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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to be fed up of people telling me how dangerous......

300 replies

starshaker · 02/12/2017 17:40

riding a motorbike is. I am aware of the dangers and risks. I came off a few weeks ago during a lesson and i was ok because of the gear I wear. Since then all people tell me is how dangerous it is and how selfish I am when I have kids.

If finally found something I love to do and I bought a little 125 to gain experience and confidence before I go to try for my full license again.

I wrote my first car off and was told not to give up and the best thing I could do was get straight back out before the fear took hold. I hurt myself more in the car than I did on the bike

OP posts:
TheOriginalMagratGarlik · 07/12/2017 15:05

*SMIDSYs

Insomnibrat · 07/12/2017 15:10

I ride. You get sick of the cliche's after a while.

'Oh I couldn't ride I'd kill myself'

Yawn.

Insomnibrat · 07/12/2017 15:12

Although I haven't RTFT as a biker, it's just make me angry.

safariboot · 07/12/2017 15:15

On the one hand you're seventy times more likely to be killed on a motorbike than in a car. On the other hand it's still unlikely. If you ride 15,000 miles a year, every year from when you turn 20, you'd have about a 10% chance of being killed in a motorbike crash before you're 70.

Dianag111 · 07/12/2017 15:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Dianag111 · 07/12/2017 15:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Dianag111 · 07/12/2017 15:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheOriginalMagratGarlik · 07/12/2017 15:59

safariboot, I believe that the figure is actually 38 to 40 times more likely per mile travelled. That does not account for the fact that unless people use a motorbike for work, the average motorbike will cover approx 3000 miles per year, whereas I believe cars cover on average approx 8000 miles per year.

TheOriginalMagratGarlik · 07/12/2017 16:18

gillybeanz, just reread your statement I quoted earlier. My apologies I didn't read it properly (must put my glasses on). I read it as I think they are dangerous TO other drivers Blush.

gillybeanz · 07/12/2017 21:54

That's ok TOMG.

I can see that young woman now, she was so beautiful with her whole life in front of her.
All it took was that one mistake, that had she lived would probably admitted it was a foolish mistake for a relatively inexperienced driver to make.
I'm sure due to the nature of the accident if she had been in a car would have lived.
It's such a waste, and too many young people die. Sad

Salene · 07/12/2017 21:59

Been a biker all my life so has my husband we both sold our bikes when we had a family three years ago because yup it’s too dangerous and after many thousands of miles done in uk and most holidays abroad on the bike we realised us potential being killed doing a hobby wasn’t fair on our kids

As long as you aware it’s often not if you have a accident but when......and how will you family manage if the worst happen.

Salene · 07/12/2017 22:08

25% of accidents on roads are bikers but only 2% of road users are riding motorcycles so that tell you the risks are pretty high

Every time you set off there is a chance e you won’t come back can you put that feeling into your family to make yourself feel better..??? That’s why I sold my bike, I want to see my kids grow up

TheOriginalMagratGarlik · 07/12/2017 22:53

gillybeanz, did I say the rider died?

The rider was experienced and advanced trained. Can you explain to be where her "foolish mistake" was because if you can, you are doing better than the police who apportioned 100% of the blame to the car driver. So who exactly was dangerous?

TheOriginalMagratGarlik · 07/12/2017 23:06

oh, and given how the driver came out of the junction (into the wrong side of the road), there is a good chance that in a car there would have been a full frontal collision given the relative lack of ability to manoeuvre a car vs a bike (you will note the bike banking to the right to avoid collision even before the car pulls out of course?). In a full frontal collision, the person on the main road could have lost her legs. Yeah, that's so much better.

Snotgobbler99 · 08/12/2017 00:59

Let me annoy everyone...

I'm a biker with over 40 years of riding experience, in fact I've never held a car license. I still do over 5,000 miles a year and haven't had an accident for over 30 years (I'm not saying it couldn't happen, just observing that it hasn't). I also ride a push bike...

If anyone told me I was irresponsible riding a bike, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves for being self righteous hypocrites. Directly or indirectly, cars kill tens of thousands of people more per year than bikes ever could. Cars kill because vast numbers of car drivers are irresponsible and inattentive twats. Cars also kill millions by polluting the environment.

The dead tend not to get a choice how their killed but the vast majority of people who are killed by cars aren't killed due to their own error, the error is usually made by someone else - another car driver...

TheOriginalMagratGarlik

Having said the above, the rider in your video - www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5HbBszfHpo - bears some responsibility for the accident . A more experienced rider would, I believe, have avoided it.

If you look carefully, the biker made the mistake of failing to slow for the first car exiting the junction and changing direction to 'ride around' the back of it. This put the bike on a collision path with the second car (who should have stopped at the junction but didn't).
A more experienced rider would have slowed to make certain the first car cleared the road in front and not changed direction. Had the first car stopped suddenly in the path of the bike - because it was for whatever reason unable to join the traffic opposite - the bike would have hit it, given speed it was going in the wet.
Slowing down would have avoided both potential collisions... The biker took two gambles on how both cars would behave and the second gamble didn't pay off.
NB The second car driver would still have been held liable by the Police - for failing to stop at the junction.

