The danger of riding

I'm sure we have all heard or been involved in accidents like these. At highway speeds following to close things happen, things flying out of beds of trucks, being to close to a big rig and having stones/stone chips fly up at you.the story of the rider in montana who caught one of those small stones at 75-80 miles per hour went in to the chest and lodged in his heart, another about the rider being hit in the head by a stone from vechile in front of him he was knocked out, bike went to ditch, he unlike the first story survived, granted these are one in a thousand,a fluke but it can happen. windshields,windscreens help prevent these,or so I'm told.I don't get out on interstate that often but now I feel a little safer, don't really like the screens that much but now have a small one on my 28 year old small cruiser its a slipstreamer tombstone, any body else use a screen? or anybody have a story related to this topic?

Iron Duke wrote:

I'm sure we have all heard or been involved in accidents like these. At highway speeds following to close things happen, things flying out of beds of trucks, being to close to a big rig and having stones/stone chips fly up at you.the story of the rider in montana who caught one of those small stones at 75-80 miles per hour went in to the chest and lodged in his heart, another about the rider being hit in the head by a stone from vechile in front of him he was knocked out, bike went to ditch, he unlike the first story survived, granted these are one in a thousand,a fluke but it can happen. windshields,windscreens help prevent these,or so I'm told.I don't get out on interstate that often but now I feel a little safer, don't really like the screens that much but now have a small one on my 28 year old small cruiser its a slipstreamer tombstone, any body else use a screen? or anybody have a story related to this topic?

Vetter windshield always seemed stable even in the in 90 mph range. But would be careful about extra legal speeds on the more common style windshields. Because breakage can be very dangerous (think guillotine).

However, I have no experience with the slipstreamer tombstone.

Good Luck!

"caught one of those small stones at 75-80 miles per hour went in to the chest and lodged in his heart"

When new, a toy (not adult high velocity) BB gun fires at about 280 ft per second. Being shot in the chest with one would be unpleasant but wouldn't normally break the skin and certainly wouldn't penetrate the chest cavity.

100 miles per hour is 147 feet per second, just a bit more than half the velocity of a toy BB gun. I don't believe a small stone would penetrate the chest cavity at this velocity.

That doesn't mean it wouldn't sting or poke out an unprotected eyeball. And certainly if it was the size of a brick or maybe a floorjack falling from a towtruck it could kill. Ed

Another one of those cases where the original author thought reality didn't really make a dent so they embellished the story. Kind of like the penny thrown off the Empire State Building embedding itself a foot in the pavement. Boogieman embellishments. BUT that being said I don't want a pebble hitting me at 100 mph or a bowling ball either. :ohmy:

I have a windjammer on one of my bikes and it does a wonderful job of keeping the lovebugs out of my teeth, and the stones off of my chest.

we went for ride the other day and were following a 35 in a 45 landscaping plywooded sides dumptruck...well leaves were slipstreaming over the sides so dropped back even more on a country road to wait to get by...when a big ass aluminum snow/work handle/shovel---came cartwheeling out of the blind bed...did slow motion flips in front of me and landed in the weeds/bikelane....the guys driving did not even know it tumbled out.......
my roomate on his 2008 fz-1(first ever bike) came home thursday and said...hey i almost got killed this morning....some guy was dropping someone off at the curb in big white mercedes and as i went down the residential street by him...he whipped out into the lane.....my roomate locked his rear brake----(i had had a farm road rear brake lesson with him one day practicing...lock point...wheel sterring...and sideways on the rear tire skids.. )---so he was able to lock up the rear and get the bike sideways to a stop in front of the now stopped mercedes driver door.....i told him...he now has confirmed that he is developing important mc skills and is o.k to own a bike......he was pretty jazzed that he reacted without pause...and i bet he watches parked cars better now to on side streets.....good thread....