Not that much of a story really, usual thing of a car driver being stupid.
To set the scene: it was a beautiful sunny Friday morning, 20th January 2006. I was on my way to work, left early for the first time in ages because it was such a nice day.
I was taking my usual route to work and as usual there was traffic on one stretch. A 40mph one lane each way road, with no turn-offs, just one roundabout to another. So as usual I pulled out to the right to go past the traffic and started slowing down. I was doing about 35mph or so when I saw a car in front put his right indicator on. 3 flashes of his indicator later, less than 2 seconds, I was level with his back bumper as he decided to do a u-turn. Didn't check his blind spot and I shoulder-barged his car door at about 35mph. The front tyre lost grip and the bike slid sideways across the road, with me following. The crash bungs on the bike worked perfectly until the bike went up the kerb, which ripped off everything that stuck out on the left before grinding into the grass bank.
I was wearing my helmet, gloves, armoured leather jacket, jeans and trainers (Friday is casual day at work). Funnily enough, the jeans came away with some scuff marks and one little hole where the seam came loose. The trainers were screwed from the friction. The helmet only has a few visible scratch marks on it and the jacket has 2 scuff marks on the shoulder, apparently where I took off his wing-mirror, and a tiny cut on the elbow that isn't even all the way through the leather. The only scar I got from the crash is about 1cm long on my left ankle, where the gear lever hit it as me and the bike went over.
The scars on my shoulder are from the operation I had in May to fix the nerve damage there. Before the operation I could only lift my left arm about 15cms away from my body, I now have full movement back but VERY low strength. I'll post pictures of the scars as soon as I can.
Do you know the worst bit? The insurance company wouldn't let me buy the bike back from them because it was structural and cosmetic damage.
And I will freely admit that I cried on that day, when I got home and saw the damage to my bike.
