This Scares The Big Jesus Out Of Me

It’s a damn pity that it had to be a bike in the way, not sayin owt else

 

Then why a forward forward facing camera, a rearward facing camera, and apparently a Chase car with a camera to generate money was my point. Pimps don't actually do the deed ffs, wake up and assign credit where credit is due.

 

Eh? What I'm saying is that the twat made the choice to do it! Just because there is an avenue available to you, you don't have to take it.

 

Scary stuff indeed and it happens all to quick trust me !

October last year, on our way back home, on a straight road, an idiot coming from the opposite direction didn’t look when overtaking the car in front of him, as he came out he saw me and my mate and swerved back hitting the car he was trying to overtake and the car that was behind him, suddenly there was two cars out of control spinning 360 heading straight towards us. All I thought at that moment was here we go this is it I’m going to hit the A pillar of the car coming towards me sideways.

How we managed to miss the cars and debris flying towards us can only be the grace of God. We both went of the road, both of us braked so hard that the back ends came up. My mate broke his speedy’s belly pan other than that both of us were fine.

The other two motorists were also okay apart from the damage to their vehicles, the one vehicle went very deep into the farmers land.

The guy that caused it ... he came to a hault in the middle of the road facing our way several meters away. As my mate walked back towards him he got his car started and made a u turn in a hurry leaving all of us there.

We weren’t speeding on the day, we were extremely lucky ! My conclusion after playing it out in my mind over and over - be on your guard at all times !! Anything, anytime, anywhere !

 

An assumption I see no evidence for - unless you can point me to his youtube channel. My car has front and rear facing cameras which record on a loop, as do many cars these days. This video was released a couple of days ago by the police. They would have seized the drivers footage as a part of the investigation and the footage from the second car could well be from a completely unrelated vehicle who stopped as a witness and to help. There was nothing in the report about any previous bad driving, or that there was any evidence of the two cars being together or racing. I'm pretty sure that in the circumstances, if the driver had been posting his motoring antics on line, this would have been taken into consideration during the investigation.

 

Juist another reminder to stay safe out there.....

 

You make good points. Clearly these two cars and drivers were on an escapade of some kind, geared up with GOPROS in two cars. Perhaps trying to do some Facefart high speed action that would bring them fame. It brought them fame, maybe not how they intended. Now we have a rider in surgery and the driver guilt ridden for life. At least that is how I would feel about driving recklessly and ending up crippling some bloke. Maybe they don't care, which makes it worse.

 

I too was somewhat surprised by the fact that the car involved had front and rear facing cameras and the one following also a front camera (maybe a rear one too). Yes, there are cars that have them, but not many and for those 2 cars to both have them, recording, is at the very least suspicious. But that's not what I replied to say.

It came to my attention last year when taken clean off my bike by a van pulling a rapid U turn in front of me, that there are some eventualities we simply cannot pre-emptively avoid.

For the last more than 50 years of riding motorcycles, I have made a conscious effort to be good at it. It started with a lot of riding off-road and then (successful) road racing and on every ride I like to try and learn and get better and I consider myself very good at anticipating other road users actions and using that to avoid unfortunate encounters with other vehicles, or the road. But...

What I realised last year while lying in hospital (lots of time to think) is that we can never be 100% successful at this, because there are some very basic assumptions that we all make while riding/driving, indeed everyone HAS to make these assumptions as otherwise it would not be possible for everyone to share the roads.

Take traffic lights. When our light is green, we assume that other vehicles will stop at their red light. Yes it is sometimes possible to quickly check the other vehicles, but mostly, we don't. You approach the junction, your lights are green and the junction is empty so you simply carry on without being able to actually confirm beforehand that there is no vehicle approaching and not about to stop at their red light. It is impossible to do this and confirm with 100% accuracy that there is NO other vehicle about to cross your path. In order to do so, you'd have to stop, get out of the car, go and check all side roads and confirm everyone else had stopped, then get back in your car and still just hope that nothing had changed since you checked and only then would you cross. Safe? Yes, but so impractical it would make what we call 'driving' impossible.

Likewise, when the van ahead of me brakes, with his left indicator on and pulls into parking spaces on the left side of the road, it was logical to (subconsciously) assume he was indeed parking when in truth he was pulling over to allow him space to perform a rapid U turn in the road, which he did without looking and seeing me simply riding past.

Then there's entering a blind corner and we assume that anyone coming the other way will be on their correct side of the road. The only way to avoid that possibility would be to stop at every such corner, walk up around the bend, see if anyone's coming, if so, stop them and confirm they'll be staying on their side of the road and only then riding/driving around the bend.

The alternatives are plainly ridiculous and impractical and so while riding or driving we HAVE to make these fundamental assumptions. Mostly this works, but when another road user breaks any of those basic rules, there can (and probably will) be very serious consequences.

So try as hard as we might, to anticipate potentially hazardous situations, there are some that no-one can avoid. Just hope you don't ever find yourself in one.

 

The above points by BiKenG are spot on ... impossible to foresee and anticipate the unexpected and we all just hope to not be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

It is fair to say that you cannot anticipate every incident on the road, but careful forward planning will help. There for the grace of... we all go.

 

Certainly is a shocking reminder how vulnerable we (all) are... I read somewhere that the chances of being involved in an accident whilst on a motorcycle are no greater than in a car (or other road user); it is only the outcomes that can be different.

As it happens, it was seeing this article a few days ago that set me on the path to airbag vest ownership...it's what saved this riders life.

Thank you for posting. Sobering post.

Ride safe all.

 

Thanks Dozers dad; out of interest, do the figures go in to whether that 40% is involved with other vehicles, or rider error and alone etc? Just curious...

 

I may have a Google. Thanks Dozers dad. I kind of agree....

I think, mainly though I'm just a grumpy bas#ard who likes arguing the toss. Sometimes I even like to have the facts as well . It'll be useful to wind someone up with when they ask...

 

This is in no way a preach or judgement on others. Each to their own etc. However, if you are interested in such things then this makes very interesting reading...

Ride safe dear friends....

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...Vaw3QDaFHa183E7IN3DEBmf_R&cshid=1579342788257

 

I don't think there's anything in that article that we didn't know already. Mind you, having said that, when I see some of the riding being done around here when the sun's out, maybe not.

 

Even this report is skewed though as it includes all forms of motorised two wheel transport
So it includes all those on scooters and on L plates where, I would imagine, an awful lot of the accidents or incidents originate
It would be far more interesting to find out the percentages and break down using only fully licensed riders
The same doesn't work for car drivers as they can only drive on L plates with a qualified driver