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All bike riders (and drivers) should watch this


Mort
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How on earth did they not see him....  :angry:

 

I think that's fairly clear, to be honest.  Slow the video down, and count the white hazard lane markers.  From when he comes out from behind the car he overtakes (2:49) to when he hits (2:54), I make it 25 stripes (allowing for gaps where they've omitted one).  The official manual says they should be at a 9m pitch.  He covers that in 5 seconds.  I make that somewhere north of 100mph.

 

Now, I'm not trying to make a point about the rider.  I'm really not.  But I mean it in all seriousness when I ask "what could the driver have done?", because I don't ever want to be that driver - I want to know how to avoid this kind of thing.  But there was precious little time for him/her to spot the bike.  He could well have looked, decided it was ok, looked to the right into where he was turning, moved off, and BANG.

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So my sums were roughly right.

My worry is that there is only a brief gap of about 3-4 seconds in which the rider is in view before the driver starts to make a move. That worries me, because regardless of the rights & wrongs (which I'm not interested in here) I'm not that sure what the driver could do to be certain that can't happen.

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How on earth did they not see him.... :angry:

Because humans a fallible, the ones in cars are just less squishy.

Anyone doing 100mph in traffic like that is asking for trouble, in my worthless opinion, there is fault on both sides, and I think the driver has been harshly treated.

He deserves punishment, of course, but I feel the court apportioning 100% of the blame to him is unfair.

While you can reasonably be expected to spot a bike, you can't always accurately judge their speed, and you wouldn't expect one to be doing 100mph on a busy road with 'SLOW' written across it in big letters.

Some of the comments on social media are frankly ridiculous, mostly bikers declaring all car drivers to be 'sh1t' which is utter nonsense, and they seem to forget that when they aren't on bikes, most of them are the morons in cars they seem to despise so much, only they are actually worse drivers, because they genuinely believe they are better drivers than everyone else because they ride bikes.

There are good drivers, there are bad drivers, there are good motorcyclists, there are bad motorcyclists, I choose to protect myself from the 'bad' drivers and motorcyclists by driving a car, and making myself less vulnerable than if I was on a bike.

Personally I think the 'Think Bike' campaign is wrong, it should be aimed at bikers to 'Think car'.

After all, bikers are the vulnerable ones, so should be aiming to protect themselves, they are also much harder to spot than cars, however you look at it, that's a fact, they are smaller, and when front on have a very small profile that easily blends in with the background.

Given that everything and anything has glaring LED's on it these days, even bikes with lights on blend in very well with the roadside furniture, I can quite understand how people don't spot bikes sometimes.

What it needs, is for bikes to be issued with a colour of lamp that can only be used on bikes, nothing else, that way, if you see a (for example) purple flashing light, you know it's a bike, and not a car with one headlight, or some christmas fairy lights, or anything else.

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What it needs, is for bikes to be issued with a colour of lamp that can only be used on bikes, nothing else, that way, if you see a (for example) purple flashing light, you know it's a bike, and not a car with one headlight, or some christmas fairy lights, or anything else.

 

Which is why so many riders were against DRLs being introduced on cars.

 

Bikers do need to be more responsible. So many blame car drivers but in Essex over the last few years the "Killed/Seriously Injured" figures showed most were down the rider but this is simply not generally accepted in the bike world. They perceive it to always be the fault of the "cage" driver.

 

I lost a friend a few years back as she had a car cross a dual carriage in front of her and she was in excess of 100mph. We all generally glance and if a certain distance of the road is clear we proceed. The distance is based on experience and how much of a gap we need. If a bike is going vastly faster then it's not allowed for.

 

Bikers are also hard to see square on. Even with a headlight it's hard as the human eye can not judge the distance of a light source. I use the "Z line" when approaching junctions with cars sitting in them. It helps them see you and that's what it's about. It doesn't matter if I've got right of way or not.

 

Riders need to learn to survive and not to expect drivers to be perfect. As I was taught when young riding cycles on the road;  you may be correct but there's no point being dead right. It's easier said that done though.

Edited by Scotty
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Riders need to learn to survive and not to expect drivers to be perfect. As I was taught when young riding cycles on the road;  you may be correct but there's no point being dead right. It's easier said that done though.

 

+++ +++

 

(Same applies to drivers, of course...)

Edited by patently
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Because humans a fallible, the ones in cars are just less squishy.

Anyone doing 100mph in traffic like that is asking for trouble, in my worthless opinion, there is fault on both sides, and I think the driver has been harshly treated.

He deserves punishment, of course, but I feel the court apportioning 100% of the blame to him is unfair.

 

This. +++

 

97 mph.  What?  Had it been another car I wonder what we'd have been saying?

 

Any motorcyclist will tell you that every time they go out there is someone, usually more than one, in a car who simply does not notice them.  In fact I think it'd be a brave man or a liar who'd say they've never had a moment where they've missed a motorcycle on the roads because they've been so focused and used to seeing cars.  I know I've missed one in the recent past (thankfully spotted that at the very last second) and probably many more before it.

 

This driver might be superb.  It could be the one error they've made in their entire driving lifetime.  If it is, they've been very harshly treated for pulling across the path of a motorcyclist doing almost 3 figures.

