Innov K2 dashcam

[92Merc]

I put the Innov K2 on my wife's bike this spring. I used the license plate bolt out back to mount the rear camera. I took apart the tail end so I could run the wire up under that gap under the rear lights. I had to remove said lights to get the plug end through.

Up front, I mounted it to the tip right behind the side panels on left side. That cable was almost too short to the DVR. The GPS puck I installed also on the left side under the clear plastic wing. I was able to route that cable along the speedo trim next to the slot for the windshield arms. Then down through the speaker box and to the frame. I loosened the gas tank so both cables could run along there.

The DVR I have mounted on the left side of the frame with given Velcro. I should have mounted it a bit more forward to help with cables. But so then I only have to remove driver seat to get to it. The only time you need to get to it is to access power button for video downloads when bike is off. And to get to SD card.

Main power has it's own fuse. I ran that to the bolt next to the CPU plug. Accessory power went to an output from my Clearwater module. Ground I just put right to the battery. I put ring plugs on both of those ends.

I was able to get the rear facing camera dead on for horizontal alignment. Looks great. Front one I can't seem to get dialed in quite yet.

But now on to my point. I hurt my knee last weekend. Couldn't really sit on the bike very long, so I wasn't up for a ride. Wife wanted to go for a ride on Saturday and called a friend of ours who rides a Harley Nightrod. They both decided to take a ride out to Medora in the western side of North Dakota. Let's just say they had an incident. I'll let the video speak for itself. And what isn't in the video, I have in the description and the pinned post. And yes, I had a brain fart. I put keep rubber side up at the end. Should have said Shiny Side UP. Didn't want to take the video down to correct that.

 

 

[Chris K]

This same thing happend to a friend of mine in N CA, a bicyclist making a u-turn in front of him without looking. Unfortunately he ended up with a broken jaw as the shoulder of the road was not as forgiving.

[TEWKS]

Wow, could have been ugly for both of them. Good save on your friend's part! 

[szurszewski]

I'm really glad your wife and friend managed to avoid the cyclist - if he continued that behavior later into the day it's kind of hard to imagine that someone didn't eventually hit, or get hit by, him!

 

I don't want to throw your wife under the bus, and I've only got a few seconds of your video to go on, but are you up for talking about where/when she chose to pass the cyclist?

 

 

[92Merc]

1 hour ago, szurszewski said:

I'm really glad your wife and friend managed to avoid the cyclist - if he continued that behavior later into the day it's kind of hard to imagine that someone didn't eventually hit, or get hit by, him!

 

I don't want to throw your wife under the bus, and I've only got a few seconds of your video to go on, but are you up for talking about where/when she chose to pass the cyclist?

 

 

I have a lot of detail already written up in the description.  And because of Youtube's limit to 5000 characters in the description, I added my "take aways" into the first post I have pinned.  I have a good idea of where you are probably going with it, and I  will probably agree to a point.  But read that take away section and I think it'll explain everything.

[MikeB60]

Glad everyone is ok.  I'm always leery of our local bubbas on bicycles around here. Usually they lost their license for DUI and ride their bicycles in the same state. 

[92Merc]

Since I had a decent still shot of the guy, it was passed to some locals who live in the near by town.  No one seems to know him.  For a small rural community, that's unusual.  Usually everyone knows everyone's business.

 

Looking at the guy, he's obviously not dressed like a distance biker.  And if he's not from the local town, we're not sure where he came from.  Outside of the ethanol plant I mentioned, there isn't anything out there except roads that go to farms.

[szurszewski]

3 hours ago, 92Merc said:

I have a lot of detail already written up in the description.  And because of Youtube's limit to 5000 characters in the description, I added my "take aways" into the first post I have pinned.  I have a good idea of where you are probably going with it, and I  will probably agree to a point.  But read that take away section and I think it'll explain everything.

 

I hadn't caught on that you were referring to your comments on the youtube video before (I just watched it embedded here and hadn't gone to youtube); I've read those now, and I guess my point is still the same. I totally agree that the cyclist made a stupid move - no doubt there. You refer to SIPDE and SEE that ABATE uses and specifically mention the reliance on both of those to predict behavior. That's classic driver training stuff, but it's not current best practice because, as you said, it sort of relies on the idea that people won't do really illogical things, like turn left from the right side of the road when there's nothing at all to turn toward (like our bicyclist here).

