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Hi y'all. Wrong "bike", I know (mods, please feel free to move this post to foo if it's more appropriate there), but as a VC-practicing commuter, I thought it was important to show how quickly an accident can occur, even when you're riding lawfully, carefully and cautiously! The rider (who is a racer and instructor) captured the entire accident on her helmetcam.
From reading the rider's thread:
1. Most importantly, she's OK!
2. While driving at the speed limit and mid-lane, a car loses control, crosses 3 lanes and spins into her.
3. Only 4 seconds elapse between the time the car loses control and she is hit.
http://socalsportbikes.info/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=34948
This is an archived thread, you can find the full version of this thread, with images, links and more content
here.
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what happened with the car? did a front tire blow out or something??
what happened with the car? did a front tire blow out or something??
It looks like the car was speeding up while traffic in front of him was braking. He braked hard, locked up, and started to spin. :eek: Apparantly, once police arrived, he was claiming that *she* hit *him*... until she mentioned she had captured the whole thing on her cam!
I've been seriously considering fitting a camera on this type on my car... police accident investigations are getting more and more hasty, and a lot of people will blame the other guy no matter what, to keep their insurance from rocketing.
I guess I could also wear one on my head...
Well three points... shows that while traffic is predictable, the individual driver is not... and that while well trained (supposedly), even the best "two wheelers" cannot avoid all bad situations.
The last point... stupid agressive motorist. If the idiot had just taken his foot OFF the gas much sooner, and had worked to maintain a proper safe following distance, this would never have happened and no brakes would have ever needed to be used.
As far as his comments about "she hit me;" pretty typical... and if it had been a dead cyclist, the cop would have just written it that way.
Wow, really great clear picture.
Wow,
I once witnessed a motorcycle t-bone into a car. The driver of the car trying to make a left turn from a side street. Bad blind spot (for the driver of the car) and the motorcyclist didn't have a chance. The driver braked when she realized that she cut off the motorcycle. The motorcyclist literally flew over the hood of the car and landed on his back. Luckily he had a full face helmet on. It was so surreal, like watching a stunt on The A-Team.
Like in this video, it was great how a lot of people came to his aid (including me). The motorcyclist was barely moving, and they tried to remove his helmet. I just started yelling not to do anything until help arrived, which was literally almost instantaneous. Meanwhile, the driver was still sitting in her car, just frozen.
Needless to say, I needed a drink after seeing all that...
She should have been able to avoid it. Her reactions were too slow and she did not hit the front brake hard enough.
Gotta love the driver
Quote from the Driver - "She Hit Me"!
This after spinning out due to his own stupidity and agressiveness. Freakin' moron.
I'm glad the motorcylist is okay.
She should have been able to avoid it. Her reactions were too slow and she did not hit the front brake hard enough.
And that was exactly what she said in the motorcycle forum... amazing how people really react when the fan hits the sh*t, eh.
I found myself equally frozen recently as a car that had run a light came within scant inches of me while I was on a bicycle. At best I determined to steer toward the rear of the car, out of harms way... but I never touched the brakes, never thought to high speed turn away.
While some may tout "fast reaction times," the thinking part of the brain sometimes gets in the way.
IMO, it looks like a mechanical failure (the car shouldn’t have pulled so violently to the right under hard braking) coupled with driving too fast for conditions (it looks like the car was accelerating into traffic that was braking). I think the car was trying to speed up in order to change lanes – into the motorcycle's lane – and then had to slam on the brakes. But a car in proper working order shouldn’t go into a skid like that under hard braking.
Wow! :eek: :eek: :eek: Man, that's what I fear when I'm out zooming around on my motorcycle. I had a similar thing happen to me on my road bicycle doing 33mph. The first 2 things that popped into my mind were: (a) if you dump your bike, you'll smash into the curb and slide underneath the car's wheels; and (b) aim for the hood so you can fly over and not smash your head into the side door... aim for the hood... aim for the hood...
I've been following this on the motorcycle forums and it looks to me, as well as others, that the guy was doing a stupid ass move, locking up the rear brakes with the hand-brake, parking-brake as some kind of stunt. If you look closely, the rear locks first and he has tons of room ahead of him.
Galen-its easy to critisize when you're not there. This happened really fast. She decided to go right, which is probably what I would have done, but then got blocked by the car in the right lane. She was doing everything right but everything just stacked up against her at the worst possible moment. Also shows you what good safety equipment does.
