Suspended term for 156mph motorbiker

[marinyork]

Why did the bike need to overtake anyone to begin with?

You can't just minus the speed. Assuming the cars were doing the speed limit there would be no need to overtake and it would not be safe!

I'm guessing you think the car didn't check their mirror properly? It might be seen as a minor thing but it had my Dad off his motorbike a few years back. It's a minor thing, but terrible results.

It's only a minor thing in that people say yeah that was a bit naughty but no one came to any harm. Well they did in this case. I've no idea whether the astra driver checked their mirrors or not. If people want to take such risks, that's upto them but as I say time and time again if it doesn't work out it's their fault and they should take a punishment. One motorbiker died, the other has been banned and received a suspended prison sentence.

As for the speed, this is perfectly true, there wasn't any need to do it. However I'm talking about in the moments leading upto the impact. When you've got there and some moron pulls out (which is what we're guessing is what happened) you have much more limited options. That's what we're talking about and in the accident sense the astra driver has a lot to answer for. It's also a reason why you shouldn't speed. It's also however why you shouldn't do dangerous overtakes when someone else is trying the same.

One of the problems with this forum is that some people on this forum seem to like disecting gruesome accidents and want to judge it in a very black and white view. Ooh he was a speeding motorbiker, that's 100% his fault, oh it was a bus driver, clearly he's a hero and no fault can be apportioned, oh that HGV was in a cycle lane and cycle lanes are crap and that cyclist was using it, it's totally the cyclist's fault.

 

[marinyork]

The bike did actually need to slow down to avoid a crash. His wreckless riding had committed him to the collision.

I'm guessing that by that time it was far, far too late.

If we take the motorbike out of it for a second and replace it with a car. In those circumstances it'd take on the classic overtake on a fast single lane carriageway and the police would have done all three vehicles including the astra.

 

[marinyork]

The driver of the astra for doing a dangerous overtake and causing death by careless or dangerous driving (it might be dropped and he'd get some other punishment). The driver of the front motorbike which in that case would be a car and assuming say one of his passengers died and they survived (not totally unrealistic), causing death by dangerous driving. The car behind would get done for speeding and overtaking dangerously if there was the evidence, which is more theoretical. There is no evidence to suggest that the camper van was in anyway responsible. With a car though it's also possible that there may be serious injuries or death for people in the camper van .

If you replace cars by motorbikes it takes on the rather sad sort of case we do hear about on A roads where 1 or 2 cars were supposedly overtaking on a single lane fast moving A road and multiple deaths have occured. That we know that the bikers were extremely reckless and doing speeds much higher and arrogant enough to film it doesn't detract from the tragedy or that it was slightly more complicated than "some nutcase on a motorbike kills himself".

 

[marinyork]

Yeap.

If the astra driver hadn't pulled out the motorcyclist would still be alive until a couple of miles down the road where some other predictable and equally gruesome fate might of awaited. The actual accident does seem to partially be the astra's fault though.

 

[very-near]

No they wouldn't have, the rider was doing near enough 90mph close to 100mph if you take into account the margin of error.

It's very hard to make a judgement of the POV of the Astre driver becuase of the speed at which the Biker was going.

The Astra had their indicator on and the rider started to slow down, if he would not have been going at such an insane SPEED then he would still be alive.

If the traffic was already doing 60mph, and the Astra was doing 70mph, maybe even 75mph or 80mph given the distance it had to complete the maneuver safely, the disparity between the Astra and the bike isn't that great to scrub off given the braking power of the bike. The likelihood is that the Astra pushing into the path of the bike as it came past was that which caused them both to collide.

This is borne out in the lower speed of 78mph indicated on the camera in the 2nd frame which is only 4 seconds apart between the bike being behind the Astra and colliding with the Camper.

 

[thomas]

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/hom...alks-free/article-1071747-detail/article.html


skip to end for crash. I'll have a better look later and give opinions.

 

[02GF74]

astra pulled out without looking in mirrors I'll bet. dpeed could have been anything between 80 and 100 mph, not outrageous.

 

[CotterPin]

What Marin says. Having watched the video (a rather gruesome experience) from Thomas' link, if it hadn't been the van it would have been something else somewhere down the road. The motorcyclist clearly thought that everybody else would behave themselves and he would have a clear run.

It puts me in mind of those bike courier videos where the cyclists go hurtling along through red lights, through closing gaps between motor vehicles, the wrong way up one way streets and so on. They, too, are relying on everything else working for them and nothing going wrong.

This video tragically shows what happens when you live by such assumptions. The motorcyclist thought that nothing would obstruct him. It did.

This is why we have these endless and passionate debates about speeding on this forum. Because some of us here recognise in fact that something could go wrong - the van could pull out unexpectedly, there could be something round the corner. Unfortunately there are some other people on this forum who somehow cannot countenance this.

Even now one of them is in self-denial trying to pass the blame onto the driver of the Astra. No - the motorcyclist died because he was going too fast... END OF STORY

 

[very-near]

The Astra wasn't traveling a great deal slower than the bike when it pulled across the bikes path from the vid prior to the impact.

 

[Bman]

Well done for finding the full vid Thomas

...
I think the (driver of the) black car started an overtake at the same time as the motorcyclist was trying the same thing. The motorcyclist had no time to react due to excessive speed. The rest we can work out ourselves.

Rather disturbing description of the aftermath in that article though

 

[thomas]

Well done for finding the full vid Thomas

Well, i got fed up off "well, from 2 still photos I can tell that it's astra's fault...". It was just a quick search but I didn't expect to find it.

The astra does seem to indicate. Other than that I still need a better look.

 

[very-near]

What Marin says. Having watched the video (a rather gruesome experience) from Thomas' link, if it hadn't been the van it would have been something else somewhere down the road. The motorcyclist clearly thought that everybody else would behave themselves and he would have a clear run.

It puts me in mind of those bike courier videos where the cyclists go hurtling along through red lights, through closing gaps between motor vehicles, the wrong way up one way streets and so on. They, too, are relying on everything else working for them and nothing going wrong.

This video tragically shows what happens when you live by such assumptions. The motorcyclist thought that nothing would obstruct him. It did.

This is why we have these endless and passionate debates about speeding on this forum. Because some of us here recognise in fact that something could go wrong - the van could pull out unexpectedly, there could be something round the corner. Unfortunately there are some other people on this forum who somehow cannot countenance this.

Even now one of them is in self-denial trying to pass the blame onto the driver of the Astra. No - the motorcyclist died because he was going too fast... END OF STORY

You are right, but had the speeds been slower, and relative to each other, the bike had clipped the car in the same manner, it would still have ended up in the biker being pitched off.

When 2 cars collide like that, they go bumper to bumper and this isn't a massive issue normally (just a shunt). When a bike strikes an object, the first thing to connect is the front wheel which then creates steering input changing the direction of the bike away from whichever path the force is applied from - if this makes sense.

If the biker was run over by a camper van being driven at 50 mph, and the biker was only doing 30mph when he got pitched off, what is the chance of surviving a 4 tonne vehicle running over him at 50mph going to be - slim to bugger all.

 

[johnnyh]

I can have absolutely no sympathy, totally stupid and dangerous use of the roads. One less lunatic in the world.

 

[very-near]

The bike could have avoided the Astra.

He could have avoided the camper as well if he had bounced to the gutter before their paths crossed.

I am not defending his actions, he has already paid the price for them.

The Astra must share some of it though because his were the actions of undue care and attention IMO.

 

[CotterPin]

The actions of the Astra driver was a moment's thoughtlessness. The actions of the motorcyclist were deliberate, calculated and sustained over a long period of time.