Belfast, Northern Ireland
In the UK, if you want temporary motorcycle insurance as a foreigner for a few weeks, which is how much time I planned on staying, every of the many available companies quoted about $1,500 / week. My bike was $4,000 or pounds, or something close to that. It’s actually absurd, and I refused to get it on principle. I obviously wasn’t going to get into an accident in the UK.
When I was talking to my therapist and we both knew I would get the bike, I said to him, “Is it true that anyone who owns a motorcycle gets into a accident?” and he said, “Yes”. I said, “Have you?”, and he said, “Yes”. I knew it wouldn’t happen for a while so I was relaxed.
I believe on my very first ride (this was from the farmhouse to the Northern Coast) to run a simple errand, driving a nice easy pace of about 30km, I went through an intersection and crashed into a van. Why did I do this? I saw a green light in front of me. It was from my peripheral on the corner in front of me. In many European countries (Brexit hadn’t happened yet), the stoplights are on the side of the road, almost next to you, not across the street. Across the street (like they are in the US) are the lights for the other side. I have an good reaction time so I was going around 14km / hour or less when I hit it. The van didn’t move. It was dented. I was thrown off the bike and got a little scratched up. My bike had fallen over and been injured worse then me. I cried over the bike.
It turns out the van I hit was owned by a delivery company of some sort and the driver was not the owner. He said it was necessary to collect my insurance penalty. In the UK, if you get caught without insurance, they seize your bike. I told him this would be very difficult, but that if he could call his boss and ask how much cash would be enough for him, he said 400£, or 600£, I don’t remember which, I just remember I pulled out a stack of hundreds and handed him either 4 or 6 of them and proceeded to return home to rest.