Witness

[312 Sprinter]

It doesn't seem to me to be primarily a question of whether or not a car driver is worse than a bike rider in terms of roadcraft. There are two basic facts. Firstly there are some truly terrible bike as well as car drivers around. Secondly a small error of judgement on a bike is a lot more likely to end up with serious consequences than a small error in a car.

I don't ride a bike myself, I decided a long time ago that I simply don't want to deal with the consequences of coming off. A conclusion reinforced a few years ago going to pick up a bike for the widow of a colleague.

He'd had a fatal accident when he came off his bike. According to the Police he'd come off going round a bend. It had just started to rain and he'd simply misjudged the grip available to him. I was expecting a completely crumpled wreck. In fact the bike had a few superficial scratches. He'd died because he slid into oncoming traffic.

Equally I can well understand the OP being upset at seeing an accident. I found the body of a motor cyclist in the road in France a few years ago. I was in the South of France. It was getting dark and I wasn't far from the hotel I'd booked. Norah Jones' Come Away With Me was playing on the CD in the car. I was looking forward to a nice dinner, a decent bed and a glass or two of wine.

The road dropped down into a village and as I came round a bend and I saw someone lying in the road. I jammed on the brakes, pulled the car across the road so no one could hit him and put on the hazards. There were people running up the road towards me and I could see more hazard lights. I got out of the car. Under the light of my headlights I could see he was a motorcyclist. Visually he wasn't horifically injured, but his head was at a very strange angle. I got down on the ground with a guy who'd run up from the accident. But it was clear he was dead and beyond help.

The Police arrived after a few minutes and put a sheet over him. They asked if I saw the accident, no. Did I hit him with my car, again no. They had a quick look at my car and they sent me on my way.

When I got a few hundred yards down the hill I could see what had happened. The motorcyclist had come off a roundabout on the wrong side of the road, presumably he was over taking and got himself trapped on the wrong side of the road by a barrier between the carriage ways. He then hit a car head on and sailed over its roof and landed 200 yards up the road. His bike was still embedded in the front of the car.

Now when I hear that Norah Jones song I inevitably remember that guy who never got home that night and wonder what and who he left behind?

the statistics are quoted by another member in this thread, vast majority of accidents involving bikes and other road users, are not the fault of the biker, findings by the authorities, not bikers.

agreed that all can improve their road skills, but i still maintain that bikers are better equipped to drive cars that pure car people, due to biking being more involved, again, my thoughts are given credence by facts quoted above from official findings.

and surely it can be seen that all road users have a moral duty to safeguard each other, and the car driver aggressively defending 'his' road space against another car is crazy, but against a bike is unacceptable.

 

[Charles Morgan]

This is going nowhere but a bad place.

I'll close the thread if there is agreement for me to do so.

(I dont want to appear to be abusing moderation powers but there's no-one else about )

I agree. It serves no useful purpose now, and with regards to the original post, I have sent in my witness form and await developments.