Quick Help - Scooter Car Accident

johnfarquhar74

anewman wrote: »

Just recently I have had 2 motorcyclists put themselves within inches of my car on a roundabout on the left. Fair enough I understand filtering, but doing that near a car on a roundabout is guaranteed to get you knocked off and injured.

Is it?

anewman wrote: »

I took the sensible precaution of slowing down and letting them get in front instead.

Oh no, there you go! Some people do daft things on the road but it is actually just as wrong(&illegal) to deliberately cause an accident. You took avoidance measures which was the correct thing to do.

anewman wrote: »

The motorcycling fraternity would like you to believe any accident is the fault of a car, but it seems often they're not willing to use some common sense to help protect themselves when they're the more vulnerable road user.

Obviously that is a bit of an exagerration, not every accident is the fault of the car(other road user) but a vast number of car/bike accidents are due to cars being unaware of bikes. Off course it is then counter argued that bikes were going too fast, overtaking inappropriately, filtering etc. As for vulnerable road users, I gave up my biking because although I would be deemed by you as a vulnerable road user, I still believed in my heart of hearts that when I had right of way, then it was safe for me to go. Unfortunately, there's no point arguing your point when your bike is in two halves and you are lying on your !!!!! in the middle of a crossroads because a car crossed in front of you followed by the classic;

'sorry mate, I didn't see you!'

I never done one thing wrong apart from be there, I even had my brake covered just in case anyone did cut across at a junction but at the speed he came and the time I had to react there was nothing more I could do.
So, perhaps to the gleefull cheers of the anti-bike brigade I hung up my gloves and walked away but one thing I learned is that the vast majority of car drivers have no idea what it's like to ride along and wonder who's gonna be the next harried rep, or dozy bint, or late school runner to take you off your bike through very little fault of your own.

anewman wrote: »

Worst incident I've seen so far is when a motorcyclist overtook a car indicating right, and you guessed it, the car went for it and took the motorcyclist clean off his bike.

Could I be pedantic and suggest if mirrors were checked this would not have happened, there is a slim chance the biker did not observe the indicator, a signal of intent, just as much as the driver did not notice the bike on his shoulder?

skiddlydiddly

John, I agree with most of what you say, but its scant compensation knowing you are in the right after you get hit.You just can't rely on other people being attentive enough to avoid bikes, especially when filtering and overtaking near junctions.

cyclonebri1

Bottom line is filtering is done at filtering speeds say 3 -6 mph??, never seem it defined other than as "slowly". 20 to 25 mph between traffic lanes approaching a junction is almost suicidal as he nearly found out. Sorry, he is 95% in the wrong, the other 5% probably the off chance that the car "could" have spotted him at that speed

johnfarquhar74

skiddlydiddly wrote: »

John, I agree with most of what you say, but its scant compensation knowing you are in the right after you get hit.You just can't rely on other people being attentive enough to avoid bikes, especially when filtering and overtaking near junctions.

I know, and this is why I gave it up. In the last 2 years of my riding I had 4 incidents where I could quite easily have been killed, not injured or hurt, but killed. At the time my daughter was only 2 and all of a sudden I started to feel mortal.
The last one was when the car cut across me with no warning, I lost control due to avoidance measures and the fact that I was on cobbles. I was practically standing on my saddle by the time the impact came, I wasn't wanting my leg trapped and it's amazing how far I got catapulted over the car. I walked away from the accident and biking that day!
Without getting into the finer points, and before any knockers come on, the 4 incidents I speak off are where I was travelling along (to the right of middle) my lane, nothing ahead of me, all within the signed limits. 3 of the 4 were cars either coming out of side roads or crossing in front of me, 1 was a land rover that came out trying to overtake a queue of traffic, not seeing me coming towards them and leaving me with nowhere to go and very little braking distance. Every time I had to brake hard, leave my lane and drop my bike, either that or swap my helmet for a B pillar!