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?

And in how many of those deaths is speed a factor? Yes car drivers do stupid things, but of the nasty motorbike accidents I can think of around here - the majority have involved speed. Quite often no other vehicle has been involved. Anyone driving at 100 mph appears out of nowhere - it happened to me with a car a few weeks ago.

Yes bikers are vulnerable - but not in the way say cyclists or horse & riders are. Motorbikes can & do kill other road users as well - and should not be driving as speeds that endanger others. There's absolutely no excuse for driving at 100 mph - he paid the ultimate price but it's more luck than judgment that he didn't take someone ease out at the same time.

Solo

My point about the bike's weight is that most people think of them as lightweight vehicles. a lot of them as you know are not.

Thanks Showy for the link.

An old boyfriend of mines brother had a serious bike accident over 30 years ago and the police measured his skid mark on the road. They estimated his speed at more than double the speed limit because of the length of it. What they would not accept at the scene was that his skid mark was a single line of two tyre marks meeting one another on the road surface. He had in fact, kept the bike in a straight line so much so, that it looked like he had been speeding. No idea what happened as I split with bf.

Saintly your anecdotes are baseless and meaningless. In actual fact, Clark et al (2004) found that most accidents involving motorcyclists were not caused by the motorcyclist themselves. A whopping 48% of the accidents were caused by the other driver failing to see the motorcyclist. On the back of this study initiatives were suggested to increase motorist awareness of motorcyclists i.e. Think Bike.

Have no idea why you are talking about horse riders and pedestrians.

This is a thread about a car - motorcyclist collision.

Of course speed didn't help the situation, the biker limited his ability to take evasive action and has paid the ultimate price for this. However, the car driver failed to pay attention to the road conditions and if he had not pulled in front of the motorcyclist's right of way we wouldn't be having this conversation.

" A whopping 48% of the accidents were caused by the other driver failing to see the motorcyclist."

So what was the cause of the "whopping" 52%?

The motorbike was travelling at 300ft per second. Obviously the car driver thought he had enough time to turn. He didn't as it turned out. Because the speeding motorbike was travelling at 300 feet per second. If the motorbike had been going at the speed limit, he would be alive today. Speed limits are there for a reason. Even for motorbikes. End of.

Boney I'm sure you are capable of reading the study or at least a summary of it and enlightening yourself if you'd like to join the debate

tiptop

If you want to throw a link or even the name of the study my way I would. have a back.

What's this business about think bike. Does everyone not 'think vehicle'?

We have to be aware of lots of horses and cyclists where I live and so when driving automatically think about anything that could be on the road (including pedestrians).

If the motorbike had been going at the speed limit, he would be alive today

That is not true, it's possible, but do you really think that motorcyclists only die in RTAs because they were speeding?

Boney TipTop gave you the name of the study, if you google clarke et al 2004 motorcycles, you should find something you can look at.

www.bikelawyer.co.uk/bike-accident-statistics

Right of way violations
Of the total cases, 681 (38%) involve ROWVs. However, less than 20% of these involve a motorcyclist who rated as either fully or partly to blame for the accident
The majority of motorcycle ROWV accidents have been found to be primarily the fault of other motorists

Just one thing from the report below.

speedcamerareport.co.uk/dft_motorcycle_accidents.pdf

Im going to try to link to page 40 of that PDF, if it doesnt work, skip to page 40!

It covers blame in RTAs involving motorcycles, be sure to read summary of both table 6 and 7.

What's this business about think bike. Does everyone not 'think vehicle'?

Too many people think vehicle means 4+ wheels sadly.

Of course they're not pointless - my reading of the local paper highlight fatal accidents - and speed is frequently a factor in those. I would have liked that study to have paid attention to fatal accidents in a sub analysis (it might have - I've skim read on my phone - will look again later if I did).

What I did notice though was that 58% of questionnaire respondents said they always or frequently broke the speed limit & 79% said that observing the speed limit was unimportant (least important, can't easily check back on phone) of safety measures.

It also found car drivers & motorcyclists both about equally responsible of being the cause of an accident (around 40% of accidents involving a motorcycle caused by each).

I agree car drivers need to look out for motorcyclists ( I needed two looks to spot one today - he was wearing dark clothing & riding close to a car he was overtaking - was hard to see & judge his speed - he actually wasn't driving that fast as it turned out - so I waited until both passed before pulling out), but I think driving at 100mph is a) indefensible & b) putting the lives of others at risk.

