Miller says curve unmarked
Déjà vu: Death haunts wounded biker



KNOX — A man died this past fall as he was riding his motorcycle around the curve on Bozenkill Road just before West Wind Road.

Frederick LaPlante, 47, of Altamont was killed on Oct. 21 after his 2007 Honda skidded across the other lane and struck a guardrail. He and his motorcycle came to rest in a ditch on the south side of the guardrail along the rural county road.
"It’s like looking in the mirror; it’s the same exact accident," said Donald Miller last month as he looked at LaPlante’s accident report, filled out by the Albany County Sheriff’s Department.

Miller had crashed a year earlier on the same curve. He had suffered a compound fracture to his left leg as well as severe sprains and broken toes in his right foot, but he survived. He had come to The Enterprise because he was concerned the curve was not properly marked.

The Enterprise obtained the report on LaPlante’s accident through a Freedom of Information Law request to the sheriff’s department. No one in LaPlante’s family could be reached for comment.

According to Newcomer-Cannon funeral home in Colonie, where his funeral was held on Oct. 25, LaPlante worked for Benchemark Printing in Schenectady.

The sheriff’s report, largely through a series of numbers keyed to responses, tells the story of LaPlante’s death this way:

The accident occurred at 5:15 on a cloudy Saturday evening. It was dark on the unlit, dry road on Oct. 21.

LaPlante, who was wearing a helmet, was ejected from his motorcycle. He was unconscious and bleeding severely when the Altamont ambulance transported him from the scene.
The only "apparent contributing factor" listed on the accident report is driver inexperience; there is no mention of drugs or alcohol, nor of unsafe speed or equipment failure.

There is also no mention of the turn being improperly marked.

Kerri Battle, spokeswoman for Albany County, yesterday returned calls The Enterprise had made to Commissioner of Public Works Michael Franchini about the signage on the curve.

The curve is now marked in both directions with signs that have two yellow placards on a single post. The top diamond-shaped placard has a black mark, indicating a curve. Below that is a smaller placard with a speed of 30 posted.

For the sign that a motorcyclist would see heading west on Bozenkill Road, as Miller and LaPlante were, the pavement on the road’s shoulder is marked, indicating where the sign should be placed.
"The County Department of Public Works moved that sign 100 feet forward," said Battle. "It was moved in early November, 2006." That date was after the Oct. 21 fatality, but Battle said she was unaware of any relationship between moving the sign and the death.
"There was a speed advisory sign previously," she said, referring to the 30-mile-per-hour marker. She did not know when that was posted but said it had been there at least since November of 2001, when an inventory was taken.

At the time of Miller’s Nov. 3, 2005 accident, the curve did not have a speed sign, he said. Motorcyclists, he said, count on those signs.

Over the years, as Miller has taught friends how to ride, he lectures them to read every sign; if a maximum speed is posted, they should follow that limit, he tells them.
"If the speed limit isn’t posted, you can assume what you were going into the turn, you can go through the turn at," said Miller.
"I know for a fact the signs weren’t up when he crashed," Miller said of LaPlante’s Oct. 21 accident. "He was going the same way I was and his bike ended up in the same spot."

The Enterprise submitted a Freedom of Information Law request to the state’s Department of Transportation, asking for data on accidents on Bozenkill Road in Knox within a quarter mile of its intersection with West Wind Road. Four accidents were reported:
— On July 28, 1996. At 9 a.m., 42-year-old motorcyclist was injured when, while heading south, he collided with a sign post. It was daylight, the weather was clear, and the road was dry. The accident was attributed to "driver inexperience." No ticket was issued;

— On Oct. 7, 1999, at 8 a.m., a car, heading west, driven by a 45-year-old overturned in daylight on a dry road, causing injury, and landed in a ditch. Alcohol was involved and a citation was issued; and
— On that same day, at 1 p.m., a 17-year-old driver was injured when his or her vehicle, also heading west, ended up in a ditch. The weather was still clear and the road was dry. An apparent factor was listed as "driver inexperience" and no tickets were issued.
The fourth accident, which occurred on Feb. 27, 1991, is described only as "non-reportable"; no details are given.

Neither Miller’s Nov. 3, 2005 accident nor LaPlante’s Oct. 21, 2006 accident were listed by the DOT.
Lori A. Abeel, records access officer for Region One of the DOT, said accidents handled by the State Police are entered in the system right away while those handled by local police take time. The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, she said, "has been trying to get caught up with back records."
On a recent visit to the site of his crash, Miller said, as he surveyed the scene, now lightly covered with snow, "There are all kinds of reflectors and headlights from cars along the guardrail....There’s been a lot of accidents here."

Survivor’s story

Miller, who is 52, has been riding motorcycles since he was a kid, growing up in Slingerlands. He started on a friend’s dirt bike.
He considers riding to be "therapy."
"You get all the smells. Somebody’s mowing their lawn and you can smell the grass. You can smell the lilacs in the spring," he said. "All the sensations are heightened. You breathe the fresh air, the sun’s in your face, the wind’s at your back."
Most of the time, his wife, Debora, rides with him. "When I met my wife, back when we were 18, the first thing I did was take her on a motorcycle ride," he said.

