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Emergency Situations
In previous articles, I have pointed out the various potential hazards
and how to avoid them. In this, the last article in the series, I
will discuss emergencies and what to do when you get into one.
Now matter how proficient you are, no matter how observant you are,
no matter how careful you are, sooner or later you are likely to get
into an emergency situation. Prevention may well be better than
cure, but sometimes the luck is just not with us and we end up being
in a jam. The most likely flavour of the jam will be a solid object
in your way – be it a vehicle, a pedestrian, an animal or a barrier.
You basically have two choices in this situation: brake or avoid. Of
these, avoidance is often the best option if traffic conditions
allow, hence my emphasis on an escape route. As I previously said,
by ‘escape route’ I mean somewhere else you can go if your intended
route is unexpectedly blocked.
You should constantly consider possible escape routes while you are
riding – just ask yourself: “If one the car in front of me suddenly
does a lane-change and I don’t have time to stop, where will I go?”
The small size of a bike often allows you top take the tiniest of
gaps, so keep your eyes peeled for gaps you can escape into. There
are various possible escape routes, depending on where you are: at
an intersection it may mean turning with the crossing traffic (see
illustration below), on a freeway it may be the emergency lane, on
the open road it may mean leaving to tarred surface to escape via
the road shoulder of even into the veld. In the latter case, the
risk of a puncture or falling is preferable to the risk of a
collision.
If you don’t have a possible escape route and you have to brake,
there’s a right way to do it. The key to emergency braking is to
stop as quickly as possible without locking a wheel. If you lock a
wheel, you lose directional control. First of all, be careful the
rear brake in emergencies – the sudden weight-shift forward under
braking will reduce weight on your rear wheel, which translates into
reduced grip, causing the rear wheel to lock up quicker. As my
science teacher explained to me when I was in school (back in the
days when Noah was the Chief of the Navy), rolling resistance is
greater than skidding resistance – when the rear wheel locks, it
will be moving faster than the (rolling) front wheel, and try to
overtake it. This will cause the rear end of the bike to break out,
in turn causing the bike to turn sideways.
At the same time, I don’t want to advise you to ignore the rear
brake altogether – the braking power of two wheels is greater than
that of one wheel only. The technique I use is to start braking with
the front brake, and gradually add rear brake if I need more
stopping power. This helps to combat the ‘stomping’ reflex in the
first split-seconds of an emergency situation – you apply the rear
brake as a conscious decision, not as a reflexive response. A good
trick is to keep two fingers on the front brake lever at all times
when you’re in tight traffic – it will save valuable time in an
emergency.
To avoid skidding the front wheel, apply your front brakes firmly
but smoothly. Should you feel the front wheel begin to skid, release
the brake briefly to re-establish traction. It takes a lot of
courage to release your brakes in the face of an imminent collision,
but you’ll stop quicker that you will with a skidding front wheel.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to ABS, which does the job for you – if
you do have ABS, consult your user’s manual for braking techniques.
One of the reasons why I see braking as the last resort in an
emergency, is the threat of being hit from behind. Bear in mind that
a bike, weighing less, can stop in a shorter distance than a car
can. It’s fairly pointless hitting the brakes to avoid hitting a
pothole if it results in you being run over by an 18-wheeler doing
120km/h barely a metre behind you (in the image above, escaping in
the direction of the green arrow is a better option). If you’re in
tight, fast-moving traffic, this risk becomes very real. This takes
me back to what I said about situational awareness earlier in the
series: if you have an idea of what’s behind you and the emergency
situation doesn’t allow you the luxury of looking in your mirrors,
you’ll be in a better position to make an informed decision.
This, I think, is as good a place as any to conclude the series. I
hope you have found this series helpful (and perhaps entertaining),
but more than anything, I hope that I have contributed in a small
way to safer biking. Be careful out there, and remember – getting
there alive is more important than getting there first.
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