so there i was riding westward along hwy 20 in iowa, south of the town Early, where hwy 20 T's and turns right with hwy 71 and goes for a bit before turning left and east again.

at the intersection, there is a right turn lane, with an island between the right turn lane and the lane going straight. a stop sign at both the straight lane and the right turn lane. there is an acceleration lane for the right turner to get up to speed.

there was a pickup truck in front of me about 200 ft or so.

he comes up to the intersection and turns on his right turn signal and thn goes straight and stops at the stop sign. there were no cars on hwy 71 at all.

i slow up and get in the right turn lane. pickup still sitting there. i wait a bit to see what he is going to do and he just sits there. check for any traiffic on 71 - nothing. pickup truck still there. i started to go, was only going to use the acceleration lane a little bit cause no cars coming.

take a look back at the truck and he had turned right, and accelerated, too close to where i wanted to be, so i slowed and stopped and was going to wait until he passed.

next thing i know, the bike lurches forward, falls over to the right and skids along the ground and i fall off on my back, last thing is the back of my helmet banging into the ground. i lay there looking up at the beautiful blue iowa sky trying to figure out what happened. first thought was that my clutch cable broke and the clutch engaged.

then i dawned on me that i had gotten rear ended.

the pickup pulled over, the driver of the car that hit me got out. my wife and daughter who were behind me got out and ran up. wife asked if i wanted help getting up, i said no cause i wanted to just lay there for a bit and figure out if i was okay.

eventually i got up and my wife and daughter helped get the bike up - a bike on its side is just to sad a thing to look at.

my daughter called 911.

a police arrived pretty quickly as he had been another call just 1/2 mile away.

i gave the officer my license and registration as did the driver of the pickup and the driver of the car that hit me.

the officer checked over the licenses and then looked at mine the guy that hit me and asked

"are you two related"

to which i replied "yep, thats my brother"

then he looked at the registrations and said to me "oh no, both those cars are yours".

yep, thats right. got knocked down by my own brother in my own car. and he has not had an accident for over 27 years.

at least i know that both vehicles have good insurance.

the officer gave the pickup truck a citation for an illegal turn and added him to the accident report.

the car had a smashed back hood, smashed in grill, smashed aux fna and slightly messed up bumper and license plate thing.

the bike - '07 ultra - fendor smashed in, rear light assembly smashed, left turn signal smashed into saddle bag, trunck buckled a bit with one closure snaped off, right engine guard all scratch, right saddle bag guard scratched as well.

me - right inside of boot was scuffed badly, right knee on leathers was scraped, helmet was done for, some slight pain on the right side and a bad twisted ankle.

rode the bike to a friends place - probably wasn't the best thing to do as there was something scraping the rear tire.

the car was driveable so we continued on to sturgis with 4 wheels. picked up the bike and the way back and spent about 4 hours pulling out the fendor and wiring up some rear lights. rode it home and to the dealer.

was kidding the bro all week. i mean like if you have to get hit, might as well keep it in the family

to add some more fun to this trip - got a speeding ticket in spearfish - and then on the way home - one of the power windows refused to come back up so at wall we stopped at the hardware store and got plastic and duct tape and covered it up.

so here i was in a dirty car ( we camped and had dirt roads and with all the rain it got real dirty) with a smashed up front end with plastic over one of the windows and a speeding ticket in the pocket - brought back memories from my teenage years.

motorcycles and cars are hunks of metals and are replaceable.

brothers aren't replaceable.

 

Wow ! That's one for the books. It seems to me that any and every family gathering for the next half century this story will be told.

Good to know you are in (1) piece and have a great attitude. Families First.

 

Dang !!!

Good thing you weren't hurt ...think I'd be riden behind him from now on.

On a side note how is 20 for a route to sturgis , haven't been past Dubuque on it , only have taken I90.

 

man, that is some kind of story. glad you weren't hurt badly.

 

I'd say you are lucky and the brother is gonna be buying the 's for a loooonggg time.

 

Holy cow, that's some story. Glad you're ok, but really....your brother nailed you? Do you have him as the beneficiary on your life insurance plan or something? LoL J/K Glad you're all ok, and like you said, metal CAN be fixed. Relatives can't! Pun intended....

 

Definitely a ride you, your family and your brother will remember for a long time.

 

Wheres the pics?.....sorry had to ask

 

personally, i like the side roads and like to stay off the xpressways when i can. but you can't make the time. for me - coming from chicago - i figure 2 days anyway so it works for me to use the side roads.

hwy 20 thru iowa is a good road. a large portion of it is 4 lane divided and in some places is limited access. toward the western side of iowa it becomes 2 lane, but is usually in pretty good shape. i prefer the scenery and the countryside that you can see along this route. the traffic is not that bad in the western part so the driving is overall not stressful, as a matter of fact the traffic is pretty darned light. some semi's do use this route thou.

once i get to sioux city, i take the xpressway north and then get off just south of sious falls around lennox and then take hwy 44 thru SD. pretty rural road. gotta watch the fuel situation so you don't get caught short. but i do like 44 for riding.

 

Keep it in the family and $hit gets crazy