Motorcyclists Last Seconds Captured On GoPro

I think this video alone is more hard hitting than all of those crappy "speed kills, car rolls 432 times and hits a school full of children" put together, so well done to the family for having the courage to release it.

Quite simply, the biker was speeding, and more importantly was speeding when it wasn't safe to do so, which meant that he was not in a position to deal with the unexpected.

We have a very similar junction right near where I live, but with the added hazard of it being around a bend and there have been so many collisions there. It is on a very wide NSL road which is easily driveable at 70-80mph+ safely, but when you approach that junction you damn well slow to 45-50mph, hand on horn, foot already on the brake and with your eyes transfixed on the oncoming traffic waiting to cross/traffic waiting to pull out. The biker clearly didn't do this and failed to spot how much of a hazard the junction and oncoming car posed.

Obviously the biker wasn't the only one to blame, with the car driver having to take a very large portion of the blame also for simply just not looking well enough. Even if the biker had been doing 60mph, it is impossible that he would have stopped at the point where the car starts to turn, but he may have scrubbed 20-30mph off his speed before hitting the car, meaning it would have been a 30mph collision instead of a 100mph one.
 
this_is_gav said:
I did it at 60mph and only had a slightly bruised knee.

The driver pulled out of a junction - I saw him look the other way and not once in my direction, but I still had very little time to do anything about it.

Had I been in a car I'd have had some nasty leg damage and an airbag in my face.
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Sounds like you were extremely lucky to be honest, 60mph is still more than enough to kill.
 
MadMossy said:
At 60mph the bike would have covered barely 75 meters in the few seconds before the impact.

Compared to the nearly 200 meters covered in the 4 seconds before impact.

At 200 meters away a bike would have been barely a spec in the distance. There is no way on earth the car driver would have been able to see him clearly and certainly would not have expected him to be in his face within 4 seconds.

You can blame who ever you want, but the single factor that lead to the death of the biker was his speed. The car driver should have seen him approaching though but obviously wasn't looking.
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Your maths only works if the rider was doing 170mph...

In reality the ~50% speed increase means he would have hit the car a second or two later than he did.
 
Elixir said:
Sounds like you were extremely lucky to be honest, 60mph is still more than enough to kill.
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Oh, I agree - it's not the crash which hurts or kills, it's usually the sudden stop. I'm not saying he would have survived at 60mph as I don't know what he hit (other than the car), but there's a massive difference between 100mph and 60mph in both speed and energy when he hit the ground.
 
balky12 said:
Would be interesting to get a detailed map... how far the car was away from the other car when the biker overtook it.

Going by the video biker overtook car at ~1.75 seconds. Impacted car at ~6.75.

5 seconds, travelling at ~50m/s. That's ~250m.

I am not surprised the driver didn't see either the bike or the car... atleast not clearly.
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And if he was doing the speed limit he would have had an extra 2 seconds... And would have still hit the car blocking his side of the road...
 
My view on this as both a car driver and a motorbike rider...

Biker was daft going that quickly especially as if he had done any advanced rider training, or even any decent learning he would have anticipated (and noticed) the junction ahead, and be ready to slow down (and actually slow down) for the junction, not to a crawl, but heck, at the speed limit at least! Though even at 60mph you can't just swerve out of the way as easily as you can with a car.

One thing you learn on your bike, even with lights on, people don't notice you. It's a researched fact called inattentional blindness (http://www.motolight.com/page/481485610) as well as motion induced blindness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion-induced_blindness) seems to affect motorbikes as they are just at the right shape/speed to fall between the gaps so to speak.

This is not a mitigation, it is something that is still being understood/researched, but something bikers need to be aware of and ride more defensively as a result.

Now, the bike had just overtaken a car, which is possibly why he was going too fast, we've all be told to overtake as quickly as possible to minimise TED (Time exposed to danger), but clearly he didn't slow down. However, the "guilty" car driver didn't notice the car that had just been overtaken either. So that is pretty damning evidence, even if he was motion blinded about the bike, he should have noticed a white car! The white car also had its lights on.

When you're cutting across a NSL road, the onus is on you to cross when it is safe, not to make others slow down or change their course. The car clearly just performs the manoeuvre without stopping and therefore can be surmised that they didn't look either.