Just remember, all car drivers are ignorant, murderous, twats (see above) and hitting anything a bike hurts like fuck.

TheOriginalMagratGarlik · 08/12/2017 05:32

snotgobbler99, the rider does approx 15k miles per year and has done so for many years (not exactly young as assumed). The driver was driving without due care and attention, not just failing to stop at a junction.

You are making the assumption that the bike has not slowed, a but if you look, you can see the speed of the bike (40mph) on a major 'A' road, there is only so much further that it would be appropriate to slow down before the junction before you actually encourage the cars to pull out. Even in the wet, it is still a major A road. Changing direction (in addition to losing speed - see above) has an added purpose of allowing lateral movement of the lights which can make bike lights easier to see and in addition with the horn warning means it is extremely unlikely that the second driver did not see or hear the bike.

TheOriginalMagratGarlik · 08/12/2017 07:51

The other point that I believe you missed from this clip is the angle at which car 2 pulls out of the junction. Car 2 actually pulls out of the junction into the wrong side of the road (cutting the corner). Had the rider maintained position in the centre of the lane, the collision would have been full frontal and almost certainly a very bad outcome for the rider.

PerfectlyDone · 08/12/2017 08:06

The multitude of anecdote does not data make.

Data supports that a. cars are far more lethal to other road users than any other vehicle and b. bikers are at far higher risk of injury and death on the roads.

Some people will accept higher risks than others.
Some people are luckier than others.
some people are more careful than others which may skew the odds in their favour but only as long as they are not on the receiving end of somebody else's mistake.

Peanutbuttercheese · 08/12/2017 08:52

I had a motorbike and commuted 28 miles a day on it. I skidded on a patch of black ice and had suspected fractured knee caps and bashed my head on the kerb. Left knee creaks to this day. I never rode a motorbike again.

It's a shame as it is an amazing feeling being on a bike.

Snotgobbler99 · 08/12/2017 13:05

TheOriginalMagratGarlik

Sorry but you're seeing what you want to see. The car driver was clearly in the wrong and legally liable - but that doesn't mean the biker couldn't have avoided the collision. On a bike, it's better to avoid the hazard completely than being 'legally in the right' and picking gravel out of your teeth.

If you watch the second car (as the biker should've), it doesn't slow as it approaches the junction, a sure sign that it isn't going to give way but will continue into the main road. The bike didn't introduce lateral movement to make itself visible, it did it purely to pass behind the first car, in order not to lose speed. Any lateral movement should have been done before the beginning of the video. (NB The lateral movement concept only works if you weave - by changing direction more than once. From the second car driver's perspective, it could even have read the biker's single lateral movement as an intention to turn left!).

As for it being an A road, it doesn't matter. You ride according to the potential hazards and not to what the Highway Code says. A biker who rides without responding to potential hazards will always come off worst - it isn't "defensive".

The biker should have been slowing for the first car and if that meant that the second car decides to pull out as well then tough tits, that's what fucking arsehole car drivers do, all the fucking time. Give it a long blast on the horn and a nice big wanker sign and ride on... More importantly, not slowing put the bike into the path of the car at too great a speed to stop. Having spotted that the second car had no intention of stopping, I'd like to think I'd have been doing 20mph or less some way before I reached the junction, whatever the speed limit, and been able to stop if required.

As for the horn: The standard driver reaction time for a driver is 2.3 seconds, the biker hits the horn less than one second before the collision. What the use of the horn actually indicates is that the biker spotted the hazard too late.

The reason the second car pulls into the wrong lane is because it's, belatedly, trying to avoid the collision... (And there's no point trying to second guess the best way to hit a moving car; glancing or full frontal, it's a bad idea).

One of the concepts in Motorcycle Roadcraft is "taking command of the road" and, in part, this means taking up space and acting as if you are a car yourself. If the biker had been in a car she'd have slowed down for the first car and not tried to nip around the back. Car drivers expect bikes to behave like other cars, they don't understand the rapid acceleration and changes of direction a bike can make (that's why weaving towards a junction works and why bikers should be careful using acceleration/direction changes when near to cars). The biker expected the second car to spot her and when it didn't she had nowhere left to go and so, even though it wasn't her fault, it was her error.

I used to make the same kind of error over forty years ago when I started riding. In retrospect all of my accidents then (all legally someone else's fault) were completely avoidable, although I would never have admitted it at the time. I learnt through bitter experience that 'being in the right' when in collision with a car doesn't save you from getting seriously hurt.

