Putting yourself in the position of the rider who fell or the camera owner, you had a choice. Attempt to move out (knowing you have a group moving with you), slow down and maybe stop or navigate a course through the debris.
One of the cornerstones of NS L3 is that you don't have to get yourself out of a tricky situation if you don't get yourself into it in the first place.
My thoughts on the causes. Any time I follow another rider I'm a foot or thereabouts to the offside. I lose some of the benefit but I can see the road ahead. Other than racing is close following downhill necessary? Any fast downhills like that where I've been using a wide shoulder I usually move into the lane exactly because shoulders have leaves, gravel, tyre wires, etc. At downhill speeds even with nobody in front of you they can be dangerous.
So are people advocating that we shouldn't ride in groups? Yes, there's a reduced view of the road ahead, but the benefits of drafting mean you can move along much quicker in a group than alone (up to 3 mph faster for the same level of effort). Also, group cycling is a very sociable affair.
Putting yourself in the position of the rider who fell or the camera owner, you had a choice. Attempt to move out (knowing you have a group moving with you), slow down and maybe stop or navigate a course through the debris.
One of the cornerstones of NS L3 is that you don't have to get yourself out of a tricky situation if you don't get yourself into it in the first place.
He wasnt in a tricky situation, he/they had to make a choice between courses of action. They chose to navigate through the debris, they could have alternatively chosen to treat it as an obstacle and deviate or stop but they chose to go through it. The lead rider rode over it without trouble, the others rode around it without trouble. One rider had a freak event of it flipping into his wheel. Something that you could not make happen, if you were trying to do it!
TrevA wrote:So are people advocating that we shouldn't ride in groups? Yes, there's a reduced view of the road ahead, but the benefits of drafting mean you can move along much quicker in a group than alone (up to 3 mph faster for the same level of effort). Also, group cycling is a very sociable affair.
An article on the Cycling Lawyer blog from a couple of years ago, about a compo case where a rider on another's wheel (going downhill, BTW) didn't avoid a road defect and suffered serious injury. Their compo was substantially reduced for contributory negligence.
beardy wrote:[ One rider had a freak event of it flipping into his wheel. Something that you could not make happen, if you were trying to do it!
I agree it was a freak event. So is getting doored. But I choose to pass cars far enough out to avoid it. Riding over huge bits of debris is also avoidable.
We all prefer to not ride over debris and to keep out of the door zone. However they are not absolute rules and sometimes as the risk is small (especially when you see no occupant or a gap through the debris) you take that small risk, either to avoid a bigger risk or to keep momentum. Calculated decisions that we make in life and certainly no where near the risk that I take to my own safety when I climb on my motorbike or to others when I get in my car.
I am more cautious than most in these respects, in fact an order of magnitude more cautious, yet I know there are risks in life and you can only minimise them not remove them.
Tonyf33 wrote:Bloody newbs, seriously what a douche, how the hell can you not see those VERY large sticks and why oh why were they riding in the gutter in the first place? The carriageway clearly is demarked by the solid white line, why the heck would you ride in the trash section, just asking for trouble. Stupid is as stupid does springs to mind..
Oh come on Tony that final comment is a bit harsh.Haven't we all done silly things.
Last edited by hondated on 5 Jan 2015, 12:23pm, edited 1 time in total.
Totally irrelevant to the incident being discussed I'm afraid.
You think so?
Vehicle hits something caused by another vehicle but not the vehicle itself. The parallel is there, you just dont accept it. I dont accept your off-hand dismissal of it.
Off hand only because I thought it totally obvious what the difference was. Obviously not so I shall explain. If there was more space between your friend and the car in front would it have given him more time to see and avoid the wheel? Answer: NO. If the rider had been further back from the vehicle in front (i.e. the camera cycle) would he have had more time to see and avoid the debris? Answer: YES. Therefore, if subjected to logical consideration, your example is irrelevant.
It is relevant because it shows that the debris moves and can even move far enough to cross a reservation and get you. Being close to the vehicle it comes off does not necessarily mean it will hit you, I have seen stuff bounce over the first cars and hit those further away. Also it shows that having a distance between the other vehicle, or even going in the other direction, will not guarantee your safety either. I too believe this is totally obvious but I dont dismiss your arguments in an off hand way (out of politeness and a respect of the forum ethos).
beardy wrote:If the debris was stationary then that would be so.
If the debris was moving then it is valid.
There does seem to be a starting assumption that these riders were incompetent and a scenario built around that to support it. Putting yourself in the position of the rider who fell or the camera owner, you had a choice. Attempt to move out (knowing you have a group moving with you), slow down and maybe stop or navigate a course through the debris. Every day across this country lots of groups of cyclists are successfully navigating through the debris. One freak accident from the other side of the world doesnt radically change the relative risks of the different courses of action.
Nail, Head, how can the lead rider not see those huge twigs/branches, you could see them from a fair distance away not like they are invisible are they? I've followed close behind someone on many occasions and the size of the obstacle would mean that they should have being seen by the riders behind as well or were they just head down noddies as it clearly looks to be
Incompetent is bang on the money, relative risks..compared to what, other cycling? It's this type of riding that creates more risk because the cyclists themselves have no clue about anything aside from turning the pedals fast and they'll continue to ride like this because they are incompetent & won't seek advice on how to ride properly..
Tonyf33 wrote:Bloody newbs, seriously what a douche, how the hell can you not see those VERY large sticks and why oh why were they riding in the gutter in the first place? The carriageway clearly is demarked by the solid white line, why the heck would you ride in the trash section, just asking for trouble. Stupid is as stupid does springs to mind..
Oh come on Tony that finally comment is a bit harsh.Haven't we all done silly things.
I don't put my head down when in a group on what was clearly a fast section of downhill road, I don't jump from the carriageway to the gutter (& back again), never mind to do it without over the shoulder or under the arm checks, I keep my eyes open for hazards not jerking about like this bunch of idiots. They brought this on themselves by their own actions/inactions, the debris is relatively minor, it's a few large objects that could have easily being avoided even at speed but because they don't have either the riding skills nor the intelligence to figure out risk & hazard perception & why the crash happened they'll carry on making the same stupid errors. My phrase is wholly appropriate IMO.
Last edited by Tonyf33 on 3 Jan 2015, 6:05pm, edited 1 time in total.
This is where the benefits of hindsight come in. They thought that they could steer a path through the debris (including riding over it), most of them did do just that, even while avoiding a flying bicycle. Such non-events of riding over debris are probably occurring all over the world on a daily basis but this one had a freak occurrence that falls outside of what can be reasonably predicted and the damage, while more severe than normal didnt result in injury to third parties.
Though there are several different versions of what happened and one does include a broken elbow for the rider himself.
I can think of several examples of people getting splatted by vehicles on such roads for NOT riding on the shoulder with long term hospitalisation as a reward. There is risk out there, letting a minor risk of a lesser accident turn your policies into taking a risk of a greater danger instead, would be a knee jerk reaction to a rather rare video.
I am not wedded to shoulder, carriageway or keeping moving at all costs. I drift between them as suitable but as in this case what was possibly the better option on entering turned out not to be so, with the benefit of hindsight.
They did have the danger of a slip road to cross and I think like them, at the time, my main concern would have been for vehicles entering on that slip road, at speed, looking to their right and not in front of themselves. A known killer scenario for cyclists.
Finally despite having lived in Australia for a few years, I dont know if cyclists are allowed/supposed to ride in or out of that shoulder.
