highway, etc... Remeber, most cyclists die in collisions. You can generally even be traveling at high speeds and wreck and survive, as long as you can avoid a collision with a hard object. I was wearing ALL of my gear that day...
Cloud
Glad you made it. That stuff COULD happen every ride I'm on but I usually predict&avoid it. Sounds like you did what you could under bad circumstances. 
