[matt_320d]

BBC News report here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-29064891

The attached video released by Norfolk police shows a collision between a motorcyclist and a car turning right. The motor cyclist was killed.

The driver, however, got convicted of causing death by careless driving.

As many of the people on this forum are fans of, shall we say, enthusiastic, driving...what do we make of this?

Idiot driver turning right?

Idiot cyclist going too fast?

Difficult to assess exactly how fast he was going, but I do actually wonder whether it's possible that the driver of the car literally couldn't see or avoid him, given the speed he was coming at.

That would make it rather unfair of them to be convicted..

On the other hand, you should never put your car anywhere you're not sure it's safe for you to go, and it was the cyclists right of way...

Opinions?

[Tengocity]

Video says he was doing 96mph. It's clearly much faster than the speed limit of the road but not so much that he couldn't have been seen by the car driver.
I can tell but think that they'd have worked out the maths of the situation in relation to where he was on the road at the point the driver made the decision to turn right.
However it does seem a bit harsh as I can imagine many drivers just wouldn't be expecting a bike at 100mph there and hence looking that far up the road.
But then if it had been a car and not a bike I expect they would have been seen then.... Interesting as to who would have been charged had it happened to be a car and both drivers survived... Would both then have been charged still?

[MarkG_M5Comp]

Careless driving offences vary widely so this is absolutely the right charge on my view. CPS guidelines say:

"The least serious group of offences relates to those cases where the level of culpability is low - for example in a case involving an offender who misjudges the speed of another vehicle, or turns without seeing an oncoming vehicle because of restricted visibility."

For this level of offence the penalty is some form of disqualification and a community order. I think that's right and just.

In my opinion (as both a driver and rider) there is no excuse for turning on a bike like this; sure, visibility was restricted and the speed was a huge factor but the driver did not pause for observation and therefore failed to effectively risk assess that junction.

It's a tough one because the bike was going way to fast - especially across a junction like that - but as I said already, in my opinion there is no excuse.

What I find a pity is there was an 'out' for the rider, a slight turn to the left and he would have barrelled into bushes. Potentially the same outcome but a slim chance of survival rather than the zero chance he had with the car. This to me highlights he too failed to fully risk assess what he was doing.

Translate this into 'spirited driving' and the single most important part of driving quick is 'leave yourself an out' which is a mantra I stick to entirely - never drive so close to others that you couldn't avoid them if the worst happened and drive only as fast as you can see ahead.

This is very tragic.

[matt_320d]

Originally Posted by Tengocity

Video says he was doing 96mph. It's clearly much faster than the speed limit of the road but not so much that he couldn't have been seen by the car driver.
I can tell but think that they'd have worked out the maths of the situation in relation to where he was on the road at the point the driver made the decision to turn right.
However it does seem a bit harsh as I can imagine many drivers just wouldn't be expecting a bike at 100mph there and hence looking that far up the road.
But then if it had been a car and not a bike I expect they would have been seen then.... Interesting as to who would have been charged had it happened to be a car and both drivers survived... Would both then have been charged still?

Yes, there are two issues here I think:

1. Could the driver have actually physically seen the bike at decision point?

2. Could he have made a reasonable assessment it was unsafe to turn?

The second point seems important. Have you ever seen an aircraft flying directly towards you with it's lights on at night? It can look like a star, just suspended stationary in the sky for absolutely ages...until it suddenly gets close enough to detect movement.

From the video this looks like a VERY straight section of road. That actually makes it extremely difficult to assess the speed of an oncoming vehicle..particularly something small like a bike.

The full footage (warning: shows the actual accident - not gory, but possibly distressing) is here:

From this footage, I'm even more sympathetic to the driver.

At 2:48 in the video the bike is still actually BEHIND another car and masked from view.

Impact occurs at 2:54..just six seconds later. The driver has probably committed to turning across the road by about 2:51...that's only 3 seconds after the bike would have been masked form view by the silver car.

3 seconds makes you guilty of "death by careless driving"? Seems a tad harsh...

