Blood on the macadam.

On the way to school yesterday was the closest I've ever come to being killed by another car on my motorcycle. Now I've made my own mistakes and almost paid dearly for it, but in all my years of street riding this was as close to the biggie as I had ever come before.

Large busy intersection at Friar's Road, heading west right before getting on the 163 north. 850am, I'm in front and as the light turns green I do a quick scan left and right and take off quickly. If I'm going to lane split my way to the front, which is legal mind you, then I like to get away quickly. Doing my part to reduce congestion and waiting. No cars have to wait for me and I don't have to wait for them.

A question, what is the number one cause of accidents for street motorcycles? Too much corner entry speed. Not an issue here. What is the number one type of accident where a car hits a motorcycle? The car turning left and doesn't see the motorcycle going straight across the intersection. So now back to the action at hand.

I do my scan left and right and take off. Only to see a girl in a truck very similar to mine, run the red light at a pretty quick speed into the intersection and make a wide left turn, tires squealing. By the time the visual recognizing is done on both our parts and the rapid brake applications are over we are 10" apart.

Since I'm in a math class right now, let's make this a story problem. If a 4,000 pound truck traveling 45mph hits Rowdy completely broadside on a motorcycle (combined weight of 440 pounds) while he is traveling 20mph what are the chances he will be air lifted from the scene of the accident? The answer is 90%. The other 10% is I will be just left there with a sheet over me until taken to the coroner's office.

But it didn't happen. To both our credit we did see each other in the nick of time and did stop and avoid hitting each other. But it was inches and tenths of a second from going in a very different direction.

I'm not ready to die. But I've been close before and just barely missed it.

- At age 9 I fell off the second story roof of our house pretending I was Spiderman and hit my head on a wooden fence on the way down. If I'd hit my neck on the large fence post or landed head first..... Instead I was just unconscious for hours on the couch at home with the first of my many concussions.

- Medical illness has taken me to the brink of death from dehydration more than once. And surgical complications once.

- My car was shot while I was in Iraq through the rear window. I was driving. And when the rocket blew up by me. And when my helicopter got a RPG shot at it, which I caught on film. And so on.

- Making a mistake early on in my rock climbing I had to untie and downclimb a route as the only way to self rescue. Fall, die. Don't fall, live.