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?

I drive that road v regularly, I live nearby. I drove it yesterday, both directions as I was working in the city during the day. As other people have said, it is a terrible bit of road and that whole stretch is notoriously dangerous. The A47 is our motorway iyswim. East/West across the county, that's your road. It is poorly maintained, often single carriageway, littered with agricultural vehicles and HGVs and vastly overpopulated by a whole county of people going to work, school or trying to get to the west/north. That stretch is bookended by dual carriageway, where you make appropriate progress and the road matches its users' needs. Then you suddenly hit snarled up traffic, ridiculous junctions, all with an inappropriate national speed limit, a misleading straight road which is actually hampered by distorted bends and an odd camber. If you know that road, you know to anticipate the mess of the junctions and the traffic problems which result.

Just a couple of things which struck me as a regular user of that road:

I presume the car which was overtaken was doing NSL. At that point on that road you expect and see cars turning across your lane and pulling out to join you from the junction up ahead. You have to allow other cars to join there in the time between you seeing and reaching the junction. At national speed limit from the point the bike overtakes to the point of accident, you can and should expect cars to be joining and leaving. There is time, space and sadly, necessity. Take out the motorbike (awful turn of phrase sorry) and it's unremarkable. At speed limit or under, the car turning would have been a normal, acceptable sight for that road.

Coming the other way, the car driver who caused the accident wouldn't have seen the overtaken car or bike because on his approach, presumably he was scanning for a large enough gap to turn. If he knew the road, I'm a!most certain he'd know that you don't look for a totally clear road, never could happen there. On approach he probably assessed the gap up to the point that he knew that if there was anything beyond that at NSL or even at 70, it wouldn't reach the junction before him. What he didn't consider was that a vehicle at 100mph would hit him. Nobody in their right mind would do 100mph there, no car could physically do it due to traffic volume and conditions. Only a bike could and yes you should always, always think bike but I'm going to admit that I would never, eve believe a biker could be considering doing 100mph there. I would have checked for bikes as I approached and then committed to turning. I wouldn't have seen a bike because at the point that I was assessing, the bike was too far away to impact my decision. Clear road, space to turn, nothing can gain that ground in 3 seconds surely?

Of course think bike would have prevented the accident. But not in isolation. Think bike and remember they might be capable of going way, way faster than you've ever seen on that road before and then you're nearer preventing that kind of accident. The car driver undoubtedly caused the accident in a simple cause and effect but change the biker's speed to NSL, same as the car he wouldn't even have been overtaking anyway and he physically wouldn't have been there.

I wish they would find the money to sort the road out. Even just reduce the speed for now. Further up the road, locals have probably seen the massive works at Postwick. I drive through to Thorpe daily ATM and the works temporary speed limit is 50. Does any fucker slow down? No. If you did, somebody would hit you but stay at 70+ and you risk an accident too as you jostle for lane too late. Two accidents I've seen there so far this week alone.

This is so awful for everyone involved.

DH is a motorcyclist and he frequently despairs of the lack of care drivers seem to take when it comes to motorbikes, but then he also acknowledges that some motorcyclists travels so fast and make very unwise decisions on the roads too.

I think the driver wasn't paying enough attention but that if the gentleman on the motorbike hadn't been going so fast this could have been avoided. Both make mistakes here.

Showy, I think you summarised it best. Thank you.

Thanks showy. That's exactly my feelings and I also drive that road very regularly.

So the driver was wrong to turn when he did but the motorcyclist could have potentially avoided his own death had he been biking responsibly?

I think the guy was an adrenaline junkie and like all addicts, do not properly consider risk. No-one knows if he rode like this all the time but he did this time. Possibly triggered by the event he was coming home from.

I don't know all the evidence but from what is there, ridiculous speed on this stretch of road, with the junction absolutely caused the accident.

I feel incredibly sorry for everyone who was affected by this accident. I think it is awful though that the car driver was prosecuted for causing death by dangerous driving.

At that speed the motorcyclist in 3 seconds would have travelled nearly 150 metres. I think the car driver was unfairly prosecuted for dangerous driving.

Yes I feel very sorry for the car driver crashing into another dangerous motorcycle rider. I'm sick of their dangerous driving, much worse imo than car drivers.

I don't think he was jennifer. There's a link earlier in the thread which says he was convicted of causing death by careless driving (which IIRC is quite a new offence). In the link, the judge specifically mentions in court that the driver was never considered to be dangerous.

In the thread, I think someone else wrote that the driver admitted to seeing neither the oncoming car or the overtaking bike and entered a guilty plea to the charge. Most of us take chances behind the wheel at some point. Tragically sometimes these chances end up being devastating to everyone concerned.

It sounds like they would be better campaigning for the road to be changed.

That's a hard video to watch :(

I've lost an uncle to a car hitting him on his motorbike - the car didn't see him and pulled out of a junction into his path, not entirely dissimilar to this case. I love bikes, although I wouldn't ride one on the road. The only problem with them is that your average bike can usually outperform and outmanouvre your average car by miles, and a lot of riders forget that car drivers assume (and not unreasonably so, in my view) that other vehicles - bikes AND cars, are obeying traffic laws.

I've seen idiots in cars go into bikes, usually because they aren't looking or paying attention, and I've seen idiots on bikes go into cars, usually because they think they're on a racetrack (one did a dramatic somersault over my mate's car after he overtook another vehicle on a blind bend, and my friend was driving the other way - fortunately, and pretty amazingly considering, noone was seriously hurt and everyone walked away). This was a horrific combination of the two, but I think even if the driver had seen the bike, he wouldn't have been unreasonable to assume the biker was obeying the law and that therefore the gap he was taking was large enough for him to cross the carriageway safely.