[jusdorange]

There's spirited driving and there's silly

I've been in a car at 180 but that's in Germany

Also been "above the speed limit" on empty roads that are almost always empty at say 6am

Overtaking by going into hatch lines, that's just silly

Also in the video it states he was going downhill, maybe the clio simply just didn't see from that vantage point

[Tengocity]

Actually now looking at it I have less sympathy for the driver... At the point before he starts to cross the lane the bike is already level with the turning left lane... That is not at all far away and perfectly reasonable to expect to see a bike there.

And as Mark says, this is relatively 'light' offence.

[Tengocity]

Originally Posted by jusdorange

There's spirited driving and there's silly

I've been in a car at 180 but that's in Germany

Also been "above the speed limit" on empty roads that are almost always empty at say 6am

Overtaking by going into hatch lines, that's just silly

Also in the video it states he was going downhill, maybe the clio simply just didn't see from that vantage point

Yes it is silly driving and he paid the ultimate price. The fault was not his alone though.

I can't believe he felt that holding close to 100mph through the section where there is a junction was at all appropriate, and as Mark says, gives him no options or time for the unexpected.
On a bike, where you can easily regain the speed, it makes even more sense to slow down in a hazardous area like that.

[matt_320d]

This is how the courts saw it:

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/a47_deat...fied_1_3523497

Interesting it was a 29 year old guy in the Clio...my instinct was it might have been an elderly driver being a bit doddery and indecisive about whether to turn or not...etc...goes to show you can never tell.

[jusdorange]

Is it just me or is that clio LHD? Has yellow front plates?

[....,,,,..,,..]

Used to drive that road regularly (Coltishall) and lost a few mates on it as well.

When living on Cambridgeshire, the main road I turned on to was called Mad Mile - straight fenland type road.

You would look and wait etc, however you would be half way through pulling out and a bike would flash past you.

Cars were just as bad - worse in the fact that there were more cars doing a 100+.

A software developer I know, complained about damage to his Porsche from some woman changing lanes on a roundabout.

Thing is, everyone was doing about 30 and he was doing 60+ , so no one expected some fool to be caning it around a roundabout (large one).

I have been caught out by bikes suddenly appearing car flashed me to pull out, next minute 2 bikes blasted past him and me.

On Tuesday some woman nearly knocked me off my MTB, I was crossing road and she turned in to side road on her phone.

I think it's a bit harsh tbh for motorist, mitigating factors should be illegal activity of the other party. If motorist had been drinking drugs, speeding, previous history etc, then maximum sentence.

It can be hard judging approach speed if the speed is constant, you can spot changes but constant speed is hard to judge.

[ZeroFx]

I got 3 points and £60 fine for crushing the leg off a motorbike rider.

I was doing 3mph and he was doing 40mph.

I was pulling out and he was speeding along a traffic jam. My car was between cars in the jam and view was blocked of the road.

I could see no one was coming from the left where traffic came from.

Blame was portioned out and i got a £60 fine and 3 points. He lost his leg. My blame was likely less than 10%.

Thats how they work it out.

[NISFAN]

100% reckless driving by the car.

[....,,,,..,,..]

Looked at it bit closer, the key bit to me, is at no point does the driver try to alter his turn does not appear to speed up the turn, or brake or turn the car.

I don't think he saw him at all OR totally misjudged the speed of the bike.

[d4springer]

Holy crap looked over this a few times, poor bloke. You can see the silver car moves over to the left, giving him room so obviously saw him coming from behind with enough time to move over slightly (must have had his main light on?), you can see the biker gives the driver a thank you wave as he overtakes.

It seems to me the Clio should have seen him coming and waited, looks like he decided to just go for it, didn't seem to be trying to stop either as the distances reduce, the bike almost made it round the front of the Clio.

[Billyray911]

Originally Posted by jusdorange

Is it just me or is that clio LHD? Has yellow front plates?

Appears to be rhd...

http://www.wisbechstandard.co.uk/new...aign_1_3757673

[teaston]

I know that junction well, i drive through it quite often!

It is very busy and i have never been through it when there hasn't been vehicles either turning off or onto the A47 there.

This accident was 110% the bikers fault! Riding like that through such a busy junction is reckless, and i think he should be posthumously convicted for it!

The driver should be compensated, not convicted!

