to actually feel sorry for the driver of the car? WARNING- upsetting video.

[ToThePark]

Ok, so I've been a wimp and name changed in case I get totally flamed.

www.suffolk.police.uk/newsandevents/newsstories/2014/september/hardhittingvideolaunched.aspx

The motorcyclist was travelling at 100mph past a busy junction. I watched this video and thought, as a car driver, this could easily happen to me. What an horrific thing to have on your conscience.

What if it had been a child crossing?

If you pull out in front of oncoming traffic and cause an accident, whether you are driving a car or riding a bike, you are to blame.
It wasn't safe for the car driver to pull out, yes, the bike was going too fast but the car driver should have made sure it was safe before he crossed the opposite line of traffic therefore he was to blame.
Doesn't matter how fast the bike was going, the car driver misjudged and it resulted in a fatal accident.
The bike wasn't tailgating anyone and the road ahead of him was clear until the car pulled out.
This is a long straight country road and the driver should have been able to see what was coming in the opposite direction quite clearly.
If the bike had hit him at 60 he would still have been killed.
That isn't to say the biker should have been speeding but the fault in this accident was the car driver's.

gertie, if the bike had been doing 60, he might not have collided with the car.

If the motorbike didn't see the car turning across him until 3 seconds before the accident, then why should the car driver have seen the bike sooner than that?

I imagine the biker did not expect the car to pull out in front of him no matter what speed he was going at.
The car driver had a clear view of the long straight road he was about to cross, he should have waited until it was safe to go.

Well the biker was wrong then. Because a car did turn off the road in front of him. And he was going too fast to do anything about it.

I have now braced myself and watched the video and agree with those who think that it really says nothing new about car driving and everything about reckless motorbike riding.

And I feel sorry for the car driver.

The driver was stationary, he had the time to sit and look and decide if it was safe to cross, the biker had no time to avoid him.

A car did exactly the same thing to us on this turning last week when we were returning home from a week-end away.

Fortunately for us DH is a very experienced driver and was within the NSL so was able to take evasive action to avoid a collision. Had DH been speeding I'm not sure this would have been the case. It all happened in seconds but the force of the evasive action woke the children who immediately started crying and we were all shook up for some time afterwards and were pleased to get home.

In this very sad situation the driver is to blame for turning in the path of on coming traffic although I suspect the driver saw the cars but failed to see the cyclist weaving in and out whilst overtaking. I do believe though that had the motor cyclist been within the NSL he may have been able to avoid the collision... who know.

Desperately sad for all concerned.

And I feel sorry for the car driver too, it must have been horrific.

I know that road and looked at it on google street view earlier, it is a fast road, but it is also a long and straight stretch.
Maybe a roundabout needs to be there to slow it down as it is a staggered junction.

It looks like he was going too fast for the car driver to be accurately able to estimate his speed and he thought he had time to cross the junction.

Speed kills. It doesn't allow the driver/rider time to think and plan in time and other road users often underestimate the speed that the other driver is doing so they think they have time to do things.

A motorbike passed us at high speed on a single carriageway once. I said as he passed "he must be suicidal" the road was clearly marked with warning signs of livestock in the road.

About five minutes later we passed him lying in the road next to a dead sheep. Other motorists had stopped and had called the emergency services.

The A1 has loads of those kind of junctions too, they are terrifying if you have to cross the oncoming traffic on a right hand turn.
The short slip road at Wansford where the A47 goes over the A1 is horrible, lorries coming up from the right and behind you when you are trying to join the A1.
The next junction on near Stamford coming off the A43 to join the A1 is as bad.

Or maybe a reduction in speed limit with speed cameras and occasional speed trap.
Maybe a barrier to stop the overtaking where the motorcyclist did.
I think the fact someone car/bike can approach that fast doesnt give time to turn across the junction from invisible (behind a car) to crashed in seconds.
I wonder if the fact its a clear road makes it worse, you look see cars very far away think i can take my time (yes possibly not thinking bike) but maybe assuming a car you can see is doing the speed limit so cant reach you in the time.

I honestly dont believe most peoples reactions are fast enough to cope with this, you dont exactly have to cross a motorway with people going 100 there are lights/ roundabouts.

I understand that a driver needs to be sure the road is clear to turn but how can you anticipate a biker weaving out from behind a car at neatly 100 miles an hour. from the video the car didn't seem to dart out of nowhere but the bikers speed gave nobody any time to avoid a collision

We drove this way this eve on our way to Lincolnshire. There are fresh flowers at the crash site and more at the roundabout a but further up. The motorbike was going too fast but the driver should have seen him.

My dp as I said goes that way to work, mainly driving sometimes on his bicycle. It's a ten mile ride. I am always nervous when he bikes ad other cyclists have Bern killed on that road. He goes a route which avoids quite a bit of the a47 when cycling but can't avoid all of it.