 

It was a 60 mph zone.  He was doing 97 mph.  

I feel for the guy.  But his mother admits she knew he regularly went very fast on the bike.  So it's not as if you could even say this was likely a one-off incident - but it may well have been for the car driver.

Edited by NewNiceMrMe
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Bikers are also hard to see square on. Even with a headlight it's hard as the human eye can not judge the distance of a light source. I use the "Z line" when approaching junctions with cars sitting in them. It helps them see you and that's what it's about. It doesn't matter if I've got right of way or not.

Riders need to learn to survive and not to expect drivers to be perfect. As I was taught when young riding cycles on the road; you may be correct but there's no point being dead right. It's easier said that done though.

Z-line???

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Where you have right of way on a main road, you move from left to right in your lane as you are approaching a junction.  The apparent movement left and right makes you stand out better than just being an increasing 'point' from the view of the car driver waiting to pull out.  Helps you stand out from the background.

 

Can do it on a pushbike also to some extent

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Wouldn't it make more sense to move from right to left? Assuming as in this instance, the car would be in the centre of the road waiting to turn across your path.

I.e. From the centre of the road, to the side near the curb?

Not only would that change the drivers view of you from almost dead on front, the smallest part of the bike, to a slightly more side on profile increasing the visible size of the bike, but it would also place you further away from the car in the event they pull out and give you more options to bale.

Moving from left to right makes you even smaller than the if you just rode straight, as you are then heading directly towards the car?

Edited by Tipex
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Spot on - if the car is waiting in the middle of the road like the above video, ideally you want to move from right to left.  If the car is waiting to pull out of a side turning (your side) then you want to move from left to right.

 

Moving from right to left takes prior planning on my bike compared to Scotty on his motorbike!

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The Z-line is basically a technique to try to make you cross the vision of the car you're approaching rather than just approaching it square on. It gives them a better chance to see you and assess your speed. It also means you're moving away from them across the lane as you get closer.

 

Of course you should be continually assessing your own Speed, position etc. In town I also do things like keeping an eye on the wheels of cars waiting to pull out as you can see a wheel turn easier than detecting the car creeping forward.

 

All little bits to try and make a difference.

Edited by Scotty
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97mph passed that junction is madness. They are the most dangerous turnings IMHO.

At all happens so fast that the accident has already happened when he is quite a long way away from the car. He has zero time to react and probably didn't even get his brakes on before the impact.

My middle brother has always been a biker. Has had many a sports bike and travels too fast. I've shared this on Facebook to remind him to slow down a bit.

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Saw a couple of bikers out today, bit of a grey miserable day but dry, visibility wasn't perfect but ok.

 

I'd seen them both coming a fair way off, but one thing I noticed, what with this thread fresh in my mind, was that the guy with the normal halogen filament lamp in his headlight, blended in very well with the scenery, if it had been sunny, the colour of his headlamp would have blended in even more.

 

The other chap had a purple headlight, I expect it was some sort of cover over his headlight rather than a purple lamp, but it stood out a lot more than the other chap, simply because of it's colour, it wasn't any brighter, it just drew the eye more and didn't blend in to the background.

 

Also saw a biker with a blue headlight, whilst I'm sure it's technically illegal, that worked well too, as I think as motorists we are hardwired to notice blue lights and react to them.

 

I've had one occasion where I didn't see a bike (that I can recall, probably more), although I don't think it was entirely my fault I didn't see him.

 

I was waiting to turn right out of a side road on to a busy main road, it was clear left, there were a few cars approaching from the right, but far enough away that I could get out in plenty of time, so I pulled out, only for a bike to appear from behind one of the approaching cars, overtaking it.

 

I was just over half way across the road when saw him and my only option was to floor it and try and get out of his way, bearing in mind I was in the Galaxy, and flooring it doesn't make a huge difference, he braked and missed me by a reasonable margin, but it was still closer than either of us would have liked, at which point he shouted a load of abuse at me.

 

Personally, I wouldn't ever overtake another vehicle approaching any type of junction, so I don't feel it was entirely my fault, and that he should realise that he is invisible if he puts himself on the other side of a moving obstacle, I ignored his abuse and just carried on, and that was that.

Edited by Tipex
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I haven't watched the video or read anything about the incident beyond what's in here and a few comments on facebook.

 

If it's correct that the police accurately calculated the bike's speed at 97mph and it's also correct that the car driver was deemed 100% culpable then I believe that is wrong.

 

Clearly when emerging from a side road it is your responsibility to ensure the way is clear, and to judge the approach speed of any traffic on the main road, but I don't think it's appropriate for said driver to bear the full responsibility for correctly judging the speed of a vehicle travelling 40mph above the speed limit.

 

Of course, who's really to blame matters not a jot when the result is a mother mourning the loss of her son.

Edited by garcon magnifique
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The driver is 100% to blame for the accident, however the biker would not have been in the accident were it not for his excessive speed.

 

My 2p.

 

Unfortunately the horrific loss to those concerned cannot be assuaged in any part for the apportionment of blame on any party to the incident.

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