Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Fatigue Kills (it didn't, but it came close)...
I had a great weekend at the MotoGP, with bikes, beer and surprisingly for Phillip Island, sun.
The trip down on Friday afternoon wasn't so great. I drove my wife's Falcon ute down, with our Ducati tied down in the tray. She flew straight to Melbourne from Sydney, so I would meet up with her at the Island, and she would ride the Ducati back from the Island, and we could pillion about while down there.
Anyway, just north of Jugiong on the Hume Highway, I had a moment of indiscretion. I had just passed a truck, and looked down at the speedo to do some calculations for the distance to Gundagai (the next scheduled fuel and rest stop). By the time I looked back up, I had put the two right hand tyres off the road, and into the grass verge of the median strip seperating the dual carraigeway.
This lead to me trying to get the car back on the road, a series of swerves/fishtails, and the ute leaving the road at around 100km/h into the shrubs in the median strip.
I don't know how the car didn't roll. I don't know how I picked a section of road with no substantial trees/drains/posts/lightpoles/etc. I don't know how I'm still alive.
The ute came to a stop with vegetation everywhere, damage to the front bumper, front right guard, drivers door, rear bumper and not much else. With some assistance from a retired(?) couple and the truck driver, I managed to get out of the bog in the median strip and back on the highway, but I am incredibly lucky that the whole incident didn't end in tears.
At the time I didn't think myself fatigued, but now I look back, I probably was getting a bit tired. Given the amount of kilometres I do on the highway, I suppose it was going to happen eventually, but I never thought about it happening in daylight, under those circumstances. I wasn't being an idiot, I wasn't over-tired, I wasn't speeding, and was generally being a good road user. In the end, I definitely consider it my fault.
Luckily, I live. And hopefully, I've learnt.
The trip down on Friday afternoon wasn't so great. I drove my wife's Falcon ute down, with our Ducati tied down in the tray. She flew straight to Melbourne from Sydney, so I would meet up with her at the Island, and she would ride the Ducati back from the Island, and we could pillion about while down there.
Anyway, just north of Jugiong on the Hume Highway, I had a moment of indiscretion. I had just passed a truck, and looked down at the speedo to do some calculations for the distance to Gundagai (the next scheduled fuel and rest stop). By the time I looked back up, I had put the two right hand tyres off the road, and into the grass verge of the median strip seperating the dual carraigeway.
This lead to me trying to get the car back on the road, a series of swerves/fishtails, and the ute leaving the road at around 100km/h into the shrubs in the median strip.
I don't know how the car didn't roll. I don't know how I picked a section of road with no substantial trees/drains/posts/lightpoles/etc. I don't know how I'm still alive.
The ute came to a stop with vegetation everywhere, damage to the front bumper, front right guard, drivers door, rear bumper and not much else. With some assistance from a retired(?) couple and the truck driver, I managed to get out of the bog in the median strip and back on the highway, but I am incredibly lucky that the whole incident didn't end in tears.
At the time I didn't think myself fatigued, but now I look back, I probably was getting a bit tired. Given the amount of kilometres I do on the highway, I suppose it was going to happen eventually, but I never thought about it happening in daylight, under those circumstances. I wasn't being an idiot, I wasn't over-tired, I wasn't speeding, and was generally being a good road user. In the end, I definitely consider it my fault.
Luckily, I live. And hopefully, I've learnt.
# posted by Fro : Tuesday, October 18, 2005
