Complacency breeds Pain
Bob, it's generally true that the more perpendicular your approach to the "lip" the less possibility there will of destabilizing your scooter. When I had just a few hundred miles on my 400 and was getting pretty confident, I pulled up to my son's driveway almost parallel to the curb to drop off my wife. Just about the time I stopped, we rolled over the lip and the burger fell over into the street and threw us off. My legs are short as well as weak from a spinal cord injury years ago, so I just couldn't hold it up. That was the first scratch I put on the 400.
Last week I got another lesson in humility at the "lip." I came out of a steep driveway (downhill) and had to stop for passing traffic. The driveway is in the middle of fairly tight curve that goes steeply to the right. When I started up again, I had to turn right sharply going downhill and avoid going across the street into oncoming traffic. At that slow speed, there wasn't enough gyroscopic motion to keep the bike upright in the turn and it started to fall over to the right. Since my right leg couldn't reach the ground, this caused me to try to hold it up with the right handlebar. That caused the throttle to turn inward and race the engine and the bike took off fishtailing with me hanging on for dear life until I hit the pavement! Big time strawberries on my left side and badly bruised ankle, and huge injury to my pride and dignity. This time the plastic is really bunged up and will probably cost a few hundred bucks to replace.
Lessons learned: Be very careful making low speed turns from a start. The burger has a rather large turning radius, and if you try to make sharp turns at low speed, you may not have enough gyroscopic motion to keep you right-side up. The throttle thing caught me completely by surprise. In retrospect, with all the power the burger has, it should be no surprise that it can do considerable damage in a similar situation.
For instance, if I had been in a parking garage coming down a ramp, a similar scenario could've developed, and I would've taken out a car or pedestrian.
And of course, wearing protective gear makes a difference. I'll fess up and admit I wasn't wearing my jacket...too hot and humid here in Hawaii. Very few riders here ever put on long sleeves, much less a riding jacket, but I'm about to close the barn door now that the horses have gotten out. Had I been wearing my usual boots, it wouldn't have made a difference to my ankle, but the jacket would've saved a little discomfort I've been living with for a week.
Good luck to you. IMHO, getting hurt once in awhile is inevitable, but the ride is worth it. OK, you safety engineers will beg to differ, as you will point out, every accident, by definition, is avoidable. Stupid acts beget trouble.