the day after, and things got worse

Sept. 5th, 2013 next day after being hit

I tried to stay in bed pretty late the next morning...when I did get up I could feel pains all over my body....my Wife asked me if I knew where my motorcycle was, and if I had the name and numbers of the guy that hit me; or if I was going to get that information...I said: "I don't know" my head hurt and I really didn't want to think about anything yet...so she said: "before you take any pain pills today, lets try and find out" so she called the police...and told me that they had an "impound release slip" to get the bike out of the tow lot, and a sheet with both drivers, vehicles, plate, and insurance information; all down at the police station...she asked if I wanted a ride down there to pick it up, but I said that I felt like I could drive a car, and I wanted to go back to the scene of the accident and see it again  

so I went down to the police station and waited for the officer my Wife told me had the paper work I needed to pick up....as I sat there I noticed that I had missed a long distance call on my cell phone at 7:46AM that morning, and there was a message left from the insurance company's main office to call them back

I saw the officer, and he asked me "what happened?" so I told him about buying the bike, the next day going to get plates, riding out of the lot, going around the corner and coming up beside a car, then the car turning in front of me, knocking me down, and sliding forward until the car ran over the bike and my head as it kept going and pulled into the lot I just came out of....he said he was impressed that I was still here to talk to him...and he asked me lots of questions about what had happened, almost testing it to see if maybe it could have been a little different in any way

....then he leaned back in his chair and shook his head and said: "according to the witness, she thinks I should give you a citation; because she says you were behind the white car, and tried to squeeze around him in the corner by riding in the gutter, and then the side of your bike hit the side of the car and you fell off" ....with hearing this my eyes popped open wide and my jaw dropped, which hurt my jaw a bunch, so I pushed it closed with my hand, paused for a second, and then I said: "Noooo, no way!...no that's not what happened at all" and I added "I saw the lady that was the witness, and talked to her, was it the one in the blue truck?" reminding him that "I also talked to the driver of the car, and he apologized to me"

.... he kind of sighed a little and said: "let me see if I can get the witness on the phone today, see if she wavers at all on her story" and he got up and left the room.....I sat there and just hung my head, I felt a little dizzy now, and kind of like I might throw-up(but I hadn't been able to eat anything, so it wasn't too bad, so I didn't need to get up and find a bathroom but saw the trash can in the room)...the officer wasn't gone long at all, so quick that I thought he might not have gotten her on the phone to question her story...I sat up, and he said "nope, she said she was sure of herself" as he walked back into the room and sat down at a different desk against the wall in front of a computer

I leaned back  feeling horrible now; my left knee hurt to bend it, my head was ringing, my hands stung and I could see that my fingers still looked very dirty and skin was  pealing off some of the wounds, it even hurt to just breathe...none of what the officer said was making any sense now, not what I was expecting at all to happen by coming here...the room we were in was pretty darkly lit, with no windows; not like the bright room at the hospital, or out in the sun at the accident the day before 

...I sat there quietly, but I noticed he was looking at pictures on the computer from the accident...he turned and asked me: "that left lane looks pretty wide, maybe two cars could fit in it side-by-side...are you sure you weren't in the left lane with the car?"...I shook my head from side to side a little, and softly said: "no..no....he was in the right lane, I had the whole left lane to myself" but then a little louder I said "he did come over into my lane and hit me tho"....another officer came in and asked him a question, then he had that guy also look at some of the photos with him, I couldn't really hear all they were saying to each other, but I wasn't liking any of this...then I heard the first officer say to the second: "I don't even think I can give him a citation for following too close" and the other officer left the room

the officer came back over to the desk in front of me and said: "look, I'm not going to give you a ticket...today...but someone will do an accident report in a few days, and they might see something else...to me, it looks like you were in the middle of that left lane" ...he gave me a sheet that had just drivers and vehicles info on it...I noticed it said damage was only on the side of the car, but just the front of the motorcycle, so I pointed that out to him, reiterated that the witness was wrong and that I had no idea how she could say that...but he was done with me...still I asked if I could get copies of those photos, but he said he didn't know how to do that...and that I should go pick up the impound slip to get my bike out at the front window as we walked out of the office and pointed in the direction I should go 

I got the slip...and then left the police station and went right over to where the accident happened, took pictures with my phone, and thought I should come back with my better camera 

no way I would try squeezing around past the car by riding in the gutter!!!

