Well it went a bit quiet in here when I watched this…

See, even weeksy isn’t full on defending the biker.

and even Weeksey seems to see the problem he’s just not prepared to slate him for it.

Lets just put this one to bed though:

If you pause the video at the moment he passes the last car. The car that hits him is barely a spec in the distance.
The impact is 4 seconds later.

I posted this earlier from the perspective of the biker just before he passes the car, with the lorry at about where the car is when it makes the turn. This is from where the car is when it makes the turn – the lorry in the distance here is a second or two further back from where the bike passes the car (apologies that I can’t get vehicles at just the right distance – unfortunately the traffic didn’t cooperate when the google camera car was there).

Or of course you could always take the expert evidence presented at the court case from those people who have far more information and know far more about this than you or me, that not only should the bike (and car it overtook) have been clearly visible for 7s before the collision (before in fact the car entered the right turn lane), but that drivers behind the one who caused the collision had seen the bike.

It’s great to know that singletrack holds a zero tolerance view towards bunny girls but is sympathetic towards dangerous riding and a flagrant disregard for speed limits .

Well, it’s nothing if not a consistent disregard of the facts.

It’s only shitty fate that put the two of them together where it did. The speed of the bike is irrelevant because he would have been just as dead at 50 or 60 as he would at 97, argueing he would have been five seconds later if he’d stopped to blow his nose is pointless. Respect his mum’s point of view, take more care on the road and sleep easier for making the world a better place.

Take more care = sensible speed.

The driver who caused the accident wasn’t speeding, as far as I know.

The speed of the bike is irrelevant because he would have been just as dead at 50 or 60 as he would at 97,

Half the speed means a lot more time to react, if you want to give yourself a chance slow down. This is not excusing anything the driver did, the driver caused the accident. Stuff like this happens so be prepared for it – again this is not saying it was the riders fault just that he took away his options of reaction time & stopping distance.

Anyone know why they tell kids not to run in school?

Two simple science lessons:

Walk into a brick wall at progressively faster speeds, does it

a) Hurt more as you get faster
b) Hurt less as you get faster

Have a friend try to punch you in the face at progressively faster speeds, are you

a) Able to move out of the way faster at low speeds or
b) Able to move out of the way faster at high speeds.

Someone posted a picture on the internet ,but (conveniently) I cant find it at the mo but I think it was some argumentative prove the point forum.

The picture shows the junction from the cars view turning right ,well maybe a bit further back but its not half a mile ,and the distance maximum you can actually see up the road ,theres a lorry parked there and its a tiny little spec, hardly visible at all, from what the blurb said the time to this object is 4 seconds at the speed given give or take some . whatever figure between that speck and the car turning lane.

I don’t actually know if the driver saw the bike or not but if you can only just see an HGV at that distance what hope in hell do you stand of seeing a bike moving at nearly twice the NSL

As a motorcyclist and as i got older I tend to back off near junctions ,you never know who’s seen you and who hasn’t

looking at that google maps link and the road layout of that junction, the rider was totally reckless approaching at those speeds with that amount of traffic. Even without the situation that killed him he could have just as easily been in trouble with cars turning right and traffic passing on the inside.

Totally reckless is a massive over-exaggeration IMO.

Slightly foolish with massive consquences in hindsight… but totally reckless is laughable IMO.

9999 out of 10000 he’d do that and have 0 consequences….

Travelling 37mph over the speed limit IS classified as reckless in a court of law. If caught on camera he would have lost his license and had a hefty penalty. Unfortunately for him, he like a lot of the Power Ranger crew did not think it was reckless and he has paid the ultimate penalty. I hope for your own sake you re-evaluate your behaviours when on the public road.

If he had survived but killed the motorist in the car or perhaps even someone walking on the verge or pavement would that be reckless?

both could have happened ,but before someone pipes up “but they didn’t” the same could be said if he was doing 50- 60 as it has many times in the 15 or so pages of this thread

I don’t actually know if the driver saw the bike or not

You would if you’d read any of the previous 14 pages. The driver confessed to seeing neither the bike nor the oncoming car it’d just passed.

However an awful lot of people drive like the driver in the video and seek to excuse themselves by laying the blame entirely on others. That is not acceptable driving by the bloke in the car. They are both responsible for this and only one of them died. You don’t seem to appreciate this.

To be fair to the driver, he pleaded guilty to careless driving and admitted to police straight away that he hadn’t seen either the motorbike or the car travelling behind it. So he may very well have done exactly the same thing if the rider was doing 60, or 40, or was even on a push bike – evidently he must have only glanced rather than taking a proper look before making the turn, which is never a good idea, especially when oncoming traffic is coming over and down the brow of a hill (which is what it looks like from the BBC report). I think we’re all aware of SMIDSY – I’ve had two friends hospitalised at t-junctions where they had right of way. One on her push bike ended up with a broken wrist and collar bone, the other was doing the speed limit on a 40 road on his 125 and ended up with collapsed lungs, smashed ribs and an utterly shattered wrist (plus is bike ended up in two parts).