She’s ridden with him for 34 years and hundreds of thousands of miles; they average about 15,000 miles a year.
Nov. 3, 2005, Miller recalled, was "one of those beautiful fall days." When Miller got home from his work as a truck mechanic, he suggested to his wife they go for a ride.
She had dinner on the stove in their New Salem home. "It’s a good thing we turned it off," he said; he wasn’t home for weeks.
The Millers hopped on their 2003 Harley Dresser, which they had bought on their 25th wedding anniversary. "We had almost 46,000 miles on her," recalled Miller.
They intended to take a 50- or 60-mile loop and headed for Altamont from their home in New Scotland. They took a route from Altamont they weren’t familiar with, on Bozenkill Road. "We thought we’d try something different. I’d only been on it a few times, and not for a long while," said Miller.

There had been a storm earlier that fall and there was salt and gravel on the road, he said.
"Gravel," said Miller, "is like ball bearings when you’re on a motorcycle."
As he headed west into the curve on Bozenkill Road before it intersects with West Wind Road, said Miller, "I was actually thinking about the next turn, which I knew was really sharp."

The sign before the curve, at that time, was just the yellow diamond, with the curve shape marked in black; there was no speed sign, Miller said. Bozenkill Road is posted at 55 miles per hour.
When he hit the gravel, Miller said, "I lay the bike down as low as I could get it. I realized I wasn’t going to make it....I kicked my foot to get more throttle and pull out of the turn. I realized we were too fast and it was too slippery. I lay the bike down and let it slide.
"I knew I was going to crash. I felt terrible, hearing everything scraping and grinding."
His thoughts went to his wife, riding behind him. "I had fallen as a kid, going too fast. She’d never been down...I hit the guardrail...I don’t remember the impact.
"The next thing I knew, I was lying under the guardrail. Deb was up the street...I called to her. She was sitting in the road. She walked back to me. I knew my leg was broken. I scooted under the guardrail," he said, for protection from passing cars.

People in a nearby house came out, covered him with a blanket, and called for help. He was in pain and shock.
"I actually thought I was having a nightmare...I kept telling myself to wake up."
He was relieved his wife was all right. She was thrown clear and just had "a little road rash" on her hip, a place not covered by her leathers, he said.

The Altamont Rescue Squad arrived and Richard Perras, a fellow biker, discovered, as he cut off Miller’s left boot, that the broken bone was protruding through his leg.

Miller was taken to the trauma unit of Albany Medical Center, where he was treated for a compound fracture to his left leg. On his right side, he had broken all of his toes and had severe sprains in his foot and ankle.

He was in the hospital for two weeks and out of work for six months. He still has pain.
"I still have the plate and screws," he said. "I feel it every second of the day. I can live with it. I’m really thankful I can walk."

Miller was eager to return to his old life. He went back to work ahead of schedule, just three weeks off of his crutches.
He also wanted to get back on a motorcycle, he said, describing riding as his "passion." He said, with a shrug, "It’s in my blood."
His old motorcycle was "totaled," he said
He found a Harley-Davidson he loved on-line. "I found the bike of my dreams on eBay," Miller recalled. "I wanted to ride back to all the doctors that had taken care of me."

He flew out to southern Ohio to purchase the bike and rode it 670 miles home. On the plane ride out, he felt some doubt. He hadn’t been off his crutches long and he hadn’t been on a bike. But he made it home on his new Harley, and then rode it to work and to the doctors’ offices.
Miller had been surprised when, after his accident, he had received two tickets in the mail — one was for "speed not reasonable" and the other was for crossing the double yellow lines and failing to keep right.
When he talked later to the sheriff’s deputy about speeding, Miller recalled, "The officer said, ‘You should know better.’ How am I supposed to know if the speed wasn’t marked"" asked Miller.
As for the double yellow lines, he said, "Of course I failed to keep right. I was sliding on my side with a motorcycle."
Miller wrote a letter to the town judge in Knox, where he was to appear in court. He wrote in part, "This turn should be marked 40 mph max, and to legally do 55 mph around it with gravel and debris in the turn just doesn’t work...My speed was reasonable if the road was clean, which I couldn’t see until it was too late."

He also wrote that he hadn’t had any kind of a ticket in at least 25 years and that he would lose his job if he were convicted since he has a Class A commercial driver’s license.

He was pleased with the way the court handled it; Miller ended up plea bargaining to a non-moving violation — a ticket for parking on the pavement. He paid a fine and had no marks on his license.
Miller made an anniversary run this past Nov. 3, completing the ride he wasn’t able to finish a year earlier. "My wife wouldn’t go...but I had to do it. I went really slow around the turn."
Miller and his wife still love to take motorcycle trips, he said; they visited their daughter, a nursing student in Phoenix, and rode the Grand Canyon. But, said Miller, "I’m not like an 18-year-old anymore. I don’t challenge the turns."
When he heard about LaPlante’s accident, Miller said, "I felt terrible...I wanted to call his family and say I had alerted the town....The poor guy died and I know the road wasn’t marked."