The over-riding message to motorcyclists is that they must slow down, not merely in relation to mandatory limits but also in consideration of various normal road hazards, particularly bends. In addition, they must avoid overtaking slower moving vehicles in the vicinity of junctions, even if the traffic is stationary and they are ‘filtering’ past it

The over-riding message to other drivers is that they must look more carefully for approaching motorcycles at junctions of all types, and also make careful rear observations, including the use of side mirrors and blind-spot checks, before making many manoeuvres

From the PDF i linked to, which is basically the same message Brenda Holmes/the video in the OP is trying to get across. Riders slow down/don't take risks. Drivers, look out for bikes, or 'Think bike'

The problem is though that the biker was breaking both those recommendations (presumably known to increase the likelihood of an accident) & yet the driver got all the blame.

Today I was probably in a similar set up to the accident on the video in terms of my distance from the bike overtaking the car & it was incredibly hard to see - and I had the advantage of facing sideways a little & a very clear road. The dark bike/leathers & dark car just looked like one car.

Saintly, you need to look at table 7.

Table 6 shows an even split of responsibility for accidents with driver 2 and rider 1 to blame in around 40% of the accidents, respectively. However, just under a third of accidents suffered by motorcyclists did not involve a second vehicle and if these are removed from the figures a slightly different picture emerges, as can be seen in Table 7

From table 7

Primary blame

rider 1 269[number of accidents] 21.9%
driver 2 699[number of accidents] 56.9%

Quite a difference.

Yes I saw that - and figured that shows quite a lot of accidents can be attributed to motorcyclists only - ie driving like idiots.

Also depends how the fault is classified - if it is purely on the lane a car is in with no reference to biker behaviour making them harder to see - then the car driver driver will be 'unfairly' blamed. Although tbh if it's just a case of people driving into each other then I would expect even law abiding sensibly driving motorists to be more at fault as bikes are harder to see. Bikers can aid cars in seeing them by wearing bright clothing & driving sensibly.

The problem is though that the biker was breaking both those recommendations (presumably known to increase the likelihood of an accident) & yet the driver got all the blame

The driver got all the blame for causing the accident because his being in a lane he didnt have right of way over, is what caused it. no one has said that the biker was right to be speeding. what I and others have argued, is that regardless of speed, the car driver was in the wrong and also that even if riding within the speed limit, the biker had a high chance of death in such an accident. As you can see from the stats linked, right of way violations are a common cause of accidents involving bikes and typically found to be the fault of the car driver.

Most deaths are caused by head injury, head injuries can occur even at much lower speeds [within the speed limit].

Even if the biker had been doing 50mph, in attempting take evasive action, it is likely he would have collided with something else eg a car in the oncoming traffic of he had swerved right, or the kerb/road island if he had gone left, both would have resulted in him coming off his bike and being injured, possibly fatally.

And tbh if one of my sons was a biker, watched that video & said it was purely the driver's fault for not seeing the biker I'd want him off his bike immediately.

Except on this case he wouldn't have hit the car had he been going at that speed & the car would have had a lot longer to spot him.

I would hope any relative of mine riding a bike would watch that and say travelling at that speed on that road was idiotic - if only because it doesn't give you time to react to car drivers doing unexpected things - which is exactly what cars/tractors/ lorries/ people/cyclists are going to do on that sort of road.

Also depends how the fault is classified - if it is purely on the lane a car is in with no reference to biker behaviour making them harder to see - then the car driver driver will be 'unfairly' blamed

So, even when the car driver is legally at fault, it is still the fault of the bike rider? ok.

Being visible is one factor, the other main factor, is that car drivers just don't look for bikes.

The specific behaviours of other drivers given by the respondents included motorists’ inattention, motorists changing lanes without looking properly, and motorists being distracted while in their vehicles by passengers, mobile phones, etc. ‘No continuity of observation’ was the biggest cause of accidents in the database; that reason alone being the cause of over a third of all motorcycle accidents. Of these, the riders were only at fault in 10.9% of the accidents, whereas the other road users accounted for 77.1%

For a nice change, we have just encountered a charity motorcycle ride from Brentwood the Harwich in aid of the Air Ambulance. Several hundred bikes. Every single rider doing below the speed limit, riding sensibly, waving at kids as they passed and not showing off in any way.
Living where I live it makes a refreshing change.