The rider was an idiot though – if he hadn’t have been going 40mph over the speed limit, he may have had more time to react, or the severity of the crash might have been reduced. But we’ll never know, because what happened happened. He paid the price for both the driver’s lack of attention, and his own bad judgement, and now his grieving mother is left asking everybody whether on two wheels or four to be more responsible on the road.

and now his grieving mother is left asking everybody whether on two wheels or four to be more responsible on the road

Accidents happen… .people die…. lots and lots…. all the time.

That sort of debate is truly pointless.

9999 out of 10000 he’d do that and have 0 consequences….

ah so long as you get away with it then thats OK, **** everyone else.

Accidents happen… .people die…. lots and lots…. all the time.

That sort of debate is truly pointless.

Yes of course it is. Ok everyone stop being so responsible as accidents happen anyway.

Accidents happen… .people die…. lots and lots….

& of course nothing that anyone did could have caused them. They just ‘happen’. The debate is only pointless because there are some people who are too stupid to accept that their actions have consequences.

Accidents happen… .people die…. lots and lots…. all the time.

Yep. And if we were all more careful, there’d be fewer. Is that so controversial?

The debate is only pointless because there are some people selfish **** who are too stupid to accept couldn’t care less that their actions have consequences.

fify

I think sometimes on here people need to step back, take a little breath and think before typing.

So so often people just pick 1 phrase, 1 pair of words and then just grab hold like a rabid dog and not let go.

Don’t know about everyone else, but I think it’s time to close this thread as it’s going nowhere now.

Round and round and round and round.

I think sometimes on here people need to step back, take a little breath and think before typing.

Most sensible thing you’ve said on this thread.

Here’s an example of when to think before typing:

Accidents happen… .people die…. lots and lots…. all the time.

That sort of debate is truly pointless.

Someone posted a picture on the internet ,but (conveniently) I cant find it at the mo but I think it was some argumentative prove the point forum.

The picture shows the junction from the cars view turning right ,well maybe a bit further back but its not half a mile ,and the distance maximum you can actually see up the road ,theres a lorry parked there and its a tiny little spec, hardly visible at all, from what the blurb said the time to this object is 4 seconds at the speed given give or take some . whatever figure between that speck and the car turning lane.

I don’t actually know if the driver saw the bike or not but if you can only just see an HGV at that distance what hope in hell do you stand of seeing a bike moving at nearly twice the NSL

A little further back, but not half a mile? Maybe a quarter of a mile then? Which would make a huge difference given the bike was less than 200m away from the turning 4s earlier.

I posted this to an argumentative prove the point forum a bit earlier, and it shows the view from exactly the point the car was when it started the turn. The lorry you can see quite clearly up there is about a second further back from where the bike overtook the car (so about 5s from the turn). Of course if the point you’re trying to make is that the driver didn’t have much chance of seeing the bike, then who on earth makes a turn having only checked the road is clear 4s earlier – the van in the foreground of that shot is about where the biker was just before the driver commenced the turn (I already mentioned that 4s earlier the turning car wasn’t even in the right turn lane).

Alternatively you could always just take the word of the other car drivers behind the one who caused the collision that they had seen the bike, as has already been mentioned numerous times on this thread

weeksy – So so often people just pick 1 phrase, 1 pair of words and then just grab hold like a rabid dog and not let go.

Klunk – the rider was totally reckless approaching at those speeds with that amount of traffic

weeksy – Totally reckless is a massive over-exaggeration IMO.

Happens all the time.

then who on earth makes a turn having only checked the road is clear 4s earlier

I think subconsciously, what people do is look around, clock everythign then their brain keeps track of it in 3d so their brain tells them they don’t need to check again.

If, for example, I stand up from my chair to get something off the shelf, I will sit back down again without looking at the chair, because my brain’s remembered exactly where it is and not told me that anything will have changed. This is why you can play that trick on people.

We do this all the time, so it’s not unreasonable to assume peopel will also do this whilst driving. Look around, see some cars coming this way and some coming that, your brain says ‘you’re clear for ages’ so you can go at leisure. Of course, this is unwise and you must make yourself look properly, but often people don’t think like this – they just go with their gut feeling.

However – people’s tendency to do this is (wrongly, but they still do) exactly why excessive speed is a bad idea. By going much faster than people expect, you’re going to end up in places they are’t expecting you to be – like in this case.