What's wrong with the car? Normally, just like a bike, motorcycle and most other vehicles with wheels, your front brake provide the most stopping power.
How on earth did he lock up the rears before the front? He was probably being stupid and used the hand-brake to see if he can lock it up for fun.
Probably a poorly maintained car...
I think it looks more like he slammed the brakes and tried to swerve to avoid hitting the car, but didn't realize that swerving when you lock the brakes is a bad idea.
Also...the front brakes have more power BECAUSE the rear lock up first since the weight transfers to the front of the car.
What a moron! I drive "aggresively", but not stupidly. How the hell does someone go past threshold breaking into full lock-up and spin on a smooth, flat road in dry conditions? What a horrible driver! Especially in a small-er car like a Civic. Even the most base model ****box Civic handles "acceptably" enough to not pull that ****. This is why we need more extensive testing for liscenses. Something like a hazard course with pop-up targets and judging responses/reaction time/etc... ****ers!
I think it looks more like he slammed the brakes and tried to swerve to avoid hitting the car, but didn't realize that swerving when you lock the brakes is a bad idea.
Also...the front brakes have more power BECAUSE the rear lock up first since the weight transfers to the front of the car.
But it didn't seem like he needed to stop that short. He had plenty of room in front of him.
I think it looks more like he slammed the brakes and tried to swerve to avoid hitting the car, but didn't realize that swerving when you lock the brakes is a bad idea.
In general, swerving into another lane is more dangerous. When I had my accident (not my fault) I kept going straight so I wouldn't knock out other cars in the lanes next to me.
I think if my rescuer looked like this, i might wonder if i'd already died and gone to heaven. :D
Galen-its easy to critisize when you're not there. This happened really fast. She decided to go right, which is probably what I would have done, but then got blocked by the car in the right lane. She was doing everything right but everything just stacked up against her at the worst possible moment. Also shows you what good safety equipment does.
I noticed that too - I wonder if instead of hitting the brakes, if she'd hit the gas, maybe she could have made the gap before they collided. It looked pretty close...
Actually, reading more of the motorbike thread, that sounds like just what she was trying to do. Cool.
I think if my rescuer looked like this, i might wonder if i'd already died and gone to heaven. :D
+1
What a moron! I drive "aggresively", but not stupidly. How the hell does someone go past threshold breaking into full lock-up and spin on a smooth, flat road in dry conditions? What a horrible driver! Especially in a small-er car like a Civic. Even the most base model ****box Civic handles "acceptably" enough to not pull that ****. This is why we need more extensive testing for liscenses. Something like a hazard course with pop-up targets and judging responses/reaction time/etc... ****ers!
OMG what a prime example of chest banging pathetic machoism this post is. "I'm so much better than that moron! This could NEVER happen to me. Just impossible. I'm so much better. This is why it's okay for me to drive aggressively. Seriously, those pussies, they should leave aggressive driving to people who know what they're doing... like me".
Until one day, when you are not concentrating, when your car isn't in the best shape, when you drive home after a glass of beer (that you never do, just this one time), it DOES happen to you, and you take out someone. The bottom line is that cars are dangerous and should NEVER be driven aggressively.
Thanks iBarna. It's nice to hear that not everyone thinks they are professional drivers.
Also from what I can glean from the motorcycle forum the guy was uninsured. What's great as well is that he swerved into traffic instead of to the left considering he was next to a concrete barrier in the HOV lane. I guess he didn't want to hurt his precious uninsured car. What a jackbag. If he doesn't get hung out to dry with all of the evidence we are all screwed because it means we will never have a chance.
Genec has it right. If it was a dead cyclist they would have just believed the driver and gone about their day.
How on earth did he lock up the rears before the front? He was probably being stupid and used the hand-brake to see if he can lock it up for fun.
In a panic stop the rear always locks first (unless you have anti-lock brakes). This is because the car nose-dives thus the rear is unweighted reducing pavement pressure on the rear wheels. Even more prevent on front wheel drive vehicles as the static weight bias is more to the front than rear wheel drive.
Galen-its easy to critisize when you're not there. This happened really fast. She decided to go right, which is probably what I would have done, but then got blocked by the car in the right lane. She was doing everything right but everything just stacked up against her at the worst possible moment. Also shows you what good safety equipment does.
If you had any experience on motorcycles and examine the tape closely, you can see that she does not start aggressive braking until it is too late, if at all. She simply misjudged what was happening. Many, many motorcyclist (and bicyclists) do not know how to use their vehicle's brakes to the fullest extent and fear the front brake. I am not saying it is her fault. I am saying it would have been possible to avoid the collision with more timely and aggressive braking.