It's the hill/camber that makes vision harder and the speeds that lots of people do.

The driver of the car admitted that he didn't see the bike OR the other car admitted(which was traveling within the speed limit) The biker should not have been travelling at 97mph particularly on a single carriageway. The driver should have been paying more attention.

The motorcyclist's riding was unbelievable from the moment he got on the bike. Driver didn't see him probably because he was going at 100 mph. I would think my brain just wouldn't be able to assimilate how fast something was approaching if it was travelling at 100 mph, even if I had seen it. And the message in the video is 'Motorists slow down'.

Thank god the driver plus potential passengers/ kids were not killed too.

If the car driver hadn't chosen to plead guilty, then would the outcome have been different?

I've observed lower courts. They are often not good.

Did he have adequate representation from the start?

As a driver, you need to be aware of both yourself and other motorists on the road. Assume everyone but you is an idiot and drive accordingly.

It's obvious from the video that both were at fault.

Yes I do feel sorry for everyone involved.

This video has turned into crash porn, it's all over my Facebook newsfeed.

As a former biker, I can confidently say it will have no effect on accident statistics, therefore is pointless and just 'entertainment'.

The rider was wearing a lid cam. It wasn't for instructional/educational purposes, he pulled out at the beginning in front of his onlookers and pulled that gas back literally full throttle, nonchalantly waving his hand at speed.
He may have been a gentleman and a wonderful man, but we become different animals on a bike.

He was a good rider, he'd been on the road 22 years his Mum said without major incident. Approaching that road crossing, he rolled off the gas and braked at the exact right moment, he was just going too fast.
No experienced biker keeps that speed at that sort of road crossing.
But he had a camera strapped to his head for the purposes of fun...he wasn't distracted, we can see that because he saw what was coming - he did take evasive action. He rolled off the gas at the right moment. If he'd been under the speed limit, he may have got away with just sliding along the road or glancing off the bonnet and lived.

'Fatal collision' also leads you to believe you are watching the moment of death, that the impact was his last second on earth. I suspect he died from injuries at a later date having studied the closing shots. Which makes viewing less grisly.

Even so, as someone I know said, it makes the fact police condone publishing someone's live death on uncensored social media somewhat dubious..

His mother said that she found it hard to deal with the fact he 'felt a moment of fear just before he died'. I wish I could relay to her that when I crashed my bike, the old cliche of time slowing down and life flashing before your eyes really can happen.
So she might take comfort in the fact that the nanosecond we see on screen where he cries out then impacts, to him may well have been a minute long - as it felt to me when I crashed - and I wasn't scared, it was futile, I knew it was unavoidable, so my mind relaxed, I felt no adrenalin, I felt calm, and consciously thought of the people that mattered to me. I actually had time to process all that in the nanosecond it took to actually recognise an imminent impact and the moment I collided.

Anyway. More speed restrictions, less crash porn. 'If it saves one life it's worth it' is trite, because I see people all the time on their phones in cars.

I'm learning to drive soon and I'm curious to see the road from the car driver's perspective.

I count no more than 5 seconds from the time the bike overtook the car to impact with the turning car. I don't know about you but I often commit to turning at that time, with my focus being where I'm going after. I'm old fashion and believe that if you've done no more than what another reasonable person would have done, no crime should be said to have been committed.
The law needs to change so someone cannot be taken to court if the other party was driving so illegally.

And all bikes and cars should have limiters to 80 mph.

Over the last few weeks we've driven miles in the UK (the length of it & along many of these sorts of roads). You have to be cautious approaching those types of junctions - we've had a number of cars & even a lorry pull out/across the lane late forcing us to brake - if we'd been driving at 100mph we'd have gone into at least one of the cars & definitely the lorry.

I don't know any bikers , but if i see one in my mirror i always pull over slightly so that if the biker is wanting to overtake , then they get a better view , as my car is quite high . Not sure if that is the right thing to do .
If i am at a junction and i hear a bike , i normally wait a couple more seconds until i can see it .
I watched the video in the link , it left me tears , not because it is gory or sensationalist . I did feel very sorry for the driver , as someone else up the thread says i am sure we have all had moments during our driving lives when we have been very very lucky not to be involved in an accident due to an error of judgement or lack of concentration .

My dad's is a biker and has been in two crashes where drivers were not looking out for him, and he always drives defensively and at the speed limit. Sometime people just don't look/expect bikes. He has always drumed that into me, look out for bikes at all times.

However having said that from both crashes he walked away with only a broken collar bone/ribs and bad bruises. Because he was driving safely and had a properly maintained high spec helmet and leathers (which were destroyed in both crashes).

I think the point is both driver and biker were at fault.