TheOriginalMagratGarlik · 09/12/2017 00:33

snotgobbler99, only just finished work for tonight. Will respond in the morning when I'm fully awake.

user1492877024 · 09/12/2017 16:54

*exWifebeginsat40 Thu 07-Dec-17 13:23:01
the ‘at least my loved ones would know i died doing something i loved’ is pure bollocks. you will be dead, and they will be devastated.

interested to know how the PP that rode overland to India in 1995 passing through Iran. i had a truck and wanted to do that route the same year - except Iran didn’t issue visas to females*

Hi,

That was me. I had no problem whatsoever getting a visa for Iran. However, I did use an agency to obtain all necessary visas as I was very limited on time. Indeed, as a lone female, I rode my BMW 100GS from England to New Delhi in 24 days (7049.2 miles) then onto Bombay, where I shipped my baby back to the UK and I flew home. I also met a couple driving their Land Rover overland to India, so clearly the female also managed to get a visa. However, I also know others who struggled.

TheOriginalMagratGarlik · 09/12/2017 17:06

With all due respect, you are making a number of assumptions based on a very small insight of what happened in the less than a second prior to collision (rather than seeing the full video, which I have seen and which the police did see btw). Hindsight is always 20:20, especially when you can reverse-engineer a solution to the problem.

First and foremost, you mention that one of the concepts of Motorcycle Roadcraft means “taking up space and acting as if you are in a car yourself”. However, this is not the case. The fundamental concept of motorcycle roadcraft is IPSGA, the P being position and being a motorcycle you can (and should) take up different positions on the road based on the information you have available to you (the I). A car does not have the possibility to move around the road in the same way, meaning for a car the P becomes pretty much redundant. However, the P enables you to feedback into “I”. If you were to “act as if you were in a car yourself” filtering (amongst other manoeuvres) would be neither advisable nor legal.

“If you watch the second car (as the biker should've), it doesn't slow as it approaches the junction, a sure sign that it isn't going to give way but will continue into the main road.” - What is not shown in this clip (which should have been, a fault of starting the clip not showing the few fractions of a second prior) is that as car 1 pulled out of the junction, car 2 did slow and stop (away from the Give Way, but still stopped). He only started to pull out in a single movement once car 1 almost completely cleared the junction. I realise that I should have included that few fractions of a second earlier in my clip and will upload that so that this information is clearly shown. Given that car 2 was stopped albeit short of the junction, there was no reason to believe at that point that he intended to pull out.

“The biker should have been slowing for the first car” – there was sufficient time and space for the first car to pull out and clear the junction, especially given there was no traffic in the opposite lane. In a car, I don’t believe most drivers would have slowed (at least not significantly) for the first car either because there was enough space for a car to pass too.

“I'd like to think I'd have been doing 20mph or less some way before I reached the junction”. Really? You would approach every junction with cars waiting on a major A road (national speed limit) at 20 mph or less? Then you run the risk of being rear-ended by the car behind you because you are slowing down to a fraction of the speed limit unexpectedly. I have never seen a rider who slows down on passing a junction to that extreme purely on the basis of there being cars at the junction.

“As for the horn: The standard driver reaction time for a driver is 2.3 seconds” – that is the standard driver reaction time when they are not expecting something to happen. At a junction, a driver should be alert to the fact that something could happen and therefore that reaction time should be somewhat shorter.

“Having spotted that the second car had no intention of stopping” – as I said earlier, having seen the full version of the video, rather than this shortened clip. The second car did slow and stop for the junction.

“The reason the second car pulls into the wrong lane is because it's, belatedly, trying to avoid the collision...” – Actually, my belief is that the driver cut the corner in order to “beat” the car out of the junction that was approaching from the opposite direction. This would also be consistent with the fact that he slowed and stopped slightly away from the junction prior to making a single move to hurry out rather than rolling forward.

All that said, as bikers we must always spend the time evaluating both our own and others’ reactions and learning. Our constant consideration of what we do and why we make the decisions and choices we do make is what ultimately will help keep us alive. Complacency has no place in motorcycling will never have a happy ending. If this clip promotes discussion of what can happen at junctions from the perspective of both riders (none of us can ever claim to be perfect riders) and car drivers, that can only be a good thing.

However, you mention that a more experienced rider (without actually knowing the experience of the rider in the clip) would have been likely to have avoided the collision and yet research shows this not to be the case. Prof David Crundall showed that, “experienced riders chose faster speeds, often over the speed limit, especially when approaching junctions with good visibility”.

If only car drivers would give the same consideration and attention to their driving, as (the majority of) bikers give to theirs (as bikers, we do sit and analyse what happened, what went wrong, what went right, what nearly happened etc - I don't know (m)any car drivers who do the same), the roads would be an awful lot safer for all of us.

user1492877024 · 09/12/2017 17:15

TheOriginalMagratGarlik

Great post. I agree with everything you have written. If I had my way, I wouldn't allow anyone to drive a car unless (a) they had spent considerable time riding a bicycle and (b) spent time on a motorcycle (meant tongue in cheek of course). However, despite joking, I do think that experience makes for a better car driver.

TheOriginalMagratGarlik · 09/12/2017 17:18

This, which happened only a few days ago is a reminder that none of us on motorbikes should get complacent www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news/general/fatal-collision-a4-bath-road-wargrave/

Sure, there's no other feeling like it and we all go through life with a certain risk threshold which is higher for some than for others and sometimes things can go wrong and we must be respectful of that.

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