Biker's death filmed - horrific.

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Pete Owens
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by Pete Owens »

Bicycler wrote:I think the car driver was still to 'blame' for this one if that word is even appropriate in such a scenario. I don't think the car would have cleared the junction had the motorcycle been doing 60mph but obviously if he had been doing half his speed and considered the possibility of the car turning then he may have been able to avoid the collision. I always say that 'blame' is fine for macho roadside posturing over scratched car paint and insurance claims but where people are liable to be injured or killed the question should be whether each individual had taken every reasonable action to ensure the collision did not occur (having priority is not sufficient). IMO both failed in this respect.


Try looking at this from the drivers pespective:

Stop the BBC video at 48 seconds. I don't think it would be unreasonable for a driver to decide at that point that they could make a right turn. The truck is over 200m away and will take about 9 seconds to reach the junction. Did you see the white van behind the truck? That is where the motorcycle would have been on the day. Now roll the video forward to 53s - if the white van was a 100mph motorcycle this would be the time of the crash.

Remember it takes time from the decision to move and the vehicle starting to move - and once you are moving it takes time to initiate a stop - so while it looks from the video as if the driver simply pulls out at the very last minute, the initiation of that manoevre will have been taking place very much earlier before the biker was even in view.
Tonyf33
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by Tonyf33 »

mark a. wrote: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.

So what? I'm an individual not afraid to speak my mind, I can't say the same for other people..I frankly don't care if anyone doesn't feel they can say what they really want to but are afraid to because others might fingerpoint.. :roll: If you think I'm being insensitive..hard lines..this person was selfish beyond belief without a care for anyone on the road including himself and more so his family.
That he then rode at that stupid speed one handed ignoring all the hazards makes him a muppet, an idiot.

That doesn't make me 'wrong' or inappropriate or whatever other descriptive given to me by Ellieb, I will however Ellieb make the point that I never at any point said I was glad that this person died..that makes you the one in the wrong here for suggesting that!! that's akin to me saying I thought they deserved to die.. quite frankly that is beyond a joke and trying to make out I said that is far more inappropriate than anything I've said to describe the actions of the motorcyclist.
However the facts are borne out that he is one less person to mess about with other people's lives!
Vorpal
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by Vorpal »

Tonyf33 wrote:That he then rode at that stupid speed one handed ignoring all the hazards makes him a muppet, an idiot.

It's fine to express your opinion that he was riding dangerously, etc., but there's no reason to call him names.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Byronius Maximus wrote: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.


True.

It's easy to apportion blame *away* from our own positions (I'd have never done *that*) rather than look at the lessons available.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Pete Owens wrote:Try looking at this from the drivers pespective:

Stop the BBC video at 48 seconds. I don't think it would be unreasonable for a driver to decide at that point that they could make a right turn. The truck is over 200m away and will take about 9 seconds to reach the junction. Did you see the white van behind the truck? That is where the motorcycle would have been on the day. Now roll the video forward to 53s - if the white van was a 100mph motorcycle this would be the time of the crash.

Yes I did see the white van, although of course I'mm off to the side of the road.

There is the very real issue that you don't expect vehicles (without flashing blue lights) to be doing 60% in excess of the speed limit on a road - and that's 60% more road covered by an oncoming vehicle. However the bike was visible, it didn't appear from round a corner.

It looks like the driver wasn't stopped in the filter lane, but made the turn continuously from the oncoming lane, although perspective makes that hard to be sure on the video - giving neither party time to observe the other.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
kwackers
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by kwackers »

I don't see what the problem is.

The driver admitted he didn't see the motorcycle and there was no reason that he shouldn't have done. He was prosecuted and found guilty.

As a motorcyclist (and cyclist) I'm frankly more than a little annoyed how frequently stuff like this happens. I ride a huge bright green motorcycle whose twin headlights sit on full beam on bright sunny days yet I've lost count of the number of times I've had to actually stop to let the car that was in the process of cutting across my lane pass. Often without even looking in the direction they're travelling!

If the guy had seen the bike and misjudged the speed then I'd have had some sympathy but he didn't.
Ben@Forest
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by Ben@Forest »

Bicycler wrote:I think the car driver was still to 'blame' for this one if that word is even appropriate in such a scenario...


I think the motorcycle rider was equally to blame. Interestingly, in Germany, where every petrolhead will tell you there's no speed limit on autobahns there is a recommended speed limit:

On motorways, a recommended speed limit (Richtgeschwindigkeit) of 130 km/h (81 mph) applies. While driving at higher speeds is not punishable, the increased risk induced by higher speeds (erhöhte Betriebsgefahr) may result in partial liability for damages.

What it means is that if someone doing 80kmh pulls out into an outside lane without careful observation and a Porsche is coming up at 200 kmh and rear-ends him the Porsche driver is still partially at fault at least in the insurance payouts. And that isn't an example - that's a true incident. I also wonder if the motorcycle rider would be getting quite as much sympathy if he'd hit the middle of the car more squarely and killed, let's say a mother and her two-year-old child.
Bicycler
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by Bicycler »

I fully explained my reservations about the word 'blame' and used it only in the way it is commonly used to mean the majority of the responsibility for the collision. In my opinion that lay with the turning driver despite the reckless speed of the motorcyclist. I can quite see why you may disagree. Note that in your German example that it doesn't shift the majority of responsibility from one to the other it merely allocates partial (though not equal) responsibility to the speeding party. That is roughly in accordance with my view of this incident.