[SkyJawa]

Lets not also forgot the line in the article states the clio driver didn't even see the car behind (the one the rider overtook) either. 100% his fault despite bikes speed.

As a rider myself (though gave up the bike a year ago) though, I would never have gone through a busy junction that fast.

[matt_320d]

Originally Posted by SkyJawa

Lets not also forgot the line in the article states the clio driver didn't even see the car behind (the one the rider overtook) either. 100% his fault despite bikes speed.

As a rider myself (though gave up the bike a year ago) though, I would never have gone through a busy junction that fast.

Think you misread that? I think the article says that other cars behind the Clio saw the bike. That seems to me rather irrelevant as they are viewing at a wider angle (not so "head on" as a car in the middle lane turning right, so possibly would have a better view of the bike.

I do wonder if the Clio was looking at the oncoming silver car, judging his turn relative to that, and htought he had room to get across (presumably he did..the silver car didn't hit him)

He probably mentally committed to turning when he saw the silver car pootling down the road and didn't mentally override that decision when the motor bike zipped past the silver car. I suspect, for the couple fateful seconds it took for him to pull out, his mind was "tricked" into thinking the bike was going at about the same speed as the silver car.

[JD6]

Both the driver and rider were utterly idiotic in my opinion. There is no excuse for not seeing the rider in daylight with good visibility. The Clio had plenty of time to make sure it was clear. The rider was a fool for going at that speed across a busy junction, and presumably quite a few others. You aren't going to live long if you ride in that way.

Where I live, we get about one motorcyclist killed every other sunny weekend. They are often blokes in their 40s who should know better. We often get held up or diverted while they scrape another one off the road.

The sentence for the driver seems appropriate to me. Had the driver and rider received similar injuries, the rider should have received a similar sentence in my opinion.

[teaston]

Originally Posted by SkyJawa

Lets not also forgot the line in the article states the clio driver didn't even see the car behind (the one the rider overtook) either. 100% his fault despite bikes speed.

As a rider myself (though gave up the bike a year ago) though, I would never have gone through a busy junction that fast.

It really doesn't matter if he didn't notice the car, he didn't collide with the car.

And he couldn't have noticed the bike, it was going way too fast. You can't just sit at a junction all day long just in case a bike appears from nowhere travelling at warp factor!

There are places you can safely do 100mph, but that couldn't have been further from being one of them!

[NISFAN]

Originally Posted by teaston

It really doesn't matter if he didn't notice the car, he didn't collide with the car.

And he couldn't have noticed the bike, it was going way too fast. You can't just sit at a junction all day long just in case a bike appears from nowhere travelling at warp factor!

There are places you can safely do 100mph, but that couldn't have been further from being one of them!

Even though the Clio started it's turn when the biker was within the junction? If the biker was doing 60mph the accident would still have occurred IMO. Fact is the Clio didn't register the bike at all.

[DaveA]

I think, reading through the posts so far (after having watched the video and read some of the reports), that I am in general agreement with most on here, in thinking that although the bike appears to have been travelling a good deal faster than the speed limit, in circumstances where many might have been less inclined, and some might have even slowed from the speed limit (a maximum permissible speed, not a target speed), the fact is that the car's driver admitted culpability from the off in that he was open about not noticing the oncoming traffic...

As for mitigation. Well, sure, the Judge didn't accept the mitigating arguments as sufficient to avoid a ban or points etc, but you might also note that the driver wasn't accused of Dangerous Driving and wasn't jailed for the offence for which he was charged and pleaded guilty (the offence can attract up to 5 years jail sentence), so one might consider there to have been some consideration of the overall circumstances in the charging and sentencing... (I can only go on what I heave read so far)...

This is a terribly, terribly sad thing to have happened (I cannot be alone in feeling that icy chill when the rider calls out "NO" when he realises what is about to happen) and it is even more sad to consider that things like this are not uncommon...

We must each see similar risky "near miss" situations all the time...

The ones that are not near misses generally have horrible consequences...

As the police (and others) will tell you, there isn't really such a thing as an accident in these sorts of circumstances, mainly they are avoidable incidents.. if only the driver had have noticed the oncoming traffic.. if only the rider had have ridden more defensively..

If only...

Be safe, folks.....