Once I was driving a minibus down the dual carriageway A38 in Cornwall which was very quiet at the time. I passed a lorry on a very slight right hand curve, and there were no other cars in sight. I was going to pull back in nice and relaxed, looked in inside mirror out of habit to check I was clear of the lorry (I was) then I looked again just as I was starting to move and a car doing well over 100mph appeared from behind the lorry and shot up the inside – followed by another a couple of seconds later. That shit me right up, and I’m bloody glad I had the awareness to look. Even so half a second later and all 15 of us would have been in the shit. But until that point I *knew* the road was clear because I knew there was only me and the lorry in the vicinity.

All reasonable stuff molgrips – it makes sense as a reason why it happened – but none of it is an excuse for the driver, which is what seemed to be suggested. I also disagree that the speed made any difference to being seen – I’d argue that the scenario was rather different to yours!

And your minibus anecdote illustrates perfectly why it is good driving practice to check again as you commence a manoeuvre. You did the right thing, the car driver here either didn’t, or didn’t do it properly.

I also disagree that the speed made any difference to being seen

It demonstrably didn’t as, as I’ve posted here about nine times now, the turning driver didn’t see the slower-moving oncoming car either.

And your minibus anecdote illustrates perfectly why it is good driving practice to check again as you commence a manoeuvre.

In motorcycling parlance, they call this check the “lifesafer.” I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader as to why. The very last thing you do before starting a manoeuvre is a shoulder-check, usually in a place where there absolutely, positively should not be any traffic, just in case there’s some traffic. That way you don’t get halfway through a turn to find some country and western is trying to undertake you.

All reasonable stuff molgrips – it makes sense as a reason why it happened – but none of it is an excuse for the driver, which is what seemed to be suggested.

Of course – but this has nothing to do with blame. Blame is irrelevant, what matters is that people don’t die.

Blame is irrelevant, what matters is that people don’t die.

It’s not a case of blame, so much as working out what happened. If you can work out a root cause for an incident, you stand a fighting chance of preventing it from happening again.

And, the root cause here is piss poor observational skills by both parties. We know this for an unequivocal fact because a) the driver admitted that this was the case and b) you can see from the video that the rider doesn’t react to a potential hazard. I don’t believe for a moment that someone who’s been riding for 22 years wouldn’t have anticipated that manoeuvre if they’d actually seen it ahead.

We can bleat on about speed all we like, and I agree totally that his speed was far too high for the conditions; but in this case it wasn’t speed that caused the accident, it was a lack of observation.

If the car had seen the bike, the accident wouldn’t have happened. If the biker had seen the car, the accident wouldn’t have happened. If the rider had been riding at an appropriate speed, the accident would almost certainly still have occurred (though he might have walked away from it).

I fail to see why this is still being debated. It’s very, very simple.

I fail to see why this is still being debated.

It’s not.

We’re trying to convince people why driving very fast is frequently a bad idea.

& we are also trying to convince people that observing what is going on around you is frequently a good idea.

We’re trying to convince people why driving very fast is frequently a bad idea.

You might be.

I’m trying to convince people that paying attention to the world around you is the single most important thing you can do to improve your driving. But sadly, we’ve yet to invent Looking Where You’re Bloody Going cameras, so we fixate on speed instead.

And, the root cause here is piss poor observational skills by both parties.

<applause> I may have missed it, but surprisingly I don’t think the point about the biker being more at fault for failure to observe than speed has been made properly in 15 pages. That is of course irrespective of the fact that what the biker needed to spot was somebody doing something wrong – I’m sure most of us on here who ride bikes of one sort or the other on the road are very used to watching out for drivers doing stupid things.

I fail to see why this is still being debated. It’s very, very simple.

Because some people still don’t get it.

Yes, but we know this already. No-one’s arguing in favour of not observing, but people are arguing in favour of driving like a bellend.

We don’t fixate on speed – but speed is the thing that people most try and justify, so it gets the most arguments.

I may have missed it, but surprisingly I don’t think the point about the biker being more at fault for failure to observe than speed has been made properly in 15 pages.

Well, it’s at least the second time I’ve said it. (-:

Good to see this is doing the rounds and making people talk/think.

I’m not saying I’m a perfect rider (I do have 11 years everyday riding experience and a few advanced qualifications, but as all riders, I’ve got a lot to learn), so I’m not making this comment as a know it all, but as someone who’s just learnt something from watching it.

It’s a clear example of not riding defensively, and poor use of speed and road position while approaching multiple hazards. I’ll be extra careful at such junctions from now on, and hopefully anyone else will who’s watched it.

but people are arguing in favour of driving like a bellend.

Rather, people are arguing about their different definitions of “driving like a bellend.”

I’d take, oh I don’t know, more drivers like MaxTorque (based solely on his posts here) over a 40mph myopic monospeeder on the roads any day of the week.