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How not to take a bend

As a motorcyclist I certainly found the images distressing.

Pratt by name and Pratt by nature but that doesn't begin to describe him. I was thinking in terms of something beginning with W and ending in R, I hope he has a hard time in prison. A friend at work was killed in a very similar incident, same sort of popular fast road and a driver coming around the bend on the wrong side of the road. Also jailed but that did little for my friends wife and young children.

No safety gear would save you from injury at that speed. The bike was braking hard enough to raise the rear wheel but that wouldn't help if the car driver was doing 70mph.
 
Pratt by name ...

Did anyone else see the linked video of the biker wellying it down a high street car too close to parked cars then blaming the driver who opened a door ? First rule of self preservation: always leave enough space for doors to be opened.
 
My only observation is that I was surprised because even in the clip the bike is simply not visible until the very last minute.

Obviously the car was in the wrong lane, but it makes you wonder if bikers appreciate just how invisible they are?

I am not suggesting that the biker had any options here that could have prevented this crash (other than deciding to stay home that day...), but I'm thinking that the only advice I can give - based on life experience that comes with age, not on bike riding experience - is that bikers should look-out for any car around them, assume it will deliberately try and ram them, then always ride like they are trying to avoid being rammed by the other car.

That would be hard work... but I just don't really see what other self-preservation advice I could give.
 
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The only option for that biker , if quick reactions were possible, would have been to dive into the field on the left rather than hit the car head on .
Not normally reccomended other option might have been to pass the car on the right , but not generally a good idea as that’s where the car driver would try to go if he recovered control .
 
...is that bikers should look-out for any car around them, assume it will deliberately try and ram them, then always ride like they are trying to avoid being rammed by the other car.

That would be hard work... but I just don't really see what other self-preservation advice I could give.
That's pretty much what all experienced bikers do. And yes, it can be hard work!

In the instant case the biker had absolutely nowhere to go. Once you’re on the brakes as hard as he was, you have no further directional control, and if he'd not been on the brakes he would have just met his fate sooner :(
 
Inexperience of car "driver" evident. His escape route should have been to his right ie into the field. Easy to say but hard to execute in " a panic situation".

Too many times hear of motorcycle/car-van-vehicle head-ons.......only ever 1 loser and s/he is always on 2 wheels. Appreciate that some motorcyclists/drivers can overcook it but car drivers on well known motorcycle routes, especially when a multitude are out, really should know better.

Lad on the motorcycle seems to a totally innocent roaduser and reacted as it unfolded - really was on full "anchors" evidenced by the stoppie. Dumbfounded by the "advice" of the police :wallbash:.
 
^^ Agree - it was for the car driver to leave the road having caused the incident - but with such an incompetent who couldn't even manage a simple corner - little chance of that.
If the biker had attempted that (even with brakes released) chances are he'd have gone down - the under the Subaru.
There is no excusing the car driver's 'driving'.
 
My only observation is that I was surprised because even in the clip the bike is simply not visible until the very last minute.

Obviously the car was in the wrong lane, but it makes you wonder if bikers appreciate just how invisible they are?

I am not suggesting that the biker had any options here that could have prevented this crash (other than deciding to stay home that day...), but I'm thinking that the only advice I can give - based on life experience that comes with age, not on bike riding experience - is that bikers should look-out for any car around them, assume it will deliberately try and ram them, then always ride like they are trying to avoid being rammed by the other car.

That would be hard work... but I just don't really see what other self-preservation advice I could give.

I agree. Always curious why bikers don't ride with low beam on at all times. Would be much easier to spot them (not that it would have saved the guy in clip).
 
Always curious why bikers don't ride with low beam on at all times.
Most do, not least because nearly all bikes produced since around 2005 have headlamps you can't turn off. My current bike is actually fitted with DRL's which are always on unless quenched by turning on the headlamps. However, somewhat perversely, the mandatory DRL law for cars and truck has made bikes even less visible in urban environments because they are no longer the "odd" vehicle with lights on in daylight.

Despite headlight on or DRL's on a bike, drivers still often don't "see" bikes. Interestingly, if I switch on the low-mounted auxiliary lamps on my bike which then forms a triangle of light sources with the DRL's, I find that drivers see me more consistently. The fly in that ointment though is that because of the height of the auxiliary lights they are classed as fog lamps and are therefore illegal to use other than in specific circumstances. So I have the choice of not being seen or to use lamps illegally. Guess what my default choice is? ;)
 
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I ride with my headlight on main beam except in low light situations.

Problem with riding on main beam is that you blind oncoming drivers and it is actually more difficult for drivers to assess your speed. I ride with dipped beam on my Yamaha Tracer 700 which comes on automatically when the engine is running - I have to switch the lights on manually on my Yamaha RD250LC.

Agree with previous posts about the Police having totally the wrong point in their Press release.
 
"South Yorkshire Police's PC Phil Carson said the footage of the crash in April 2019 was released to remind bikers about wearing the correct safety gear."
I would have thought it more pertinent to remind motorists not to take blind bends at 70MPH.

Speaking from experience with the exception of a helmet the only benefit of wearing leathers is that it stops gravel rash. It has no effect on preventing broken bones and the rest when confronted with a 38T HGV. :eek:
 
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The jail sentence and driving ban should have been longer.
 
it is a real shame that the driver was a complete moron throughout that video and completely selfish, stupid and has ruined an innocent biker's life.He could have done many things differently there even after ending up in the wrong lane and veering further to the right and gone partially off the road for example. if the motorcyclist had time to brake , the Pratt had time to take some sort of evasive action . I cant fault the motorcyclist at all . I sometimes find motorcycles riding along the centre line and leaning into my lane but the motorcyclist was blameless here.

Pratt really should have braked as he struggled to get round the corner at the very least. Jeez
 
Problem with riding on main beam is that you blind oncoming drivers and it is actually more difficult for drivers to assess your speed. I ride with dipped beam on my Yamaha Tracer 700 which comes on automatically when the engine is running - I have to switch the lights on manually on my Yamaha RD250LC.

I'm not concerned about other drivers assessing my speed; leave that, and my being aware of other vehicles, to me. I just want the idiots to know I'm there, and in daylight main beam is much better for that than dipped beam.

It wouldn't have helped either party in this accident, though; absent the reactions of a high-class racer, this accident was pretty much inevitable once the car driver cocked up the bend.

Makes you think, though, doesn't it? Apart from the fact that my headlight would have been on, if I had been the biker I would probably have been doing the same sort of speed, and would have had the same accident. I don't think consciously about the risk of an idiot coming out of a bend on the wrong side of the road, I just assess that risk as very small and accept it.
 
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I agree. Always curious why bikers don't ride with low beam on at all times. Would be much easier to spot them (not that it would have saved the guy in clip).

The car driver in that clip was/is an idiot but bikers also do themselves no favours. I wonder how fast that biker was travelling.

Many of them ride with high beam on all the time and it seems like some are even aimed to dazzle oncoming motorists.

I've had bikers coming toward me (left hand bend for me) on or over the center line (usually solid) with his/her bike and body leaning into my lane leaving me very little space on our local country roads. I can imagine someone seeing the rapidly oncoming bike leaning into their lane, feeling squeezed, taking their foot off the accelerator (with the intention of slowing down), lift-off understeer, bike and car meet.
 
Speaking from experience with the exception of a helmet the only benefit of wearing leathers is that it stops gravel rash. It has no effect on preventing broken bones and the rest when confronted with a 38T HGV. :eek:

I've heard, that leathers can keep the internal organs in place well enough until the ambulance arrives....
 

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