 

What we taught (owned a driving school and taught university level instructor courses until recently) was to identify zones/space as closed or open, and to not move toward a closed zone. In this case, the bicyclist closed the right front and the oncoming car closed the left front leaving your wife only the front open. If you only have one open zone you have no escape route and you need to reduce speed because if your last zone closes all you can do is stop/slow. 

 

Imagine if the cyclist had turned left a second or two earlier and your wife had been in your friend's place. He luckily had a (mostly - poor guy had to ride offroad - if there had been a worse shoulder or a guardrail...) open left zone to move into. Your wife on the other hand would have either had to hit the cyclist or the car. 

 

Again, I'm not berating your wife or your friend. I'm just saying that since - I assume based on the road in the video - the cyclist and oncoming car with both visible many seconds before your wife got there, a better choice would have been to time her pass to avoid being stuck between two closed spaces. I freely admit this is easy to say after the fact, and I have certainly made similar (and worse!) decisions myself. I only add this here for future thought for your wife and for the rest of us. 

 

thanks for posting -

josh

 

[92Merc]

2 hours ago, szurszewski said:

..., a better choice would have been to time her pass to avoid being stuck between two closed spaces. I freely admit this is easy to say after the fact, and I have certainly made similar (and worse!) decisions myself. I only add this here for future thought for your wife and for the rest of us.

 

 

And that's exactly why I wanted to post it.  Wife and I have been riding for 25+ years.  And we still will make mistakes.  We've both done multiple MC safety courses.  But there are still times when all MC riders will lapse in judgement.  I know both my wife and I learned a lot from the situation.

 

I was prepared for some possible negativity, not that you were being negative Josh.  These days negativity happens too much on the Internet.  But my hope is that when/if others encounter a slow moving vehicle on the highway or a relatively similar situation, they will think back to this video and consider a possibly safer path.

[92Merc]

Since I'm on the topic of education, there is another thing I'd like to point out in the video that I didn't mention on the YouTube pages.  I didn't want to speak badly of our friend.

 

My wife is typically a very timid rider.  She's been getting more confident now that she's learning what she can do on the RT.  But riding all by herself, by most motorcyclist standards, she's a very conservative rider.

 

But our friend is more assertive.  Not dangerous or aggressive by any means.  But he would go a little faster than my wife would all by herself.  You can see in that video, our friend was also quite close to her.  Given that was a slow 2 lane highway AND there was almost no real traffic, he's following my wife closer than either one of us two would have followed each other had we been riding together.

 

So when my wife probably typically would have slowed down in this situation if she were alone, having our friend right behind, made her think twice about slowing down because he was so close.  She didn't want him rear ending her.  So you take that closeness and add in the more assertive than typical style my would ride than normal, and her decision went to "Hey, I should be able to pass safely.  It looks alright".  Not her typical "I should slow down."

 

So my education point is just this:  It just goes to show you, add in multiple riders and your decision making is changed.  It's not always easy to make the safer decision in such a short time frame.

[szurszewski]

3 hours ago, 92Merc said:

 These days negativity happens too much on the Internet. 

 

No kidding! Just look at your YouTube comments - the people who proposed the cyclists should have been killed were a good reminder of why I generally don't read YouTube comments...or most any comments on videos or articles!

 

Your comments about your wife being worried about your friend's following distance really are a good reminder for us - riders/drivers have a tendency to want to maintain or increase speed to "get/keep away" from the threat when they have someone following too closely, but really that doesn't make them any further behind and instead it just reduces the amount of time we have to deal with new problems ahead. It's tough to do, but when you feel like someone is tailgating, unless maybe you really are going unreasonably slow (day dreaming, etc), the best response is to let them pass or reduce your own speed (so if you do have to stop quickly the following vehicle won't have to scrub as much speed to stop too).

 

 

[VaR1200RT]

Glad everyone is ok.  I treat passing a bicyclist just like passing a wild animal or dog.  You don't know what they will do.  

[AZgman]

Watching the video (and not being there in the moment), I noticed how far out in the road the bicyclist was riding. That would have prompted me to slow down as I approached him. Here in AZ it is a law that you must give a bicyclist 3 feet of space. I had a good friend killed while riding his bike so I am super sensitive to this. No "real bicyclist" would condone the way that asshat was riding.