Are we ever 100% innocent when involved in a traffic incident

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My tip

if you want to be a better driver..

learn to ride a motorcycle

My observation and anticipation increased massively once I learned to ride..,without a cage around me..
100%.

My dad has been a biker from his early teens and when I’m in the car with him his road awareness astounds me and he’s always said that, as a biker, you’ve got to develop a sixth sense because you’re only one dickhead driver away from death!
 
I was at a busy roundabout a while back in the inside lane. In the middle lane was a fiat 500 full of bints. Swapping mobiles checking lippy ect ect. I just happened to glance down and noticed that her wheels were on full left lock. So I took a chance and bolted forward before her. She then pulled out and managed to hit the kerb were I was 2 seconds earlier !!!! So in the context of this thread if there had been a collision it would have been 0% my fault but it didn't because I was 100% observant (100% by chance :) )
 
My tip

if you want to be a better driver..

learn to ride a motorcycle

My observation and anticipation increased massively once I learned to ride..,without a cage around me..


And if you really want to improve observation and anticipation ride a motorcycle when you are 66, conscious of the fact that a trip to hospital poses a high risk of being infected with Covid 19. I've been out 3 times this week on the bike but I'm being extremely careful.
 
My tip

if you want to be a better driver..

learn to ride a motorcycle

My observation and anticipation increased massively once I learned to ride..,without a cage around me..
Very true
I've never had a accident in car, and one accident on bike in wet weather on my very first bike only me involved :doh: 40+ years ago
Find me some wood quick :oops:
 
I'm still riding at 71. I'm pretty careful (but not necessarily slow... ;)). On a bike, YOU are the crumple zone...
 
The highway code states you should not reverse out of your drive on to a main road but reverse on to it if possible.
(I dont see how one is possible and not the other).

So point 4 is bad practice and poor driver education
Please, a thousand times please..... Read point 4 again. I guess you are possibly showing poor observation skills :)

Regarding your specific point, the Highway Code states that if possible we should always reverse into a driveway and drive out. The reasons for that are hopefully obvious but I guess a picture might paint a thousand words.

Look at our 'stretched limo' marked with the black arrow. My wife ALWAYS reverses that long, largish vehicle into our driveway and yes.... murphy's law always dictates that someone will park a blooming vehicle opposite our drive BUT.. My amazing wife will ALWAYS reverse into that very tight location which looks quite big in this picture.. If she were to reverse out of the driveway, then it will be with a hope and a prayer that no 'deaf' pedestrians are crossing the driveway. Look at the car next door and suffice it to say the lady is American.... :) :) I guess we should be grateful that she drives on the correct side of the road but she always reverses out and we can all see how her view is limited compared to folks that 'drive' out and yes there has been the very occasional near miss. The other car in our driveway belongs to my daughter and note that she also reverses into that space and then is forward-facing when she leaves.

I can imagine folks living on very busy roads that may well have problems with reversing into their driveway, I am NOT in a position to pass comment and will not.

SPX
I’ve only had two accidents and both were 100% not my fault; first one the bloke just shot out of a side road and whacked into the side of my A6 with no warning whatsoever
I am not the judge of your driving skills and will simply ask that if you were riding a motorcycle and that incident happened, would you still be here, or would you be that person laying on the hospital bed saying,
"100% not my fault"

Yes, it was certainly NOT your fault, but 100% not your fault? I would like to see the Google Earth picture before making any type of judgement.

Points 2 and 3 are well worth another read and obviously if there were huge brick walls or houses that came right to the edge of the junction, then I accept, you had no chance to avoid that impact.

I used to call this event as 'clearing a junction'.

