Survival options

[Dark Knight]

Coming back down the road the other day from Glen Coe and Tyndrum, brilliant weather, when on one of those 60 MPH straights a large dog suddenly appears out of the bushes at the side and proceeds across the road in front of me.
Not enough time to brake, as i was so close the dog saw me and hesitated slightly, being on the 660Z managed to swerve and just missed the dog.
What an idiot letting your dog loose on the main road.
Anyway sitting having coffee and cake at Callander got to thinking whats the best of minimizing damage in this sort of situation.
If i had hit the dog it would of likely have brought the bike down with me on it and chances are you break some bones.
If the dog is big enough it could send me over the handlebars and the bike would run me down, probably not a survivable crash at this speed.
So maybe if you know that you are going to hit a pretty big object, you should just hit the kill button and roll off the big.

Any comments?

[Tonibe63]

Instinct says you go for the brakes and then quickly assess wether you can stop in time before doing whatever comes naturally, if you have time to think and consider options then you probably have time to stop.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Aim for where the dog was when you first saw it...by the time you get there it won't be there anymore.

In that situation, probably better to swerve than brake.

[P4ulie]

I always think if you have time to hit the brakes (or the horn for that matter) you have time to try avoidance......braking at speed, unless you have some serious bite just has you hitting something a bit slower.....possibly not such a bad thing.

I hit a badger once on my 250 at 40mph, thankfully stayed upright with no lasting damage. The badger wasn't so lucky

I had no chance to do anything except hold on, first I knew of it was the flicker in my headlight beam & then straight under the front wheel.

[zimtim]

Had similar in France last year with a huge Red Stag.
I applied brakes as hard as I felt safe to do, started steering into direction from which he had come, u was still convinced I was going to hit him so aimed for his stomach thinking that would probably be the softest part of him to hit and cause least damage to me and bike.
Luckily the stag took an jump and cleared the front of the bike.
Swear I could smell and tasted deer shit for the next few hours.

[herman]

Deer are worse as you miss the first one just but the buggers travel in twos. I'm with Richard as a swerve is probably all you can hope for. Riding the lanes in France when the chasse are out with their big dogs can be hectic too.

[Griff097]

Experience tells me that you don't have time to consider things if it's extreme enough and normal observation and correct road positioning can't help as in a lorry pulling straight accross your path from a blind junction or a dog running out, there is nothing you can do in that instant, so if you have an instant more, brake and swerve or just accept that it's a risk of biking and it could kill you.

Doing advanced training with a group like IAM will help you with better road positioning and perception of what'sahead if you have never read up on this before or had training yourself?

[sprintster]

You don't know what you would do until it happens but I don't think there's a dog big enough that I would jump off my bike to avoid,I'll take my chances cutting it in half! Your bike wouldn't stop dead so I don't think you would go over the handle bars.A red deer would probably be a different story though.
Preferably I'd hammer on the brakes to scrub off as much speed as I could while looking for an exit route and not target fixating on the animal to hopefully swerve and avoid it.

[Chunkychops]

My Norwegian friend told me that in Norway where they have problems Moose on roads, the advice is always aim for the back of the animals as their instinct is to run away from danger.

[Dansin]

A few years ago I was following a flat bed wagon down a straight road in a national speed limit. Wagon was slow and the road ahead was clear so I moved up for the over take. Just as I committed, the wagon went over a bump, sending a set of unsecured ladders off the back. They landed vertical in front of me and then started to fall across the road. No way to avoid them, I briefly braked and then let off as I realised I was going to hit them. I went straight ove the top as they hit the deck. I completed the overtake and pulled over ahead to have a word. The wagon carried on, completely oblivious as to what had just happened.

You can’t predict other people or things happening. Normal stuff you can train for, but out of the blue, instant events are down to instinct. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not.