Came Off My Bike Again

[Jambooboo]

Alarm bells?



There was maybe a second (half second?) in between me *fearing* she'd totally be in front of me to her *actually* being in front of me. There was no escape routes to my left or right so I'd have still had to have braked hard and still more than likely come a cropper. At this brief second when I first noticed her bonnet I had one of those moments where you think "Please stay the fuck where you are!" - if she had then there would have been enough of a gap for me to get through.

Fuck knows why she pulled out totally - there wasn't even a gap in the incoming traffic for her to join.

 

[soulman]

I noticed her bonet as she was starting to edge out - at this point I was hoping she wasn't going to totally pull out thus leaving me ample room to get through.

It's at that precise moment I'd have slowed right down if I knew I didn't have the power to accelerate out of trouble. It's annoying when people come edging out like that but you've got to put your own safety first and not rely on other road users doing the right thing. Not having a go at you but the highway code recommends certain courses of action for a reason.

 

[Jambooboo]

It's at that precise moment I'd have slowed right down if I knew I didn't have the power to accelerate out of trouble. It's annoying when people come edging out like that but you've got to put your own safety first and not rely on other road users doing the right thing. Not having a go at you but the highway code recommends certain courses of action for a reason.

It's ridiculously hard to make that kind of split second decision - one moment tinkering along feeling aware of everything and the next being in a situation whereby you've very few options.

If I had braked when I first saw her I'd have probably still gone over. The only thing that stopped me colliding with her was me and the bike going over and any sting in the bikes momentum being taken out when we hit the tarmac. I wonder if I'd have been better off not breaking as hard and actually straight on hitting her.

It's easy to perform an emergency stop when the roads are dry and when there are no other cars around. When it's deadly quiet I practice them as a matter of course pretty frequently - keep the bike straight, apply the front then back brake any you come to a neat clean stop - it's piss easy textbook stuff that I'd perfected on my CBT. It's not so easy when it's wet - the bike still has momentum in it even though the wheels have fully locked and it skids all over the show.

 

[Radar]

Alarm bells?

I don't think Trev had owt to do with the Alarm

There was maybe a second (half second?) in between me *fearing* she'd totally be in front of me to her *actually* being in front of me.

When your spidey sense starts firing on all cylinders, I bet you'll cover the horn a lot more

Fuck knows why she pulled out totally - there wasn't a gap in the incoming traffic for her to join.

Traffic, stress and other drivers acting like arseholes all conspire to make drivers do stupid things, plus I doubt some of them are the brightest pennies to begin with

You often get a situation where the driver is concentrating on the part of the manoeuvre they perceive as being dangerous to them (which is merging into the traffic on the far side of the main road). They're just not thinking about anyone t-boning them from the side. It's the four wheeled version of the ped stepping into the road and looking in the wrong direction. They've mentally labelled this side of the street as clear, so they don't even look

 

[soulman]

It's ridiculously hard to make that kind of split second decision - one moment tinkering along feeling aware of everything and the next being in a situation whereby you've very few options.

If I had braked when I first saw her I'd have probably still gone over. The only thing that stopped me colliding with her was me and the bike going over and any sting in the bikes momentum being taken out when we hit the tarmac.

It's easy to perform an emergency stop when the roads are dry and when there are no other cars around. When it's deadly quiet I practice them as a matter of course pretty frequently - keep the bike straight, apply the front then back brake any you come to a neat clean stop - it's piss easy textbook stuff that I'd perfected on my CBT. It's not so easy when it's wet - the bike still has momentum when the wheels have fully locked and skids all over the show.

I'm not having a go at you because it's a horrible situation to find yourself in, and thankfully you're okay, but you need to make sure that in the future it's not ridiculously hard but relatively easy. That means riding slowly in wet and slippy conditions even if it annoys other road users. If they decide to overtake you or whatever that's their decision and the consequences of it rests with them. Better safe than sorry eh..

 

[Jambooboo]

When your spidey sense starts firing on all cylinders, I bet you'll cover the horn a lot more

Hey my spidey sense is totally firing on all cylinders - it's amazing how atuned you get to things to the extent that it becomes second nature. If say for example I were in single lane traffic and saw someone at a give way junction wanting to join the road then and they're not paying attention I'll give them what I consider to be a polite honk
of the horn (drivers inevitably hate being rebuked though, especially by someone on two wheels).

There are a million and one things I do to maximise safety (using other cars as a 'shield' when able, moving to the part of the lane which makes me the most visible to any potential threat, taking stationary buses wide etc) but in this instance I'm sure that motorbikers who are a hell of a lot more experienced than me on my £1000 scooter wouldn't have handled things any better than I did.

 

[Radar]

There are a million and one things I do to maximise safety (using other cars as a 'shield' when able, moving to the part of the lane which makes me the most visible to any potential threat, taking stationary buses wide etc) but in this instance I'm sure that motorbikers who are a hell of a lot more experienced than me on my £1000 scooter wouldn't have handled things any better than I did.