By that I mean that in a built up area, as we are plodding along at 30mph or less, up ahead in the distance, on our nearside we see a road junction. As we get closer we simply glance into it just to see if any vehicles are approaching, (I will probably NEVER accept that any vehicle just simply appears). If we are in a built-up area then we are still plodding along at 30mph or less but now we see a vehicle in the side road, We are also still looking ahead but in our peripheral view we note the speed of that vehicle and has the driver seen us? Are the brake lights showing? is the vehicle slowing down? Now is the time to make a judgement and react. What I have listed will only take one or at the very, very most, two seconds to compute to this situation. It very, very quickly becomes second nature, there is no slowing down unless really necessary and no speeding up. It will quickly become just one of many, many skills that are out there waiting for us to 'soak up' :)

Away from built-up areas our driving or riding style will change. We now want to take advantage of positioning!' Positioning our vehicle\bike to get the earliest view possible of these nearside junctions. IIF and only if there is no oncoming traffic, we will move out to the crown of the highway to expose more of any approaching traffic that might be approaching from that side road. We do NOT cross to the offside of the road, we simply very safely move out to the crown of the highway just to increase our view\periphial vision into that junction. We then do what hopefully is now becoming second nature and our speeds will not alter. We might think I am crazy or as nutty as a fruit cake, but trust me, these actions are very quickly absorbed into the noodle and we do it without even realising it. Treat EVERY other road user as an idiot and we might live longer.

I'm not sure but I think back in my time ALL Metropolitan Police that became traffic officers did a spell on motorbikes, this might now have changed, but without a shadow of a doubt, riding a motorcycle will improve forward observation and anticipation. Failure to carry out these simple tasks might quickly end your bike riding days :( The next time you see the Queen or the Prime Minister out on the road, watch those motorcycle escort riders. Watch their heads as they are ALWAYS clearing junctions, looking right, looking left and obviously and most important, looking ahead. to them it is simply second nature and their riding skills are at the very top of the driving game.

Any and all driving courses should very quickly become enjoyable and if we are prepared to learn we can act like a sponge and absorb what is being said. For my advanced car course we had three students in each car, even whilst not driving the instructor would bombard us with all types of questions regarding road signs, speed limits etc etc that we had just driven by and he who got it wrong was fined 10 pence and yup, those fines would keep us in refreshments whenever we stopped at a suitable location, plus it would pay for the end of course booze-up :) :) Apologies for the rambling but I have absolutely nothing better to do.


reverse.jpg

I am dead proud of my good lady, she reverses our 'stretched limo' like the excellent driver she has become. Much respect.
 
I can imagine folks living on very busy roads that may well have problems with reversing into their driveway, I am NOT in a position to pass comment and will not.
I used to live on a busy road, the A410 (Uxbridge Road) in Pinner, NW London. Our house was a fair bit higher than the road itself so there was a short steep slope up to the footpath, then our drive sloped up at less of an incline from there. My wife and I both reversed up the drive, as difficult as it was and more so when traffic was heavy.

Next door lived a lady who some of my elderly friends here may remember - Jessie Matthews. She was, in her time, a famous and highly acclaimed English actress, singer and dancer. Dear old Jessie was a bit eccentric but carried on performing until two years before her death at the age of 74. Somehow it was cancer that ended her life and not her driving. She always drove forwards up her drive, and her technique for getting out was to lean on the horn while she blindly reversed onto the A road. It was up to all the traffic on there to stop for her! Every time we heard that horn we braced ourselves for a crash, but thankfully it never happened.

A few years later I widened our driveway so we could drive up forwards and turn in the drive ready to drive out.

0DB69F13-2CC1-4BC8-9C1E-A4BCB7344FE8.jpg
 
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I’ve survived 24 years....and I haven’t crashed a car, or been hit by a third party, since passing my bike test....
 
I’ve survived 24 years....and I haven’t crashed a car, or been hit by a third party, since passing my bike test....
It's 58 years since I passed my bike test. I've had a few people run into the back of me so I must be doing something wrong. I've sometimes wondered if it's because I look and think well ahead and start to slow down earlier by just easing off the throttle, thereby not giving as much early warning with my brake lights. But twice I've had my car run into at the back when it's been parked in a car park and me nowhere near it, so it can't be that. Perhaps there's an invisible powerful magnet that somehow finds its way into the boot of my cars. :dk:
 
What would you say if a suicidal kamikaze pilot coming towards you on your lane?
Are you partial at blame for head on collision?
 