I swerved and reduced speed the best I could.
I know a lot of people say that I could have outbraked the Honda - but it's not a good idea to outbrake in heavy traffic for many reasons - one of which is, you run the risk of the people behind you not being able to brake and running over you. Not only that - but there was no way for me to know what he was going to do - so I just tried to get out of the way...I didn't anticipate he would come at me on the fwy...
As you can see in the vid - I swerved and then headed for an opening - if you go to my other thread with the pictures - you can see I almost made it through - but the Honda was continuing his 180 spin in my direction and T-boned me - cutting me off.
And she says in the thread that she is disappointed with her reaction - too much thinking "wtf is he doing?" And if you read through the thread, she is an experienced rider. Hindsight is 20/20.
This is not a simple question to answer. We all should know that your traction is a limited resource - so say it's 100%. If you brake at 60%, you can only swerve 40%. There are people that think you can brake at full power (100%) and swerve at (100%) at the same time. This is a physical and mathematical impossibility.
So keeping that basic concept in mind. I was, for the most part, swerving at 85% and braking 15%. I had to continue to scrub speed because the Honda was scrubbing speed - but I also had to swerve because the Honda was swerving. The difficulty is that the Honda is completely out of control, completely unpredictable and has 4 wheels - therefore, it's able to manuever in manners that my bike and I cannot - seeing that we're not out of control and only on 2 wheels.
At the very, very last moment, when I knew I wasn't going to make it - I stopped swerving and braked 100% as a last desperate attempt to scrub off more speed, before letting go of the handlebars completely and going into a protective tuck.
All of this was in mind of "never give up - always put up a good fight" and "if plan A (don't crash) fails - go to plan B - which is to minimize damage".
Does this better answer your question?
If you had any experience on motorcycles and examine the tape closely, you can see that she does not start aggressive braking until it is too late, if at all. She simply misjudged what was happening. Many, many motorcyclist (and bicyclists) do not know how to use their vehicle's brakes to the fullest extent and fear the front brake. I am not saying it is her fault. I am saying it would have been possible to avoid the collision with more timely and aggressive braking.
I race motorcycles, I know what hard braking is. My point is, it happened fast, there were several options and she tried to get away on the right without braking hard and it didn't work. I'm not going to fault her, you can if you wish.
In general, swerving into another lane is more dangerous. When I had my accident (not my fault) I kept going straight so I wouldn't knock out other cars in the lanes next to me.
oh, I'm not saying that it's not. But it's a way worse idea to cut the wheel all the way to the right when you're standing on the brakes than to just swerve. Thoguh of course he'd have been better off not turning the wheel at all. Or better than that, watching the freakin road in the first place.
When I had my last accident, I didn't swerve even when I left the road...travelling 50MPH on a tight hairpin exit ramp and I decided against trying to hold the curve and rolling in favor of just going straight. Minivans don't hold curves like that well.
Oh, did I mention there were no brakes? I feel that that's the important part of the story.
I am saying it would have been possible to avoid the collision with more timely and aggressive braking.
I've had to brake aggressively while driving in heavy traffic. I guarantee one of the things you're thinking about as you stop on a freeway is what's coming up behind you at 60 mph. I think this would be moreso if you're on a motorcycle.
So yeah, the motorcyclist probably could have avoided the t-bone; she very well could have delayed heavy braking because of the traffic coming up behind her.
Looks like she locked up her brakes, then she could not steer. She lost control. It's her fault. Same thing happened to me on a mountain pass in South Africa. A doggie came out into the road, I braked hard and the car turned to the right. Next time doggie dies.
ABS would have prevented this.
Looks like she locked up her brakes, then she could not steer. She lost control. It's her fault. Same thing happened to me on a mountain pass in South Africa. A doggie came out into the road, I braked hard and the car turned to the right. Next time doggie dies.
ABS would have prevented this.
Where should she have steered? She was boxed in on both sides. It's easy to say from the comfort of the internet what we all could have done with our superhuman reflexes to prevent this, but I wonder how many of us making these claims actually could have avoided it.
It sounds like slagjumper is talking about the car and not the motorcycle...
It sounds like slagjumper is talking about the car and not the motorcycle...
Yes, the car slammed on the breaks, then turned a bit, but since the wheel was locked, she could not straiten out, because if the wheel is locked you can't ster.
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