Biker's death filmed - horrific.

[Flinders]

[quote="Erudin"][/quote]

That is a wee bit disingenuous. In 'real life' we aren't dealing with static images, where camouflage is easy. With humans, as with most animals, anything moving draws our eye. The biker would have been moving, so would have been a lot more visible. And our binocular vision would have picked up the change in position and size relative to the background. But I do take the point in general. And if you only flash a quick look, you may still get a very nearly static image, so could still miss something that's moving.

[JenniferAdcock]

My sympathies go to both the motorcyclist and the car driver.

Saw this the other day:

STEP 1
Take a look at this photo
STEP 2
Look closer, what do you see
STEP 3
Share this and help get the message out there
STEP 4
When out driving please take that extra second to look out for Motorbikes

My sympathies also go out to the family of the motorcyclist and the car driver. It is a case of both acting incorrectly, one speeding and the other turning without due care and attention. It is just horrible that the motorcyclist died

I'm afraid with respect to the picture you show - I do not agree with it. Why? The bike rider is in all black clothing, on a black bike. We have an expression for that in cycling - ninja cyclist. Ninja bike riders open themselves to potential to be missed on the road (considering their speed). You do not need to wear some ridiculous yellow outfit when cycling or riding a bike but riding pure Ninja is asking to not be seen in certain conditions.

[Mark1978]

It is also why motorcyclists are recommended to use their headlight at all time and most I see do stick to that.

[jezer]

It's also a growing trend for car drivers to use headlights all the time, which I suppose started with Volvos. My car has day running lights and automatic headlights. They come on quite often even when passing though wooded areas. I'm not sure this is actually a safety feature, as it does sometimes obscure vulnerable road users. Perhaps I should switch them to manual operation?

[Bicycler]

I'm afraid with respect to the picture you show - I do not agree with it. Why? The bike rider is in all black clothing, on a black bike. We have an expression for that in cycling - ninja cyclist. Ninja bike riders open themselves to potential to be missed on the road (considering their speed). You do not need to wear some ridiculous yellow outfit when cycling or riding a bike but riding pure Ninja is asking to not be seen in certain conditions.

Whether you approve of that combination or not, there's nothing wrong with the picture showing the reality of how many motorcyclists dress. Though I think an earlier poster was correct to say that the campaign relies upon the fact that it is a static photograph and a moving motorcyclist would be clearly visible to the naked eye.
As regards the whole "Ninja" thing - I think it's an excuse. I have yet to experience people becoming invisible in daylight by wearing black.

[[XAP]Bob]

Oh no, my feet have disappeared - that's OK, I was just wearing black socks...

[661-Pete]

You know, I can't help but compare this with that other video of a motorcyclist coming a cropper on the Cat and Fiddle road, that went viral a few months ago. Discussion here. On that one, the biker walked from the scene. He escaped with a total written-off bike, a two-year ban and a hefty fine. He should count himself the luckiest man alive. If he'd been a few inches to the left he'd have T-boned himself against the oncoming car, and that would have been the end of him - and quite likely the innocent car driver too.

I must say that the majority of motorcyclists I see, whether on my bike or in the car, have been reasonably sensible and nowhere near such aggressive speeding - these examples are the exception. Otherwise it would be total anarchy on our roads. Some have argued that the biker in the A47 crash, if he'd been doing 60 (the speed limit), he might have survived. If the impact had been at a closing speed of 60, I'd say not, but it all depends by how much he would have been able to brake before impact. He would have had more time to react of course - and so would the car driver.

No need for a plainer illustration of the stark fact: SPEED KILLS.

[Mark1978]

On ride today I stopped at a café and there was a table of motorcyclists all discussing the incident. From what I could hear they were mostly blaming the biker for going too fast which was surprising.

[Tonyf33]

One maybe able to attribute some blame to the car driver, however, the speed of the idiot whom died was by far the greatest contributor to their demise. Sympathy for the family but people need to redirect their negative feelings away from the car driver.(I know he was convicted of death by careless)

In that situation it would be pretty difficult for your averagely competent driver to acknowledge any vehicle travelling at massively excessive speed on a country road like that. The difference between a crash + death and not is less than 2 seconds.
At least 2 seconds from (the video) which the motorcyclist could see the driver already starting to turn in (@4 sec), his reactions were micturate poor, his speed ridiculously too fast for the conditions..and at 6 secs the impact.We are talking fractions of a seconds that made the Renault driver think he had enough time..

The rider didn't give himself any chance whatsoever, what if it had being an obstacle in the road, a deer/sheep/cow/horse breaking out through a fence..or god forbid a cyclist avoiding a pothole..then what!!!
The motorcyclist should have scrubbed off his speed on approach to the junction, he failed to ackowledge the hazards. Going massively too fast for his own skill level that he couldn't even maneouvre more than a few inches. At 30 mph slower he probably would have being able to swerve to the left and still bring it back..but we'll never know.