SPX

I am not the judge of your driving skills and will simply ask that if you were riding a motorcycle and that incident happened, would you still be here, or would you be that person laying on the hospital bed saying,


Yes, it was certainly NOT your fault, but 100% not your fault? I would like to see the Google Earth picture before making any type of judgement.
Yes, 100% at fault, unless you expect me to crawl past every side road when in a 40 zone just in case someone comes flying out?
 
We are all guilty, always, of everything. It's all our fault.
 
Folks, I can only very politely suggest that those that criticise the most, MIGHT, just might, benefit from taking an advanced course.

Just remember my tongue in cheek comment.... You can tell a man he is butt ugly, you can tell a man his breath stinks, you can tell a man he is illegitimate, but woe betide anyone that criticises their driving.

OF COURSE THERE ARE INCIDENTS WHERE WE ARE 100% INNOCENT, but the by crikey and awful lot of these incidents can be avoided by good driving practices.

Clearing road junctions is what ALL advanced riders, drivers do, it is simply good practice.

Having the attitude of 'I'm in the right..... COMING THROUGH appears to be getting more the norm in this modern age.

Politeness, courtesy and good road manners is something we should all aspire to and reading the majority of these posts, there are those that still drive to those standards.

If a car sideswipes us, how many hours, days do we lose dealing with this incident? By good driving, good observation and good anticipation this type of event might, just might be avoided and NO a thousand times NO.... We do NOT slow to a crawl to clear these junctions. An advanced course especially an advanced motorcycle course (sorry, I am biased) yes an advanced course will teach you these skills and as I keep suggesting these actions will be second nature and the only time we react, is when we see that vehicle is NOT slowing for the junction, we see they will collide with us and at 30mph with a modern vehicle, the stopping distance is minimal. especially as we have eliminated the reaction time.

Yup folks will still argue with me and if they are an advanced driver, I will willingly debate these points but otherwise please consider taking this course. You WILL BENEFIT from it.

Accidents never bring forth a good result; let us prevent them as much as possible.

Prevention is better than cure.

Happy motoring to one

John
 
I'm guessing the subject line should have had a question mark in it?

"Are we ever 100% innocent when involved in a traffic incident"​


OF COURSE THERE ARE INCIDENTS WHERE WE ARE 100% INNOCENT....

Isn't that the answer to the question?
 
To respectfully answer your point....

If we are at a junction, roundabout or traffic light controlled location and a car drives into our backside, do you seriously expect me to cast ANY blame on the innocent party?

I would like to think that all reasonable folk will accept that and also the statement... 'I've been driving for forty years and never had a blameworthy accident.' Does not make us a good or highly qualified driver.

An Isle of Man winner was invited to attend a Police Advanced Motorcycle Course and on completion he thanked the instructor as it highlighted a few things he had never thought of and was not really aware of. Yup, the skillsets are NOT really transferable. Unlike some folks, I think I know my limitations and roaring around a racetrack is not for me, but boy do I love watching these extremely competitive riders wringing the neck out of a bike

Folks here out of ignorance keep trying to say they would not slow down to a crawl to clear junctions. that simply highlights their ignorance. When first taking out civilian riders on their extremely powerful motorbikes, we always have to adjust our speeds so they can keep up, and obviously this is outside of built-up areas. Clearing road junctions is eezy peezy ONCE you get used to it and as the course progresses so does the skills of riders regarding getting early views, positioning and overtaking. Good positioning, gives you good observation, good observation allows us to make progress WITHOUT slowing down and yes, this applies to both cars and bikes.

Here we go
 
My tip

if you want to be a better driver..

learn to ride a motorcycle

My observation and anticipation increased massively once I learned to ride..,without a cage around me..

Mine too, but I only began riding a bike at 35, and apart from writing off a Cooper S at 19 (totally my fault, no other vehicle involved - only a wall on the outside of the bend...), I've never had a car accident worth mentioning.

