Interactions with God #26

I still had the $25 motorcycle that I purchased at the abandoned vehicle auction in Austin, TX. It was still of course ugly, and looked like it should not be able to run at all. It wasn't very fast. It was after all only a Yamaha 175, and it was really old, a 1973 model. Once on a major road speeding along at about 60 mph, the maximum that little bike would do. I got passed by a young girl on a moped. Needless to say, my man card fell out of my wallet at that moment…

In Houston, like Dallas, all the major roads in the city, and suburb areas, have 3 to four lanes. Most of the stop lights are half a mile to a mile apart, so you can get up to 50 or 60 mph before you get to the next light. The speed limit on some of these roads is actually 55 or 60.

I was heading back to the house on this particular day. I don't remember where I was or why, but I do know I was on my way home and still had a good 10 minutes to go. I wasn't taking the highway, as that would have been suicidal on that little bike. I don't think it would have been legal either. So back roads it was.

I was just passing a light, and knew I had a good while before the next one, so I ripped down the throttle. Impressive as that might sound, it wasn't. I did however almost get up to my maximum speed when a car pulled out in front of me.

The car was one of those old Suburbans. You know, the big ones, made long before they came up with the minivan. The driver was crossing the road from one side street to the other. She had only stop signs to contend with. Me, I had the right of way. She (yes, I think it was a woman, not that it matters much) clearly did not notice me, as she started across the road. When she did see me, she panicked, and stopped right in front of me...completely covering the lane I was in. I now had maybe 20-30 feet before becoming a dead body.

Granted, I didn't have a lot of mass, the bike was small and so was I. However, I was doing at least 55 mph. At 55, the end result was not going to be pretty and I knew it.

It is really funny how things go when you are in a life or death situation, time slows considerably. I have a good friend named Kevin Reilly, who was a fireman/EMT. He told me once that the brain, when faced with imminent death, drops into a subconscious mode. In this place there is no fear, and time seems to move very slowly. This is exactly what happened at that moment. Time slowed considerably.

In this slow motion state, I realized that this situation was going to hurt, or kill me. I strangely calculated the distance, and what I needed to do to minimize the damage. I immediately locked up the back brake, and slowly squeezed the front. If I had locked up the front brake, I risked pitching myself over the handlebars. If I did that I would have still hit the car and then the bike would have mashed me further into the paint job. No, it was best to get that back tire dragging as much as possible.

At this point, I imagined myself going head first through the passenger door of the Suburban, then stopping with my head on the woman's lap. I had planned on turning my head ever so carefully up a bit and politely asking her to continue her drive to the nearest hospital. Yes, you can even think humorously in a life or death time-slow.

Ah, but that would not be how I died, no. The motorcycle started to drop. The back tire now, screeching on the pavement, started to drag to the left. The front of the bike was moving into a parallel position with the front of the Suburban while falling backwards toward the ground. My future vision now changed to me becoming one with the Suburban's muffler.

The tires were going to hit first, I was thinking that I might actually survive this. It was going to hurt, and I knew I was not going to walk away from it, there was a chance that I might still survive. I was now about 4 feet from wedging myself underneath the vehicle. This is when God stepped in. 

I let go of the clutch.

I tell you the truth. I didn't think of doing it, it just happened. I downshifted when I locked up the breaks, but I never let go of the clutch. I probably got the bike into second gear. I figure an angel must have pried my fingers loose, because there was no way anything else would get me to loosen my grip. The engine kicked in. This new thrust lurched the bike forward, so now, though I was still moving toward the Suburban, I was also tipping back upward, and moving toward the front of her vehicle.

I ended up passing the front of the Suburban's bumper by mere inches. With momentum pitching me upward, the bike also began to turn forward as I found myself rounding the front of the car. I came all the way around the Suburban, and then started to fall in the other direction. Using a really hard pull on the handlebars, I got the bike to straighten out with only a minor wobble. That is when time returned to normal, and then the panic hit me.

I didn't stop, or even change lanes. I was too scared to do anything. I just kept driving and headed for home. Aside from the story I told everyone who was at the house, and shaking for a good hour. I figure the woman in the Suburban had a more exciting story to tell. “I just saw a stunt rider on the road!”

There is no possible way I could have made that maneuver. It happened so fast, even though to me time seemed to crawl. I didn't die. I didn't even get a scratch. I did, however, end up with a cool story of how God made me a stunt driver for a day.