Had an Off Tuesday

A13 Aspen Way, a route I've commuted every day for the last two years. 100 mile round trip.

Usual run off the main carraigeway and on to slip road readying to stop at roundabout, when BMW one series stops roughly 20 meters before the roundabout with no brake lights and no warning, one minute he's moving next minute he's stopped right in front of me, only place for me to go is his nearside rear wing. Smashed him with the right side of the bike, smashed up the left when I hit the deck, the bike and I now lying in left hand lane (slip road has two lanes), luckily the person in the Red car saw me and stopped rather than continuing and turning me to jam.

BM driver gets out and says you ok mate you ok! Me: I'm fine mate, (looked at bike), actually I'm not fine mate, look at my bike! What were you doing?!!

BM: I'm so sorry, I've just picked my car up, literally just driven it off BMW forecourt, I pressed a button in my car and it just stopped, (only thing I can think of is the push button ignition, but still yet to verify if ignition can be switched of whilst moving)

He drives off with slightly battered rear wing, I wait for recovery and stare at broken bike for 2 hours getting abused by drivers for blocking a lane, stopped giving it back after the first 2 vans and car, couldn't move bike, gearing broken.

So damage:

Both bar ends which acted as crash bungs, they took most of the impact.
Front cowl, fairing
Front Indicators
Clutch lever - Brake lever both snapped in half
Clutch - foot, snapped clean off
Brake - foot, bent right round

Sure thats it but waiting for repairers to confirm.

Only damage to me is my pocket when I have to pay my excess, lucky boy.

I thought I'd seen most things on the road but this is a new one and I paid the price.

Be safe, there are some things you just can't avoid.

B*gg*r- at least the bike took the pain and not you.

It sounds very much like his fault, not yours. As long as you don't get done for not leaving a safe distance in front...

So maybe the insurance claim should sort it out.

to be fair though you must of been following him pretty closely? i mean one second he is moving then hes at a dead stop? then you have a smash? to not react in time would suggest that you were either too close or moving to fast.. but if you were moving fast you would of got closer to the stopped car and probably stopped yourself in time.
but i wasnt there and can only speculate lol, hope it works out okay

glad you are ok - thats the main thing

It's not a straight forward rear ender but I've got a witness, I'll soon find out if that helps me.

Good save by the way mate, not much you can do about Oil/Diesel apart from what you did and be quick enough to keep it upright.

I hear what you're saying Lyle, and you are right to a degree, it's a short slip coming off a quick carraigeway, but as cars slow down and stop at the line before entering the roundabout I just thought this guy was slowing down to stop at the line, not slowing down hard to stop 20 meters before the line, and with no warning/brake lights... Tough one, I was no where near him when I first spotted him. It's a really busy intense stretch of road too so with doing all my other checks...

But yeah point taken and It's good to get this kind of feedback cause this is no doubt what a jury would argue. But come on mate bikers stick together, unless you also drive on 07 1 series bimmer and your first name is James haha!

You could at least get a 50/50, perhaps- especially if he admitted fault in pressing the wrong button (though the other driver accepting liability doesn't guarantee a claim success, as I've found before)

Cheers, btw- more panick and kick down- was fortunate I wasn't hammering round the bend (was a temptation!) and had warning with the rear end slipping before it could go sh*tshaped.. I've had a worse one on a newly surfaced r'bout in the rain- was very lucky to get out of that one, was a proper both feet down and try and keep stable while the bike was really skipping about.

Sounds peculiar, cant think what he might have pressed to cause the car to stop like that with no brake lights.. It sounds like you were lucky to get away from it without damage to your legs aswell. Very lucky.

Yeah, the fact that he stopped without brake lights will probably sway things in your favour if it all goes to court.

All this is reliant on him still being honest if it goes to court and saying he pressed something. Most likely his insurance will tell him to shut up and you will lose 100%, even though I personally can totally understand your situation. You can never ride expecting every car to slam it's anchors on without warning all the time, you would have to be miles back and always covering the brakes. Best thing you could have done it get an independant witness to hear him say he pressed something and it stopped dead.