In a similar vein as soulman above, I don't want to appear to be having a go at you. But the bottom line is you ended up on your arse, and based on how you described it I'm not certain that was the inevitable outcome.

OK, you do suffer additional problems with a low powered bike. That lack of power can hinder you in taking the safest road position. But if, as you say, your spidey sense is working 100% then this accident simply wouldn't have happened. You didn't anticipate that a car would pull out on you. If you had, you'd have been travelling slower, you'd have been covering both the horn and brakes and might even have beeped the horn and preempted the whole thing.

Of course hindsight is 100%, but as a biker myself I feel you have to recognise when you've had a genuine near miss and try to learn from it.

I came within seconds of putting myself in a suicidal position last week trying to squeeze past a truck. In a similar way to your own accident, I was about to commit to a manoeuvre with zero escape routes if it went pear-shaped (just to make it interesting, I threw in crud on the centre line making braking and accelerating hard almost impossible). As sanity returned** and I rejected the overtake, I drifted back behind him, looked further up the road on his inside and saw the bus the truck was about to overtake. He'd have pushed me into the oncoming traffic and that would have been that.

(**) In this case, sanity was a very graphic picture in my mind of the two sides of the trap closing in in a few seconds time and me ending up as pate

 

[Jambooboo]

In a similar vein as soulman above, I don't want to appear to be having a go at you. But the bottom line is you ended up on your arse, and based on how you described it I'm not certain that was the inevitable outcome.

OK, you do suffer additional problems with a low powered bike. That lack of power can hinder you in taking the safest road position. But if, as you say, your spidey sense is working 100% then this accident simply wouldn't have happened. You didn't anticipate that a car would pull out on you. If you had, you'd have been travelling slower, you'd have been covering both the horn and brakes and might even have beeped the horn and preempted the whole thing.

Of course hindsight is 100%, but as a biker myself I feel you have to recognise when you've had a genuine near miss and try to learn from it.

I came within seconds of putting myself in a suicidal position last week trying to squeeze past a truck. In a similar way to your own accident, I was about to commit to a manoeuvre with zero escape routes if it went pear-shaped (just to make it interesting, I threw in crud on the centre line making braking and accelerating hard almost impossible). As sanity returned** and I rejected the overtake, I drifted back behind him, looked further up the road on his inside and saw the bus the truck was about to overtake. He'd have pushed me into the oncoming traffic and that would have been that.

(**) In this case, sanity was a very graphic picture in my mind of the two sides of the trap closing in in a few seconds time and me ending up as pate

I'm not gonna feel like my nose is being put out of joint when being offered advice. I'm not that precious and besides you're both obviously taking the time to try to help (as opposed to 'point scoring').

Anyway...

If I had waited on the inside lane for each car to turn into the junction then I'd have seen the car wanting to pull out and it would have passed without incident. Similarly if I'd only been doing 10mph on the outside lane I'd have been able to stop cleanly.

But, while it's obvious that it would be stupid of me to be ragging the arse off my bike regardless of road conditions similarly I can't be 'Driving Miss Daisy' 24/7. When I did my CBT I asked questions about handling the bike in the rain (the only time I came off my BMX was in the wet) and the instructor said that you act pretty much as you always would and that if anything being twitchy is likely to cause an accident.

I avoid potential accidents pretty much each time I'm on my bike - each time I'm in busy built up areas I spot hazards and act accordingly. My mantra is pretty much to make myself as visible as possible and to put myself in other driver's shoes re: their visibility of me, and to not try anything remotely risky on roads when I've not got 360 awareness of traffic within the next good few hundred yards.

I know I now I could have done better than I did but as you say it's easy to say so in hindsite - ninety nine out of a hundred times it would have passed without incident.

On a tangent...

I did the same journey yesterday and though I know I shouldn't have (and at the risk of getting in shit here for mentioning it!) I instead of turning off to go down the road where I had this accident carried on down the road I was on and got on the motorway. My 'justification' was that it was a week to the day, and it being a Saturday and near a retail park would be busy and full of frayed-tempered people not paying attention.

Y'know what - I hardly ever felt to safe. Stuck it on the inside lane doing about 55mph-60mph and was fine and dandy - no junctions for people to pull out on me haha. There's one slip road on this five mile stretch but it was alright - not saying I'd do it again (at least without being licensed to do so) before people jump on me.

I do need to take more lessons (perhaps an intense course) with a view to getting my DA. I've long wanted to get a Burgman 650 (the executive model with ABS!) - I'm sure I'd feel a hell of a lot safer/more capable on it and the classes involved in getting my DA will inevitably make me a much better rider.

 

[detective-boy]

It shifts some of the blame onto victim - "act in this way and you can expect adverse consequences".

I think we should all be aware of our circumstances and surroundings and how vulnerable to any sort of crime or injury we are.

But that doesn't alter who is to blame if, despite our best efforts to keep ourselves safe, we become victims. It is still 100% the fault of the careless driver or the rapist. We are not to blame at all.