Its a tragedy, but yes I think the judge is right from the facts presented. I do feel sorry for the old lady, she must feel very bad about it. Before I retired I drove trains for a living. One of the unfortunate things about that job was suicidal people know trains can't swerve out of the way or stop quickly if they stand in between the tracks to end their lives. Many of my driver colleagues have been deeply traumatised by the events involving people being struck by the train they were driving, animals which got through the boundary fence and wandered onto the tracks also. I feel sorry for the biker too and his family. There are no winners here.
Just a note. All we have here is a note that an "expert" was able to establish the speed of the bike from dash cam footage. I know courts have to proceed on something but that "something" is not always correct. I love to think back twenty five years or so when all the experts were telling us we were heading into an ice age.
We all speed at some time or another. We enjoy the thrill and the power that riding a bike gives, but to be travelling at twice the speed limit (if their calculations are correct) is excessive and foolhardy. Speed limits are there for a reason and if it is 50mph it is that because of the hazards around. I feel for the bikers family. It is a tragic loss of life, but I agree with the judges findings in this case. Sad for all.
To me, it's not so much about the speed limit as much as how would you expect an old lady to see a tiny speck hurtling towards her at 48.88' yards a second (44 metres per second) or 135 feet per second? I mean, I blinked once and a whole marriage had passed.............
Yes i am afraid the bike ECU records the speed. I found that out on my sprint st when it was playing up badly. Jack Lilleys were able to tell me all my latest speeds and decided that the bike was ridden correctly for the first 500 miles. Regards Joe.
Yes, I agree with all of that @littleade. On reflection, I just didn't like the inference from the judge that the rider was wholly to blame. The only one who knows the circumstances, the speed involved before the incident and at impact wasn't able to defend himself.
Yes, you are probably right SmilinJack.......age hasn't got anything to do with. By the time you have looked both ways, say from right, to left and back again the biker, at 100 mph is likely to have advanced 300 feet......I would struggle to pick out such a small profile at that speed in time to take corrective action. OK, she may have been at fault but if you are invisible at the legal road speed limit you'll be twice as invisible at double the limit...... don't you see? Travelling at that speed on a single track road with our volume of traffic is risky....not to mention illegal.......in other words you are unlikely to be dealt with sympathetically
Either the Police and/or the CPS has been incompetent and too eager to prosecute someone. As dashcam footage was available it should have been properly reviewed and expert assistance called in. Then the case should have been closed or Prosecution’s case would have been made watertight. This was a waste of everybody’s time and effort and unnecessary stress. It also calls into question the efficacy of police accident investigations and maybe Plod was too eager to get a prosecution. Ignoring good, solid evidence is not the way you determine how something happened. Lots of people need retraining here.
I didn't know that. Next, they will equip the police with a device that can read them too. If they haven't already.
We have no idea of the exact circumstances and it's equally likely she'd have pulled out had he been going slower, and was closer. We all know this is par for the course. However, if one is going to ride at 100mph, then it's really incumbent upon the rider to not be doing that speed unless it is safe to do so, in other words if there are crossroads he should have either spotted her first and expected her to pull out, or if he did not have that level of visibility then 100mph was not a safe speed for that road on that spot. So while the lady probably pulled out in front wrongly, the rider was asking for it and would have been a statistic sooner or later. 0.02c