The muppet is even riding one handed prior to the crash so it was I'm going to ride at speed and 'Stuff you' to everyone else..thank god he didn't take anyone with him!!
one less selfish idiot on the road as far as I'm concerned.

[Ellieb]

Given that the family of the biker who died must have known that it would reveal poor riding from their son, but chose to release the video in order to allow others to learn, I think the tone of your comments are really disrespectful and inappropriate.

[kwackers]

At least 2 seconds from (the video) which the motorcyclist could see the driver already starting to turn in (@4 sec), his reactions were micturate poor, his speed ridiculously too fast for the conditions..and at 6 secs the impact.We are talking fractions of a seconds that made the Renault driver think he had enough time..

The Renault driver never didn't think he had enough time because by their own admission they never saw the bike (or the following car the bike had just overtaken).
There's a huge difference between underestimating someones speed and simply not looking. The driver was prosecuted because they should have looked and should have seen. 100mph is fast but it's not faster than light and a motorcycle with (no doubt) its headlights on would have been visible from some distance away.

I'm not even sure what your point about reactions times is, 100mph is blatantly stupid (which was the point of releasing the video) but there was never any chance of him avoiding the car nor even of scrubbing off much in the way of speed.

[Tonyf33]

Given that the family of the biker who died must have known that it would reveal poor riding from their son, but chose to release the video in order to allow others to learn, I think the tone of your comments are really disrespectful and inappropriate.

Sorry, how is that so? Not one single thing I said is untrue, just because some like to sidle around the fact the person whom died was a massive contributor to his own death by riding DANGEROUSLY AND RECKLESSLY at a massively inappropriate speed you think I should follow suit?

Having had a very near miss in recent times where a motorcyclist cut the bend at 80+mph and have had many many high speed close passes from idiots such as the guy who died I've got ZERO sympathy for him, he had no respect for himself or other road users..you think I'm going to bow to some sort of unspoken rule about not speaking ill of the dead .
I have sympathy for his family, it is they whom are unduly punished here..but to brush this off in the way you are suggesting by not mentioning how much of a threat to life this idiot clearly was is in itself disrespectful and inappropriate.
I rightfully as a road user want to share my thoughts and concerns with regard the shocking behaviour and actions of the motorcyclist, that it ultimately cost him his life is niether here nor there to me, he was an idiot and he IS one less on the road to put mine and others life's at risk!

Yes of course there is an element that the car driver as at fault too..but IMO the majority was the person who died.
That the sentence was on the very lesser end of the scale shows what the powers that be thought about this..despite the district judge Peter Veits saying he did not accept the argument in mitigation that the motorcyclist was doing 97mph! and said it was Austin’s actions which caused the accident. cute little statement that with the dismissing of any mitigation places all of the burden onto the car driver which is absolute houcm!

I'd say the driver of the car partly through remorse/distress was given little option but to plead guilty to Death by careless..they've had no hesitation in pleading guilty.
Having a conscience gets you no-where..it's an easy prosecution without really looking into whom was the main person at fault!

That's my opinion and if you think it is disrespectful/inaccurate etc that's up to you..

[mark a.]

Most of the replies agree that the rider was going too fast, and that was a contributing factor, so we all agree with you on that.

Note that no-one else felt the need to call him an idiot, a muppet or have been glad that there's "one less selfish idiot" - as if his death is a just dessert.

[Byronius Maximus]

While I can understand Norfolk Constabulary's reasons for releasing the video, and I think that it is incredibly brave of the mother to allow the footage to be used, I think the video misses the mark somewhat.

It provides more 'shock' value than any road safety video I've seen, which might serve to make people think momentarily, but what does it achieve? The video only seems to help people viewing it apportion blame to one side or the other, or both, rather than giving messages or advice about what road users can do to avoid such situations. If people had entrenched views about the safety of motorcyclists or var drivers before watching this, those views will only become further entrenched (as shown by the bile-filled post above).

For motorcyclists, I guess the message is obviously to ride with an appropriate speed (amongst other things), but what about car drivers? Look twice? Move your head when looking for vehicles to avoid your natural blind spot?

I don't see any of these messages coming through in the video so I feel it merely has a momentary shock factor which is soon forgotten but doesn't really give the viewer much to go away with to think about what *they* as a road user could do better, rather than looking at a video and talking about what others are doing wrong.

[robing]

Tony f I agree with you 100 per cent. This motorcyclist's behaviour is suicidal and riding in this manner had predictable consequences. It's lucky that he didn't take anyone else out. It's tragedy but a wholly preventable one and the blame is all down to him. I think he was selfish for putting his family through this, but I have no sympathy for him. I see this sort of behaviour from motorcyclists all too often. Especially on sunday runs round here, they speed excessively, overtake in all sorts of dangerous places. Speed kills.