I would bet good money that everyone here has made assumptions based on the consistency of our traffic laws when driving, especially when making manouvres. If we're waiting at a junction and there's a car in the distance, we can deduce from the local speed limits and the distance of the car whether it's safe to pull out. We know roughly what speed we need to be at to safely join the traffic flow when merging onto a larger road. We know what is a safe gap to pull out and overtake another vehicle, dual or single carriageways.

I Think Bike everyday.

I don't, as a rule, Think Idiot Going 100 MPH.

I Think Bike everyday. I don't, as a rule, Think Idiot Going 100 MPH.

Well put.

Thanks to Showy too for such a great post.

"If we're waiting at a junction and there's a car in the distance, we can deduce from the local speed limits and the distance of the car whether it's safe to pull out."

Most people, including myself, do that sometimes. It is wrong though.

"We know roughly what speed we need to be at to safely join the traffic flow when merging onto a larger road. We know what is a safe gap to pull out and overtake another vehicle, dual or single carriageways."

Surely in both of those scenarios the actual speed of the approaching traffic determines the safety of the manoeuvre?

When learning to drive, you are taught LADA which is Look Assess Decide Act. My instructor always impressed upon me the need to make a decision based on a clear assessment and then act immediately and decisively. And for good reason. You can't half commit to overtaking or joining a carriageway. ATM, I'm driving the stretch of road we're discussing daily and on the dual carriageway you regularly meet agricultural vehicles and have to overtake. It's that or get stuck at 45mph. I look, check, check and check again. I assess all points of vision, including blind spot but every single time I know that a car or bike doing 100mph could appear and fill that gap in no time and it terrifies me. I drive as defensively and safely as possible but I cannot mitigate for the unknown choices of others. The freedom of driving has been such a gift but I breathe a sigh of relief every time I get home safely.

Showy I have never heard of LADA before! I think it must be a relatively recent addition to the learner driver?

Out of curiosity, you say you "look, check, check and check again. I assess all points of vision, including blind spot" which is what a great driver does every day, but do you look behind you over your right shoulder? I ask this because I don't ever recall being taught this as a car driver, but I had already been a biker for a decade before I got my car licence so it is completely ingrained in my very soul to do it, even in a car. They call it a life saver look.
Often, new passengers comment on it and bikers sitting in my car nod knowingly, but I was never taught to do it in a car, only on a bike, so I am curious :)
A biker that knew that road ~ indeed any biker that didn't should know to reduce speed when approaching a junction. It is common sense and a life saver.

Meant to say also that 30 years ago, I was on my bike on a 30mph limit road and a woman pulled out from a turning on my right and knocked me off. And I was only doing about 15mph as it was in traffic. She could not have been looking for bikes. I saw her but could do nothing about it. IME, most car drivers do not think bike on any road or in any road condition.

I can remember some of the safety awareness pictures that we have in school, one of them shows a motorbike about 50 meters away from the camera, it is almost impossible to see. (the next slide shows the bike with its headlight on, easier to see but not by much)

The second was a series of two pictures from a road accident in Holland, the scenario was similar to the one that started the thread, the different is that from the front the car looked untouched, the side view showed the bike still embedded in the car.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that bikes are difficult to see, fast moving bikes are extremely difficult to see and most people underestimate the weight of a motorbike.

Both at fault. Both driving carelessly. Awful for everyone concerned.

Boney that really depends on the bike. My bike is 42st dry weight! but there are many that you can virtually pick up and carry away. Mine will do over 170 mph, so if you then combine the speed and the weight, that can be disastrous; it's a very large bullet. Of course a small bike of little weight comparatively speaking, won't reach anywhere near those speeds, but nor will it 'get you out of trouble' if you need it to (A biker will know what I mean by that).

www.beyonddriving.co.uk/how-to-use-the-lada-and-mspsl-routines

I always, always look over my right shoulder, as does every driver I know. Part of a blind spot check. I'm surprised you know no drivers that do. I know none that don't.

A new driver might not know the acronym LADA but it is the sequence they learn. It is the manoeuvre part of mirror, signal, position, speed etc etc.

I feel sorry for all involved, but all involved are also still culpable.

The car driver is to blame, he turned into the path of oncoming traffic which he had no right of way over. He should have taken the time to stop and assess the speed/ amount/ type of traffic coming towards him instead of seeing a gap and just going for it. The motorcyclist is to blame, he should have forethought the sensibility of carrying out an overtake right by a junction. He should have mitigating his speed, especially as he was a vulnerable road user.

I live in East Anglia and see this shoddy driving often. Most of our roads are 60mph and difficult junctions are commonplace. People see a gap in the traffic and pull in front of oncoming vehicles to turn, without taking a few seconds to stop and assess how fast that traffic is travelling. People don't take long enough to judge the speed of a car, let alone a much smaller and thus harder to see motorbike. This is the problem, so many car drivers just do not look out for motorcyclists. Motorcyclists don't just 'appear out of nowhere' anymore than cars do, it's just that some drivers don't take long enough to look for bikes.

For those saying motorcyclists need to 'think car' give me a break! As a motorcyclist you are always 'thinking car' because any reckless or just plain stupid manoeuvre by a motorist can result in your death. Easily. You have almost no protection in a collision. Your training and motorcycle tests emphasise this heavily. Car drivers are not automatically vulnerable in the same way. Motorcyclists represent only 1% of traffic on our roads, yet 19% of deaths. That is just shocking and appalling.

*Should have been