They're both to blame. The biker should have been riding more defensively, and slowed down for the junction. The car driver was also driving carelessly.

Ultimately though, a young man has lost his life leaving a hole in people's lives, as well as it being on the conscious of the car driver. No one wins, no one is right or wrong - it's a sad event, and finger pointing and apportioning blame adds nothing.
 
Amp34 said:
And if he was doing the speed limit he would have had an extra 2 seconds... And would have still hit the car blocking his side of the road...
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But would have much more extra thinking time and ability to react and perhaps swerve around the back of the car.
 
Why are we letting any vehicle travel at more than the national speed limit?

The photo in this thread shows a dip in the road, it is not level, what if the car and motorcycle were there when the Clio driver looked?

Should all road users be getting some specific training about what they should do in these situations? For example, should standard practice have dictated that the motorcyclist should have attempted to overtake the Clio, while the Clio does their best to make the junction turn?

As someone who had a RTA, cycling into the back of a stationary vehicle on a blind corner and having an alternative Xmas, without being graphic that Youtube clip sent shivers down my spine.
 
Does the car have its lights on If it did then maybe this is why they didnt see the motorbike as it probably just looked to be a car coming the other way. I know it says they didnt see the car but could be a factor in carrying out the manoevre thinking they had sufficient time.
 
this_is_gav said:
But would have much more extra thinking time and ability to react and perhaps swerve around the back of the car.
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Even at 60mph, you can't really swerve out of the way. Besides he clearly wasn't that experienced a rider owing to his behaviour, though perhaps he could have scrubbed off a bit of speed by braking hard (quite hard to do in an emergency on a bike if you're not experienced at it).
 
Had the driver not cut the corner the biker would likely be alive, but had he not put himself in that situation then who knows on the outcome, as others have said his time was only ever going to be limited if that's how he rode!

Poor driving by both party's led to a death, it does show just how easily it can happen.
 
vanandjuanunited said:
Does the car have its lights on If it did then maybe this is why they didnt see the motorbike as it probably just looked to be a car coming the other way. I know it says they didnt see the car but could be a factor in carrying out the manoevre thinking they had sufficient time.
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The driver admitted to seeing neither the motorbike or the car.
 
Surely from a rational point of view, the driver made an error for simply not seeing somebody. The motorcyclist was driving recklessly & in such a way if anybody around him made a mistake he was likely to get killed.

I'd be reluctant to place much blame on a person who was driving reasonably & simply made a mistake - everybody makes mistakes but not everybody drives recklessly.
 
I agree completely... However, the problem is a mistake in a vehicle can (and does) cost lives - people see driving as a right rather than something which takes a lot of attention and skill. Yes mistakes happen, but something as negligent as this shouldn't happen irrespective of speeds. :)
 
It seems to me the case against the car driver boils down to the fact that he admitted to not seeing the bike at all.
Had he/she claimed they saw the bike off in the far distance, checked other directions and then pulled out I'd be very surprised if they would have been charged as it's unreasonable to expect them to realize the bike is covering ground nearly twice as fast as it should have been!!
 
You only get a second to make a choice and sadly his was to ditch and slide a headon is going to wreck you. I mean i paused at 0.05 and his bike is sitting touching the front bumper before impact and i can see a road sign and grass and pause again and he is in midair with it all in view.


He actually crossed the road and landed in the far grass that is a shocking distance to be flung.
 
eatcustard said:
I was on a jury for a similar event biker going 100+ and a van cutting across his path, we found the van drive not guilty in 5 seconds flat.

The C.P.S. have to charge the car driver, as he did cut across the bikers path.
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That sounds rather worrying if the circumstances really were similar. Surely it wasn't 'the biker was going 100+ and therefore no blame attaches to the accused'.
And surely not 'The CPS have to charge the car driver even though the fault was obviously all the biker's because of his speed'

The legal penalty for speeding on a motorcycle is not Death, and if he wasn't dead I'm sure he'd be charged with speeding.
 
those saying that speed kills.. well if he was going 120mph he would've been past that junction and alive ;)

it's 50/50.. he was going to fast/slow(ha) and driver just didn't pay attention before making a maneuver(happens way too often)
 
Shocked how many people in this thread think it's dangerous riding with 1 hand lol, shame about the biker. Irrespective of speed, car drivers fault.

Totally bias obviously as i'm a biker.
 
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