FERRYSBURG, Mich. (WOOD) – A motorcyclist escaped injury after being rear-ended by clinging to the hood of the car that hit him.
“When she hit me, I flew up and I seen nothing but sky and the only thing I can think of was, ‘I’m going to die,'” Kurt Malotke recalled Tuesday.
Around 3 p.m. Monday, Maltoke was on his way home from work on northbound US-31 at Ridge Street in Ferrysburg when traffic slowed. He braked, but the Pontiac sedan behind him didn’t stop in time.
“Everybody started slowing down, so I started slowing down. And all of a sudden that car just came up behind me, slammed me and next thing I know I was on top of her hood,” Maltoke, 48, told 24 Hour News 8 on Tuesday.
He found himself hanging on for his life.
“She was still going about 30 miles an hour and I just grabbed onto her hood and just rode it out,” he said.
It was several hundred feet before the sedan came to a stop.
“So guessing maybe she started hitting me right here and that’s when her headlight flew out,” Maltoke showed 24 Hour News 8 on Tuesday, walking along the side of the road where it happened.
Photos show the front bumper of the sedan still lodged in the rear of Malotke’s motorcycle.
“Oh man, ain’t that crazy,” he said as he looked at one of the pictures for the first time.
“Please keep a safe distance between you and the motorcyclist. Don’t ride their bumper,” Paula Miller the manager at Harley-Davidson Riding Academy reminded drivers.
She said you should remember to pay attention to who’s in front of you and understand motorcyclists have less security than people riding in a car.
“It could’ve been a lot worse,” Malotke said.
Maltoke, who was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash, was taken to the hospital afterward. CT scans came back clear. He doesn’t even have bruises.
But standing on the side of the highway where it happened, it was clear to him how quickly his life could have ended.
“Anytime I would’ve rolled off that hood, I could’ve got run over by a car,” he said.
Eighteen-year-old Logan Montgomery, who was driving that Pontiac and was not hurt in the crash, says she missed the brake pedal. She was cited for failing to stop in an assured clear distance, according to the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office.