Not so on a bike, and (entirely reasonable) assumption was involved. There's a roundabout on the South Perimeter Road dual carriageway at Heathrow just by Terminal Four, where three lanes go into it eastbound. There's a minor exit on the left, leading only to a manned Control Point to enter the airport airside area, the main road carries on eastwards, and there's a road going off to the right. The left two lanes had painted arrows indicating straight on, the right-hand lane a right turn arrow.

As I approached, there was a car on the roundabout turning right to go on eastwards, and a 7.5 ton lorry, not indicating, just moving onto the roundabout in the left-hand lane; I was in the centre lane, so carried on, eastbound, leaving plenty of room for the lorry on my left. I was doing no more than 30 mph.

It's true that time slows to a crawl... It did, and tunnel vision encompassed about three sq ft of lorry bumper and flashing indicator, coming in from my left and VERY close. There was neither time nor space to lay the bike over and carry on round the roundabout, so I twitched it a little to the right (any more and I would have hit, at a right angle, the six-inch kerb on the exit ) and wound it on fully, but it was too late. The lorry hit me (and the bike) from the left rear quarter; I felt a blow on my shoulder, and being thrown upwards and to my right. The next memory is of lying on my back, breathing with little "ik - or" noises, and faces appearing in the aperture of the helmet.

"Are you all right, mate?"

"I've been better..."

Eight broken ribs, broken shoulder blade, a week in hospital; quite painful until the epidural was set up, but I lived, and was back in the office a month to the day later.

The lorry driver, honest fellow that he was, made a statement that he had been in the centre lane, indicating right, and I had tried to cut him up. The police declined to prosecute, but fortunately, there was a witness westbound on the other carriageway, approaching the roundabout, who had a grandstand view. The police put me in touch with him once the investigation was complete, and his statement had been rather different. He stated that the lorry had been on the roundabout, well over on the left, when its right indicator had come on and it had carried on turning to the right. (He told me I looked like a stunt man, flying through the air and bouncing on my head on the way down...)

That is the only time I've ever used my motoring legal expenses cover, and it was well worth the little extra; if I could have had exactly the same accident every six months, I could have retired there and then.

I learnt three things in particular:

1. Be (even more) nervous of lorries on roundabouts.

2. Don't sneeze with broken ribs; you'll only do it once, believe me...

3. If I ever have a baby, I'm definitely going to have an epidural! :D
 
Mega, mega ouch and those of our contributors that have done the advanced motorcycle course will know what I mean about the 'life-saver' movement of the head.

Your post made me smile so it is my turn to hopefully bring another smile to our faces.

Following major surgery to my spine, I was in a hospital bed with a plaster cast from my shoulder down to my hip and then down one leg. Yup the only way to do a number two was via a number of pillows and a bed-pan. Because I was on a high dosage of morphine I became EXTREMELY constipated until one day........

Judas H priest. I was begging for a caesarean, I was begging to be knocked out, the ward was an old-style ward with about thirty patients, all of whom had undergone major orthopaedic surgery, what a great bunch of folks. As I was pleading for gas, the more everyone was laughing :) Did I mention I had a nurse with forceps grabbing lumps of concrete from my backside??????

The outcome of this saga was I gave birth to an eight-pound pineapple!!!! When that birth came about I remember folks all laughing and cheering. Suffice it to say that bed-pan was full to the top :) This all happened about 27 years ago and a few of us are still in touch. That was only one very funny memory of many incidents that I had to endure in that ward :)

As has been said, 'On a motorbike, it matters not who is in the right, who is in the wrong' Go to any hospital orthopaedic ward and there are any number of motorcyclists all laid up with minor, to life-changing injuries and very, very sadly, if they had done an advanced motorcycle course there would be a chance their accident could have been avoided and yes I know of two good friends who were advanced motorcyclists and they sadly were killed by incidents where they were 100% innocent :(

I have NEVER suggested that all accidents are avoidable and I have never suggested there is a 50 - 50 type blame.
 

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