On here we know how hard it is to get the cps to prosecute never mind secure a conviction for the most serious charge of causing death by dangerous driving. In order for that to occur it must have been obvious that the driver should have seen the bike and should not have turned.
kwackers
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by kwackers »

Ben@Forest wrote:I also wonder if the motorcycle rider would be getting quite as much sympathy if he'd hit the middle of the car more squarely and killed, let's say a mother and her two-year-old child.

But he didn't. I don't think anyone has any doubt there were two folk guilty here. One of stupidity and the other of negligence.
If there's any sympathy to go around I think he paid a high price (some on here obviously think "fair") for being stupid while as always seems to be the case the negligent party pays a much lower one.

20 years ago I had almost exactly the same accident except in my case it was a lorry that pulled out from my left to turn right and the road was a 60mph A road. I watched the driver looking to his left at an oncoming car then expected him to check right again as the car passed - he didn't, he simply followed it out of the side road, I hit the truck and was thrown over the top, shattering my shoulder and breaking various other bones. Of course it wasn't his fault - I *must* have been speeding because otherwise he'd have seen me - a story he maintained even when the police report put my speed under the limit. In the end there was no prosecution and it was written off as an accident.

So seriously - is it really that hard to actually check that there's nothing coming? Forget the 100mph nonsense these sorts of accidents happen day in and day out on roads all over the country.
Other than timing there's no guarantee the guy would have been alive had he been at the speed limit whereas there IS a guarantee he'd have been alive had the driver actually paid attention.
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Mick F
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by Mick F »

We have a junction near us, where we regularly turn left onto the main road. Both the road we're on, and the main road are 30mph limits. The viz out of the side road we are emerging from is poor but adequate. Trouble is, often the traffic coming up on the main road from the right is doing well over the limit.

We pull out when the road is clear, but by the time we're on the main road, there's someone standing on their brakes and hooting their horn.

there's no guarantee the guy would have been alive had he been at the speed limit whereas there IS a guarantee he'd have been alive had the driver actually paid attention.
Mick F. Cornwall
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661-Pete
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by 661-Pete »

Tonyf33 wrote:
Ellieb wrote: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
Tony, I think you're missing Ellie B's point. What you posted may indeed be the truth of the matter, but there are times when certain things, however true, however much you feel impelled to say them, are best left unsaid, at least for the time being.

Many times I've drafted a post to go on this forum (or elsewhere), looked at it under the Preview button for a minute or so, then thought to myself "no, I really oughtn't to post that". So I click on the Back button and away it goes. We all get carried away at times. What's posted is posted. Sometimes I've made the wrong decision and posted anyway.

In this case, remember that David Holmes' family, after a lot of heartache, agreed to release the video. That must have been incredibly brave of them. Please don't make it harder for them! Even if his parents are not searching the internet for comments, his friends no doubt are, and stuff like this thread will get passed on.

So - sorry: I'm with Ellie on this one.
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Tonyf33
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by Tonyf33 »

You make the point exactly, some people don't like saying what they think, you've said that about yourself right here...I said what I think and I have no qualms about that, I don't need to wait and say something insipid and weak and meaningless at X point after the event.
IMO forummers need to get over the fact the motorcyclist died and look at the fact that he was a part and parcel of the incident happening through his own wrongdoing, not just a tippy toe over the line but a huge step over that line that could and often does have huge ramifications to other road users/innocent parties.
Blindly ignoring that does a diservice to the rest of us whom want to be safe and stick to the rules

As for EllieB, It's okay for people to disagree, I don't care what others think, it won't stop me from posting what I think, what I object to is a poster (Mark A) making out that I said I was glad that they died..that's bang out of order.
As for Vorpal accusing me of name calling, well I've seen plenty of angry posts on this forum that never get even a sniff of derision when 'name calling' is going on aplenty..motorvehicle drivers, judges, other cyclists all being called out yet I'm the one being told off/berated for speaking my mind about a person prepared to ride his motorbike in a way that was reckless and dangerous..
Because that's fair isn't it :roll:
Last edited by Tonyf33 on 8 Sep 2014, 7:55pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ellieb
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by Ellieb »

As for EllieB, It's okay for people to disagree, I don't care what others think, it won't stop me from posting what I think, what I object to is a poster making out that I said I was glad that they died..that's bang out of order

Errr. Where did I say (or imply) that?
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Difference between saying:
He was reckless, and could easily have injured/killed others (he was clearly carrying enough energy to kill).

And saying:
He was an idiot/moron/....


The name calling and general personal attack is out of place. I don't think that anyone is suggesting that he was blameless, but that doesn't excuse the personal attack.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Tonyf33
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Re: Biker's death filmed - horrific.

Post by Tonyf33 »

Ellieb wrote:
As for EllieB, It's okay for people to disagree, I don't care what others think, it won't stop me from posting what I think, what I object to is a poster making out that I said I was glad that they died..that's bang out of order

Errr. Where did I say (or imply) that?

My apologies if you thought that was aimed at you, I should have made that much clearer, I meant that it is okay for you to disagree with me, the reference was clearly to Mark A's comment that i had highlighted in bold about others not being being glad that the person died and got their just desserts, inferring that I was. I shall edit the post to reflect what i thought I had said.
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