I rode 241,000 KM over 10 years and four motorcycles until my first accident. It’s very unfortunate that this first accident happened on my new baby. This Accident also shattered my belief that I’m the best driver in the world and I’ll be so forever or at least till my 120th bday. I thought I’ll probably be the only rider to achieve this feat but now all of this is gone. The good thing is that with this mindset, of being the best driver in the world, and riding on this amazing motorcycle, this accident would surely have happened at a much higher speed than the 5 km/h in which it happened, as I will explain.

I teach my kids that it’s our responsibility to prevent any accident no matter what, even if somebody hits you from behind it’s still your responsibility and you must try and escape. In this case, all the holes in the Swiss cheese lined up and my feeling of being invincible coincided with a dazed and inattentive driver standing at an intersection and instead of waiting a few seconds, I got myself into this situation. It is sometimes hard to practice what we preach …

The accident happened at the intersection below, where I took a U-turn, the driver in the car on the left didn’t notice me (he said he was looking to the left) and he hit me from behind.

As I took the turn, I saw in the corner of my eye, a car moving towards me and the moment after I found myself lying on the road. I wasn’t wounded. Nothing really happened to me, so I stood up immediately, but I saw my poor baby lying on its left side. Some people who saw this came running towards us and asked me if I’m OK?
I said:
– Why are you asking about me? Its the bike that got hit …
The bike is so light so I lifted it up by myself. The driver who hit me got out of the car and looked a bit dazed. He held some suspicious cigarette in his hand. He was so apologetic. He said he was looking to the left and driving to the right at the same time. He said I shouldn’t worry, he’ll fix the motorcycle for me. I looked at his old car and a doubt crept into my mind about this point. Just a few weeks ago, my daughter scratched a new car, just a tiny scratch, and the cost was 15,000 NIS (the Israeli currency – New Israeli Shekel) – charged to my insurance. And here there’s a BMW all scratched.

In Israel, after an accident, we exchange the insurance details, so I asked him for the insurance.
– I don’t have it here, maybe its at my work
I understood the situation very quickly in spite of the deep sorrow over my poor baby.
– Ok, then, give me your phone number, I said.
He gave me the number and let me photograph his ID card
– Don’t worry, I’ll fix it up for you, he said again.

At this point there wasn’t much more to say, so I looked at the bike. It seemed to be ok but I was worried that perhaps the fork got bent, or something in its perfect alignment was broken. The car’s driver said goodbye and drove away. Friends later told me that I should have lain on the road screaming and demanded an ambulance and police. But I’m not doing things like that. I was equally sorry for my beautiful baby as for the unfortunate driver who hit me. So I decided to drive to the Petakh Tikva Service Center. After a few meters of driving I realized that the left handlebar was slightly bent. Not much, but noticeable and probably dangerous. So I immediately called Nahik, the Motorrad department manager at the support center and told him I’m coming. Nahik said I’m welcome.

When I arrived, Edi, Nahik and the team were waiting for me. They took the motorcycle, verified that the handlebar is indeed bent and made sure that the fork is still straight and aligned, so I could continue driving for now. Edi also took photos of all the damages and said he’ll prepare a quote for full repair in 2 days. At the end it took 3 days because some of the parts were still not in the database – this was probably the first accident of a new S1000-RR in Israel. But after 3 days Edi sent me the quote. And by the way, the Service Center didn’t charge me anything for all this work.

The quote was for a full repair with new parts for 38,000 NIS (around $11,300). Here’s the quote, so that you can get an impression of how much automotive parts cost in Israel.

I sent the quote to the driver who hit me and he didn’t reply. So I started considering the alternatives. On one hand I wanted to get the motorcycle fixed as soon as possible, at least the handlebar. On the other hand, if the car driver has insurance, then I can’t start fixing it myself, but I must follow the insurance procedure, and the guy wasn’t answering. After 2 or 3 days I understood that he doesn’t have any insurance and there’s no point in waiting. I left him a message saying that by now he should understand that I don’t want to cause him any problems and that he shouldn’t be so ungrateful. I asked that he at least tells me the truth about the insurance. To this plea I finally got a reply. He said:
– By coincidence I cancelled the insurance just a day before the accident. I didn’t reply because I didn’t know if the cancellation takes effect immediately or only at the end of the month, and he’ll update me.
I send a few more messages asking about the update, but there was no reply and he declined my phone calls.

Ok … so I understood there’s no point in waiting any longer. I paid 1600 NIS ($500) to an appraiser, just so that I’ll have an option to sue him in court. The appraiser came up with the same estimate – 38K NIS. But truly, suing in an Israeli court wasn’t a real option. The problem with our judicial system is that they don’t rule by law, but rather by their personal tastes and inclinations. I could imagine myself falling into the hands of a progressive left-socialist judge (many of them are like that) which finds it appalling that the rich BMW driver (more on that in the next post) is suing a poor victim just because he nudged the motorcycle a little bit … So I left the matter of payment to God and started the fix.

I left the guy one last message saying that I had to pay the appraiser because he doesn’t answer. I got no reply.

I went to see Edi again and we marked all the essential parts on the price quote – these are all the markings you see on the page. I considered buying parts in Germany, which would have cost half the listed price. But then I decided that I had enough riding with a bent handlebar and a friend introduced me to Victor – a master car body repairman. So I fixed the handlebar at the Service Center and paid the full price. Then, for all the scratched metal and broken plastic parts I went to Victor (I’ll give his contact details privately to anyone who needs help). He took the motorcycle for 3 days and returned it fixed almost as new. All in all, the fix cost 7000 NIS ($2180) and my beloved bike returned to its beautiful self. The only thing missing is the sticker with the S1000 RR logo which costs 713 NIS and I didn’t buy it for now.

I didn’t call the car driver again after the last message about the appraiser and I simply gave up. But, in a great surprising twist, just a few days ago, he left me a message:
– Please send me your bank details and I’ll transfer you the money
and the next day 8500 NIS appeared in my bank account.

So this episode is behind me. I would like to thank the staff at the Petakh Tikva Service Center for all their help and support!