A Deer Destroyed My Ducati

[G.Irish]

Are those Sidi B-Ones?

I'm having a hard time processing this one. You don't generally think of the highway as a dangerous place, what with traffic all going the same direction at the same speed and no real stopping.... but the idea of something happening at those speeds is, yeah, like Scotty said, sobering. I'm glad you're OK.

Have you given any thought to street riding since the incident? Or perhaps the better question is: have you reached any conclusions? Your incident gives me pause and makes me wonder, especially as the shine of "OMG MOTORCYCLE" wore off a very long time ago and is often replaced by feelings of inconvenience, if it's worth that sort of risk. My hubris lets me shrug off the threats of other drivers and the like, but a reminder of the range of circumstances so totally beyond your control and skill that may end this way is not ignorable.

I've thought about things but my take for now is that more often than not it is either handlebar actuator malfunction that leads to crashes, or putting yourself in a bad spot that leads to a cage driver violating your right of way. So that aspect hasn't scared me off from riding on the street.

Drunk drivers are a very big danger but I don't ride a whole lot at night when I'm more likely to encounter them. Deer are one of the true wildcards because they can pop up from where there's no way to see them and there's no rhyme or reason as to when they'll run out.

With my incident there a couple of things that may have been avoidable:

• Deer are most active in early morning and at dusk
  
• That area has some deer crossing signs (albeit further up the road)
  
• Maybe I could've spotted the deer on the side of the road from farther away
  
• Should've stuck to the left lane, in this case deer would've hit me in the side or missed completely. With more buffer I may have had more time to react. On the other hand, if a deer hit me in the side while I was in the left lane I could've flown into the median, which could've been a lot worse as far as broken bones.

The big thing though is to have good gear and wear it. Had I been wearing jeans my legs definitely would've gotten fucked up (on jean days I'll wear armored riding jeans). I didn't have a back protector on, but my hardshell backpack protected my back. Had it gotten ripped off or something I could've fucked up my back. Probably should zip my jacket into my pants too.

Also, as soon as it becomes practical I want to buy an airbag jacket. There are some airbag vests right now that I'll try to check out.