...not only is that likely not possible to attempt, nor is it logical(because *if* a car took up the left lane, it would have been super easy to swing out into the right lane after going around the curve and pass on the other side)...but because none of the physical  evidence allows that to have taken place

looking backwards into the curve, only the deepest scratches from where the bike was initially slammed to the ground still remain in the road surface...but you can still tell they are very much in the center of the left lane, with not enough room for a car to fit in that lane beside them

In this next photo, a car drives exactly into the same spot of the road where the white car was when it came over from the right-hand lane and first hit me, knocking the bike over leaving those scratch marks in the center of the left-hand lane(shown above)...this is not a location the witness(blue truck) could have seen the accident from

 this car changes lanes after going around the corner in the right-hand lane then once on the straightaway pulling into the left-hand lane....took its picture as it crossed the dividing paint stripe between the lanes...I wonder if the driver looked in the side mirror or did a shoulder check before changing lanes...I'm told that cars do this all the time in this location 

I didn't stay there very long; I was in pain, and didn't feel comfortable there....I did walk farther back around the corner, and try to get a view of from where the witness might have seen things happen...but the hill of the raised lot, trees, and parked cars were in the way to take any good photos, so I didn't bother walking very far south...I got back in the car and headed out to my next stop

seeing the bike again

next I went out to the tow lot where they had my motorcycle...I wanted to see if it had to be towed somewhere to move it at all, or if my riding buddy could come get it in his pickup truck

first view of my bike at the towing impound...this is the side that was next to the white car as I was beside it on the road...you can kind of see where the gauge cluster was pushed up and out of place...but really, this side looks not too bad

in the photo above, notice how this side of the motorcycle actually looks mostly OK, as the car and the bike did not come together side-by-side....the car hit the bike in the front as it cut across my lane...even the mirror and turn signal sticking out the most of this side do not show any damage
however, if you look close at the bottom black fork tube on this side, and at the front fender; you will see black smudges there(my helmet also has this stuff on it), this is undercoating off the bottom of the car that ran over the bike and me!!!

another photo of the bike in the towing impound...showing the smashed headlight and fairing/windshield pushed up and over by the car

then in this photo you start to see much more of the damage...here the bike is leaned over on the kickstand, in the same direction that the car knocked it over starting when it first hit the front tire....in this photo you could recreate where the car would have been when it hit the bike; you could put the white car in that photo to the bike's right(left edge of the photo, other side from the shadow on the ground) coming forward(at the viewer) across the bike's path....and you can see how the front tire of the bike sticks out the most from this angle(and it was hit and turned) then how the fairing/windshield was hit and pushed up and over...and also you can imagine how the whole bike then would have been thrown to the ground from such a dramatic hard hit over and down to right how the shadow lays next to the motorcycle

the tow lot said I had to get it out that day, or they would charge me more for each day it was left there...but that it would roll, and they had people there that would help my buddy load it into his pickup truck

I went to my local insurance office; boy, was that a mistake

I'll add more here later if necessary...but first I'll note that the person I normally deal with still wasn't in that day, and she is great....anyway, the other guy there said he had the new policy for the bike I just got all ready to go from yesterday...then he said: "got some good news and bad news....the good news is the other driver also has [this same] insurance company, so we will be able to settle all this quickly....the bad news is that you don't have any of your other bikes insured on full coverage with us, so we will only pay $1000 medical and no damages" I yelled at him: "oh yes I do!...I was just in here last month paying for another year of full coverage on my BMW"...and then I added: "what does it matter what insurance I have?..he hit me" .....I didn't stay long, he redid the new policy for full coverage on the Kawasaki EX500 and I left

...I then decided that from now on I would always call my local insurance office first, make an appointment to make sure I could see the right person 

trying to clean up the mess

I went home and took a pain pill...contacted my riding buddy, he said if I bought gas for his truck he would go out there and get it; and that he wanted to see me, and of course more importantly what happened to the bike

we took it directly over to the big motorcycle shop...where my buddy knows everyone there

photo of bike at the repair shop...everything on this side of the bike is damaged from being knocked to the ground and sliding...and the front-end of the bike is bent/tweaked/crushed/scratched from the wheel/tire up the forks all the way to the handlebars from being run over

that night I unwrapped all my bandages, and had to rip the gauze out of the wounds....for a while I sat with tweezers picking pieces of gauze, hairs, and as much dirt and gravel out of the road-rash as I could....finally I gave up on the tweezers as it was too painful to pick it one little bit out at a time...so I got in the shower and used a soft(ha!) little fingernail brush to scrub out the wounds...I tried to bite down on a washcloth to muffle the screaming and groans, but it hurt my jaw way too much to do that....but I had to get everything cleaned out to stop infection
...I think I had a milkshake that night to eat or something....I was sad, mad, and alittle crazy after all that happened to me this day...and that finally gave way to total disbelief so that I could get a few hours of sleep

oh, I forgot...I called the head insurance office back at 3:20PM this day(returning the call I missed at 7:46AM that morning) hoping that they might have something better to say to me than at my local office...but the guy there was already pushing for the other driver's stuff to go on his policy, and my stuff to go on my policy, and had most of that already setup to happen, so I wasn't very happy with him...but he said he still needed to get a recording of my story, but couldn't do it now, and wanted to call me back the next day...I said: "ok, but don't call me so early, I have a head injury and I'll be trying to sleep"...he said: "well then how about 8:30AM to 9:30AM"...and I said: "no, that's too early...it'd be better like at 9:30AM to 10:30AM, or even later"
...he called me back the next morning at 8:11AM !!!

[I'll probably just add a whole other post about the insurance company at some point...and about how they still are screwing with my right to good faith representation from them, but I want the lawyers to go over those conversations I had with them first]