* * Motorcyclist Doug Thompson cheats death

Motorcyclists face many hazards. Perhaps the most feared of all is the sight of a large, oncoming vehicle in his or her traffic lane. That’s exactly the sight faced by Floyd rider Doug Thompson on a recent afternoon on a rural road in south Montgomery County.

 Thompson was riding his Harley around a sweeping left-hand curve when a Chevy Silverado appeared in his path. As he described what happened when we met a few days later at a Christiansburg coffee shop, Thompson slid up the sleeve of his t-short to show me a massive bruise the color of raspberry/orange sherbet on his left shoulder.

By mere centimeters, he avoided a frontal collision which surely would have killed him. Instead, his shoulder smacked the rear-view mirror and his clutch lever scoured a long crease in the side of the pickup. Miraculously, Thompson never went down.

“I think there are several reasons I’m still around. The only part of the bike that hit the truck was the clutch lever. It gave way and mashed into my finger. My shoulder was the real impact area.

“I was following proper riding procedure. I was riding on the outside of the turn. When I first saw the truck, it was already over the (center-)line. It kept coming further into my lane. My gaze focused on where I was going. I was going 45-50 mph and he was going even faster. It would have been a 100-plus mile per hour collision.

“The Harley was staggered by the impact. It wobbled towards the edge of the turn but I managed to avoid going off the road and brought the bike back under control. I stopped to see if I still had an arm. My helmet slid alongside the car, which ripped the intercom transmitter right off it.

“The driver, to his credit, stopped immediately. He called the police, apologized to me, and claimed full responsibility.”

Thompson wouldn’t claim superior riding skill for his survival, but I think he was selling himself short. He rides 30,000 to 40,000 miles every year and has been riding off-and-on since he was 15. “I consider a 300 mile day a good day.”

Lots of friends who heard his story admonished him for being on his motorcycle. He said, “If I’d been driving my Wrangler, I’d surely have been unable to avoid a full, head-on collision and I’d be dead. People don’t stop driving their car the day after they have a near-tragic accident.

“I always wear body armor. I know that seems anti-Harley (as Harley riders are notoriously style- rather than safety-conscious). And I had a full-face helmet on. Without it, the impact would have taken off much of the side of my face. If I hadn’t had the padded jacket on, the mirror would have taken my shoulder off, or at least broken it in several places.

“The driver’s insurance company is cooperating with me. I think they’re happy they’re not getting a wrongful death lawsuit from my wife. He was definitely speeding. He may have been on the cell phone, but he didn’t admit it. At least he stopped and turned around. I’m sure many other drivers would have kept going.”

Thompson described a rambunctious childhood that he continues to live. He joined the Navy and served in Vietnam. When he finished his tour of duty, he got a job in the newspaper industry and went back again as a photographer and writer. He had since then been imbedded as a journalist in several other war zones. His parents had been motorcycle riders before he was born. His father returned from World War II and met his mother and got her interested. The first big spike of interest in motorcycles was in the late 1940s when the soldiers and airmen returned home and looked for some type of adrenalin rush like they found in the War.

“The main message is that on a motorcycle, you can never relax, even on a road you ride every day. This is my third collision in three years. One was a deer, one was a bear, and this time was a pickup truck. Not too long ago, I rode up to a turkey vulture that was munching on a decaying skunk in the road. When he saw me, he went aloft, trying to carry the skunk. He let go of it and it splattered against my jacket. Boy did I stink when I got home!”

“I’m not riding with you,” I laughed.

“I’m enough of a religious man to believe that when it’s my time, it’s my time. Last Wednesday wasn’t my time. But I got enough of a message of what it might be like. It is only by blind luck that there wasn’t an obituary the next day stating that a 64-year-old Floyd man died in a motorcycle crash. Apparently, it wasn’t my time yet to die.”