Terrifying Rt 37 Motorcycle Crash Video Shows Dangers Of Potholes

TOMS RIVER, NJ — "I saw her body go in the air and the bike lift up in the front. Once I saw her a foot off the seat I knew she would go down. I thought I was running over her for sure."

Kevin Fries was riding his Harley-Davidson east on Route 37 Saturday afternoon as he and his girlfriend, Leeza Ziemski, were taking a ride to enjoy the weather. Ziemski was ahead of him, riding in the right side of the lane while he rode in the left.

As they approached the intersection at Coolidge Avenue, however, things went terribly wrong: She hit a pothole and her Harley-Davidson bounced up and went down, the bike sliding one way and Ziemski the opposite direction, right in front of Fries, who had to swerve to miss his girlfriend as she hit the pavement. He ended up hitting the curb on the left side of the eastbound lanes. The frightening video of the incident, captured by a GoPro Fries had strapped to Fries's motorcycle, can be seen below.

"I had been riding on the left side but I switched sides because there were so many bumps," Ziemski, 24, said Monday evening as she continues to recover from the crash that left her with multiple scrapes and bruises and an arm injury. "After seeing that video, I know I got very, very lucky."

"Reaction time was on my side," said Fries, 27, a Sussex County resident who spends much of his time in Toms River with Ziemski and her mother and rides his motorcycle all over the state. Saturday's accident has them both sidelined for a while, particularly because of the damage to Ziemski's bike, which Fries bought for her last year.

As Ziemski started to go down, "she went to the left and the bike went to the right," Fries said. "I saw her head very close to the tire" and swerved right to avoid her. But the proximity to her motorcycle forced him to swerve back left and he hit the curb.

"My foot's all swollen and bruised," Fries said, but he's more relieved that he didn't hit Ziemski, and grateful to the motorists who stopped. "Everyone and their mother got out of their cars to see if we were OK."

As the shock of the accident has worn off, however, both and Ziemski's mother are angry that the potholes on Route 37 haven't been addressed sooner.

"Everywhere on 37 it's a sea of potholes," Fries said. On his Instagram post of the full-speed video (also below) he wrote "Route 37 Toms River NJ fix the pot holes because you're gonna kill people."

"I want to know what our highway road crews (are) doing," Gail Ziemski said. "Someone has to be held responsible ... It’s shocking and amazing they both were not run over."

Potholes are usually an issue in the spring, opening up in roads as pavement develops soft spots where water seeped into cracks in the asphalt and froze during the winter. Residents in Toms River have complained frequently on social media about the condition of Route 37 in particular, which has additional rough spots due to the ongoing Route 166 intersection construction.

Complaints about damage to cars have been frequent.

"Are there any plans to fix the hundreds of half-assed patched potholes that litter Route 37 from the Parkway to the Bridge?" a Patch reader with the username "Bassintime" wrote in a comment about the Route 166 construction project. "DOT should pave over this stretch of Route 37 because it is beyond the point of being patched. The tourists this summer are going to think they are entering the ghetto."

"I am however (angry) that 37 hasn't been repaired in years," wrote one person who commented on Fries's Instagram post of the accident video. "This makes me very aggravated that we pay so much in taxes and nothing gets done."

Ziemski said just days before her accident, she hit a pothole under the Garden State Parkway overpass with her Volkswagen Beetle and bent a brand new rim and damaged a tire on her car.

She's considering herself lucky to be alive after Saturday, however. Not every motorcyclist is as fortunate; a Pennsylvania man died Sunday after his motorcycle hit a pothole on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia. (RELATED: Montco Man Dies After Hitting Pothole On I-95 In Philly: Report)

"I was slowing down (because of the bumps in the road) and out of nowehre this pothole that was huge snuck up on me," Ziemski said. "It was the loudest impact noise" as her front tire hit the front edge of the pothole. The next thing she knew she was on ground and in pain from her nose to her feet. The impact shoved the chin guard of her helmet up into her nose, and she wound up with road rash where the road ate through her leather boots.

"I'm in a soft cast from my shoulder to my wrist," Ziemski said, but "the helmet really saved me because my head hit the ground like a basketball."

"The whole front of my bike is just mangled," she said.

Ziemski said she has been riding with Fries as a passenger for several years before he bought her a bike of her own last year. She's aware of the dangers to motorcycles and said she always keeps an eye on cars and trucks around them, which can pose dangers from drivers who either do not see motorcycles or who don't look closely before making a turn or lane change. And while she was on the lookout for potholes, the size of the one on Route 37 that took her down still surprised her.

"There was no way to avoid it at the last second," she said.

The pothole that caused the crash has since been filled, Fries said. But state Department of Transportation officials were still looking into the issue as of noon Tuesday.

Late Tuesday afternoon, DOT officials issued a statement saying the department takes incidents such as Ziemski's crash seriously.

"We are glad the rider was not seriously hurt," Dan Triana, a spokesman for the DOT said. "As you know, the extreme weather this winter with the number of snow storms, heavy rains, and severe freeze/thaw cycles that we experienced was particularly harsh on New Jersey’s roads."

He said NJDOT crews have repaired more than 141,000 potholes since January "and will continue, as pothole repair takes place year-round."

The DOT also has fast-tracked a maintenance project to resurface Route 37 in both directions this summer because the road is in such bad shape from the winter, Triana said.

"The project just went out to bid and is expected to begin this summer," he said. "It will likely be done at night during the week when traffic is lightest to minimize the impact as best as possible."

Triana said there is a larger Route 37 improvement project spanning four miles that will resurface and upgrade the shoulders, guiderails, make the sidewalks compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act at seven signalized intersections between Thomas Street and Fischer Boulevard.

"This project is in the final stages of design and is expected to begin construction in spring 2020," he said.

In the meantime, potholes on state highways can be reported using the DOT's online form (click here to access it) or by calling 1-800 POTHOLE.

Ziemski is focusing on getting her motorcycle repaired and recovering from the crash, and hoping to get some reimbursement from the state for the damage. "The forks, the handle bars, shocks, clutch, shifter, sissy bar, visor, wheel, Speedometer, foot peg, gas tank, are damaged," she wrote. "Once he gets into a shop, there will most likely be internal issues that we find."

Still, she knows they are fortunate those are the only issues.

"If that light wasn't yellow and everyone wasn't slowing down, it could have ended a lot differently," Ziemski said.

The crash video, slowed down:

The full-speed video:

This report was updated at 5 p.m. with comment from the state Department of Transportation.

Photos provided by Leeza Ziemski and Kevin Fries, used with permission