R.i.p.

 

yeah, i picked the bike up. he was reportedly clocked by the florida highway patrol heading southbound on i275 doing 140mph. an officer near the dick mizener bridge was actually prepared to pull him over although he got off on the pinellas bayway exit and jumped back on i275 heading northbound.

just before 54th ave south, he was attempting to pass a chevy suv and blasted into the back of it at 100+ mph. the accident scene stretched 300ft and his body traveled about 300 ft as well. when i got there (the company i work for has a contract with the highway patrol) the fire department was spraying the remains of his body off of the road. i'll take pics of the bike as well...as it was definitely mangled beyond anything i had seen before...and i've seen 3 or 4 fatal motorcycle accidents.

 

What a shame... he knew better...

 

That's a shame!! RIP!! Come on folks, ride safe

 

Someone was asking about funeral arrangements, anyone know/seen anything?

 

is going on...RIP

 

We rode together quite a bit. All the way back to the lot days, cleaning the lot up after the kids left trash everywhere and stuff. He will be missed.......
RIP Andrew Dave

 

bikes are just getting faster and faster...thats what is going on. everyone wants to experience the rush/exhilaration/etc and fails to recognize the consequences.

i'd love to get a bike (i owned a zx7r for about a month) but i'm worried about how my mom would react if she were to get a phone call from the florida highway patrol.

 

Link to original post

About what happened - according to his mom;

Andy spent Saturday night at his friends house. The next morning he headed for his work (Pit Posse) to meet with his boss I believe. He took the quickest road (I-275 highway) and hurried to his destination.

His mom told me that authorites say he was going NO LESS than 120 m.p.h. and she said knowing Andy he was probably doing more like 140-150 m.p.h.

He came up on a SUV and tried to go around it, but misjudged it and hit the right rear end quarter panel of the SUV. His helmet flew into oncoming traffic. His body hit the SUV and was thrown.

Andy died of severe blunt force trauma, shattering both legs, his head meeting his backbone, his heart basically exploding. This is a sad reminder of what happens when you go too fast. His mother urges all bike riders to please slow down.


Nevertheless, his mother says she is astounded and overwhelmed by the amounts of phone calls she is receiving from friends and acquaintences, and said the phone never stopped ringing to the point where she had to leave the house for a while.

She is surprised how many friends Andy has and how many people he has helped.

Here are a few shots of friends meeting up to take the last ride with Andy on 06/17/2006.














Pics of the ride...most of it was a slow speed motorcade through the neighborhoods with a few cars following behind; we rode by his grandmothers where he lived, rode by his family's house and everyone revved their engines to the limit as they were standing outside, (put shivers through my spine) rode by his best friends house that he left the morning of the accident, and finally went to the highway...it took more than two hours...





We took a short break to stretch and get some cold drinks...







The final stop was at the site of Andy's accident...
Highway pics....









Traffic slowed down to a crawl...me and a couple others were trying to figure out if we were in the right place, looking for marks or parts...the police arrived shortly after that and let us chill for a few minutes then finally told us to leave...I think we were slowing traffic down too much...

As we were being forced to leave I pulled over real quick one more time 'cause someone found a small blue plastic part...we were definitely in the right place...as I was getting on my bike, I noticed a brake reservoir behind a guard rail, so I grabbed it and left as the police pulled up again on my side....its definitely Andy's...smells like fresh brake fluid...





I was also glad some of his friends showed up and rode with him for the last time...it was good closure and a final farewell...biker style.

 

wow thats great man glad you guys got to do somthing like that, whats up with no one wearing jackets and shit though... just a helmet would feel bad for that girl in a tank top...