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Bang, Bang, I Hit The Ground
Soooo. Had my first experience dumping "Little Nellie" yesterday on my way home from work.
I was making a lane-change when the cab driver in front of me tapped his brakes. As a reflex response, I tapped mine as well. Unfortunately, I did so on a slick patch of wet oil, and the combination of turning, braking, and sliding was enough to zip her right out from beneath me.
The one good thing about driving a scooter, as opposed to a motorcycle, is that the design pretty much guarantees you're going to fall clear of the bike, rather than have it land on top of you. However, in the process of "falling clear" one can actually be propelled several feet in distance, meaning you build up a teensy bit more kinetic energy which will be abruptly transferred through your body come impact. I managed a pretty good "six-point landing" for the dismount (both forearms, knees and feet), but hit on my left extremities first, so almost all the damage is on that side.
I lay there for probably all of about two seconds before jumping to my feet, mainly because I had no idea if anyone was bearing down behind me. The cab driver stopped, got out to check and see if I was okay, and I managed to wrestle "Nellie" back onto her wheels and drag her over to the parking curb. Needless to say, I was in a lot of pain, augmented by a sudden infusion of adrenaline, but a quick inspection indicated no serious injuries. The cabbie offered to drive me to a hospital, but it seemed pointless. Nothing was broken, and so far as I could tell, aside from a few scrapes, nothing was bleeding, although I did land hard enough to crush the zipper on my rain jacket, punch a couple of holes in my rain pants, and scrape off some of the leather from a boot-toe and the palms of both my gloves.
Fortunately, "Nellie" herself suffered equally minor damage; just a little patch of plastic scraped off her left cowling, and a mirror loosened, so I was able to drive her home with only the difficulty of getting my very stiff left leg back up on the foot pad.
Subsequent inspection revealed a rather large "strawberry" abrasion about the size of a dollar pancake on my left knee, a slightly smaller one on my left elbow, along with a few other minor scrapes on both arms. Aside from those, and the residual stiffness in my left knee and ankle (which may be due as much to a minor muscle-pull as to impact trauma), I'm okay. Really, nothing a couple thousand milligrams of Ibuprofen can't handle.
Could have been a lot worse, of course.
I suppose it was only a matter of time. As my boss (an avid motorcycle rider) pointed out this morning: there are two types of riders; those who haven't fallen down, and those waiting to fall down again.
So, um, okay, I guess that's some consolation...Labels: accidents, Scooters
Posted byCOMTE
on 1:54 PM
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