Vid of Road Bike Crash

another fact i think a lot of people are missing here

they drive on the oposite side to us.

unavoidable plain and simple

damn unlucky whatever

just glad she is ok and can show the video as a reminder and not an abituary

peter, come back bro, i still love ya . thing is, she was bloody unlucky but lived to ride another day yeah. look and learn.

Originally Posted by Peter Henry

Gnan...Take another look at the clip..she was barely at the same speed as the car inside her? Hardly speeding to my mind. Plus remove the fact that an incident was to happen,observe her road speed,are you telling me that was excessive?

*Jeez I know at times it must seem like I am defending the virginity of my own sister here!*

difficult to say for sure because the camera distorts it.. there is a difference between excessive speeding (speed over the speed limit) and speed that is not sensible but may be under the limit! i think the latter is the case, but still very tough to call for sure..

i'm not saying it was her fault at all, it blatantly wasn't.. but maybe she could have gotten out of it with a bit more concentration and subsequent speed reduction? it would be interesting to see the accident investigator viewpoint or from those who have had advanced training like ROSPA/IAM/Police etc.

Originally Posted by Peter Henry

You dropped your little scatter grenade and then left sharpish tonight. A shame,despite how it may seem your twisted logic does not make me annoyed but simply exasperates me.

I didn't go anywhere.
Exasperated or annoyed, you seem more keen on making personal remarks than actually refuting my argument.
Ok, you disagree with me, hardly cause for histrionics.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't make personal remarks about me. If you really disagree with me so vehemently, then why aren't you making these remarks about the others who have agreed with my points?

At no point did I say the accident was the riders fault. Nor did I say that I would/could have avoided it. I have merely stated that I believe the accident to have been avoidable. I've based that on what I can see in the video, since that's all the evidence I have available.

mal..ok bro!

Carsick wrote:

Yes, very constructive.

But Michael you are not at all are you in essence? Well over 90% of people that have commented on both this forum and the southern california one, acknowledge that she simply was dealt a bad hand. But you appear determined not to even consider that?

I am quite happy to state that I think that given that exact same situation I would have got walloped also. Under braking you are extremely limited as to the steering input that you can apply and so frankly she had no chance.

The thought that her crystal ball should have warned her that she needed to be wary of a tall, dark, Honda Civic driver 3 days in advance...simply does not wash.

I only hope that your theories work to your advantage some time and avoid you suffering a similar fate to that poor lass.

i actually agree with Carsick !! it wasn't her fault but based on the evidence in the video of the relatively high speeds it could have been avoided as she left herself no escape route by riding almost parallel with the car in the right lane... i suppose these are things that the best riders think of (not me!)

[21QUEST]

Originally Posted by Peter Henry

I wonder how you would like us to comment should,(heaven forbid in truth) you are ever pulled out on by a car and you ram straight in to the side of it? Of course we would have to explain the error of yours ways in similar fashion won't we?

Peter , that is a very good question. I do think sometimes we don't spend enough time on if/how an accident could/may have been avoided precisely because of fear of the quote below.

Originally Posted by Peter Henry

......your suggestion on this Michael is flawed and indeed in bad taste.

(not having a go by the way)
I know it's not an easy thing to do especially if it's someone you know but IMHO it can actually can be helpful for the person involved as well as other riders to analyse the accident to see if one could have done anything different.

Anyways , hope in the mist of the discussion folks have learnt something. This for example

Originally Posted by Sid Squid

Just to say that there are a few clues for the experienced to see, consciously or not. As I wrote, just running into the traffic line in that situation with cars around me I'm already very defensive, particularly as the gap in front of me isn't getting tight it's a guaranteed magnet for the impatient in the lanes either side.

Now about being quite possibly avoidable , having watched it a number of times I would still say up to the point just prior to the car starting to get out of shape most would now say that the were bad signs which were ignored. The rider herself says so. When we fail to heed bad signs(I've certainly been guilty of that) then you have more or less just rolled the dice.

Normally if I have a bad feeing about a car but for one reason or another fail to fully heed the warnings , I'll be keeping a close eye on it till I'm past it.

At approximately 51-52 sec you can see the car is catching up with the car in front of it just that little bit too quick so I'm backing off the throttle(and taking stock of what's around me). Why ? I'll be half expecting him to do something silly so I like to check what my options are.

At 53.5 secs you'll see the car just starting to get out of shape and at the point because I'm watching him I'll be completely off the throttle. She does not seem to 'back of' the throttle till about a sec later(losing precious time). She chose to go for a gap which was closing all the time having lost time not breaking early and hard enough. Personally I'm confident I would have slowed down suffuciently enough to avoid the car either by stopping completely before contact or having pretty much come to a stop be able to swerve without much drama.

How does one put this 'It does not sound like plenty of time but it is plenty enough if one is on the case' She just made the wrong choices in a situation other choices would have be better.

Oh... and rear wheel slide you mentioned I've used that myself a few times as a way of avoidng object or people I'll rather not come in contact with.

Cheers
Ben

ps:There are better/faster riders than me for sure but to be honest my road survival skills are better than a lot of people.The simple reason being I've had a some experience of honing particular set of skills(under pressure sometimes I may add) being a courier(all be it not a proper one ). Situations where a lot of people though good riders would panick I tend not to.

peter......heavy mate, positive feedback

as suggested, still think he was using phone, radio or something to react so abruptly.

Ben...great post mate.Some interesting points made there.

Well gnan..the lady in question has 50'000 miles on that R1 of hers and she also races too. So her experience and knowledge not enough for you? If your thinking is correct and aligns with Carsick then we must never ride with another vehicle at our side? So what do we do constantly hammer simply to advance to a position where no other vehicle is anywhere near us? Let's see that work in practice!

Again too fast? You only say that with the knowledge that she did eventually have a fall.If that was just a video of a rideout you would have fast forwarded right past that bit.


Maybe my ignorance is drawn from the fact that unlike yourselves I did not pass through CBT or DAS training and understandably my riding knowledge would be somewhat suspect.

I believed I was being fairly constructive. I suggested what might have gone wrong with the car, then I suggested a point where it seemed to me that it could have been avoided. You've done nothing but abuse me personally and very little to argue against my specific opinion.

Ok, 90% disagree with me, like I said, though, does that mean I should shut up? Two people whom I know and respect have voiced some level of agreement. The rest I have little to no knowledge of.

I have no doubt that I would have suffered the same fate as her. Does that make any difference? I would probably have allowed myself to get boxed in as well. Does that make any difference?
How I would have dealt with the situation if I were in her shoes isn't relevent to what I was saying. We have the benefit of this video. Why not try to extract as much useful information as possible from it?
Saying that there was nothing she could do doesn't gain anything other than give everybody a nice warm feeling that they're being sympathetic to what happened to her.
If I have an accident and I could have avoided it, I'll be damn ****ed off if my friends don't point that out to me.