Bad car or bad bike?

[dantama]

What's your thoughts on this accident?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5pqGaM...eature=related

It looks like he braked pretty good but he also had visual fixation because he nicked the corner. He couldn't have swerved while braking but I believe he violated 1 of the smith system rules of "aim high in steering" wich means look as far down the road as you can not 5 feet in front of you. Had he noticed the hazard he could have just casually changed lanes. Overall the impact didn't bring him to an instantaneous stop so he kinda rolled with the punches and doesn't appear to be hurt too bad lucky for him.

[MarkG]

Obviously never been around the snowbirds we get here in AZ. Usually they signal for a left turn, then go right or vice versa. When the car is almost stopped in the middle lane it is going to do something dumb. Normal snowbird down here. Based on the pavement markings why was the bike in the right hand side of the lane. I think wolfman is right, if he had been looking down the road he could have missed it.

Shoulda laid it down!



Just kidding!! ;)


I think he should have seen that coming and avoided it by swerving.... but then again.......

[Yellow Jacket]

I appears to be about 3 seconds between when the car swerved and the bike hit him. The car did have the right turn signal on. I think the biker wasn't as aware of the situation as perhaps he could have been. Had he noticed the slowly moving car and the turn signal soon enough he may have been able to simply slow down enough to avoid any collision. It's hard to tell however due to the limited view of the camera. Very easy to armchair quarter-back without the complete perspective.

[dantama]

My thoughts are that the bike would have had 5 seconds from when the car signaled, and 3 seconds from when the car entered his lane. That should be enough warning that your lane isn't clear any longer.

If you look at the white car in the far left lane when the offending car gets into the bikes lane, then look at how far the car gets up the road before the bike hits........you can see how far back the bike should have been if it was going with the flow of traffic.

He would have been 4-5 white lines back (as the camera pans out near the end, look at how far 4-5 lines is).

If a car signals, then pulls into your lane, and you have that kind of distance on a surface street, there's no reason at all for you to be hitting it.

We can't "own" the 40 yards of space in front of us on a 40mph street. Cars can signal and move into it. And three seconds later we shouldn't be running into the back of them.

I can't see where the car did anything wrong here. There is no minimum speed, he signaled well in advance, certainly didn't "suddenly" do anything, held the lane for 3 full seconds, then somebody runs right into the back of him.

Seems to me that it's fully the bikes fault here, but I'm open to other interpretations.

What do you all think?

I agree

[ells]

Had to think about this one some, after getting past the heebee geebees. Hit someone from the rear and you are at fault. However, two other rules of the road that come into play, although not sure to what extent they are widely codified. The other two are: each lane change should be a distinct move, one at a time after straightening and re-signaling. The other being that when entering a flow of traffic, it should (must?) be done so as not to interfere with legally operating traffic already in that flow. The driver fails 2 of three but I'd agree that the other one probably trumps in court, and that the bike probably should have it seen it coming - just a moments inattention - ever happen to you?

[dantama]

Had to think about this one some, after getting past the heebee geebees. Hit someone from the rear and you are at fault. However, two other rules of the road that come into play, although not sure to what extent they are widely codified. The other two are: each lane change should be a distinct move, one at a time after straightening and re-signaling. The other being that when entering a flow of traffic, it should (must?) be done so as not to interfere with legally operating traffic already in that flow. The driver fails 2 of three but I'd agree that the other one probably trumps in court, and that the bike probably should have it seen it coming - just a moments inattention - ever happen to you?

Good points to consider Ells, though the bike hit the car in the lane that was the cars first lane change.

I don't know about all areas, but Utah had a law that if a car signals to move into a lane, you had to let them in. Of course it was widely ignored, and cars would at times speed up to keep you out.

I suppose if the place where this happened had a law like Utah's, that would make the cars move more innocent. Because I grew up in Utah, I think that there is an obligation to let cars in when they signal.

I suppose the rider had about 5 seconds of inattention, far too much (coming from a guy that pitched his bike a few months ago looking at a kodak moment while on a dirt road ;) )

[unwind2]

Good video for dicussion. I agree with Ells.....car looks like a last moment decision to pull over 'right here -right now' and few moments inattention by motocyclist.

I'm not ready to throw the bike under the bus. The car was obviously going very slow compared to the rest of the traffic. Also, the bike was braking when he first comes into view. If the car pulls into his lane at a speed concurrent with other traffic there is no problem whatsoever. It's one thing to swerve when you are rounding a curve and there is a raccoon or squirrrel in the middle of the road., but this guy has a lane on each side of him and the one he is in that is suddenly filled with a car barely moving. I just think the car made a dumb assed move and the biker paid for it.

[dantama]

I just think the car made a dumb assed move and the biker paid for it.

Just curious meanstreak, do you suppose that you would have hit the car too?

[dui546]

Okay...y'all have got my attention on this one. As a crash investigator given the facts that are present in the video. The car was at fault and I would give the driver a summons for fail to yield right-of-way.

Here is my reasoning....

Just because the car used a turn signal and was traveling at a slow speed does not give the car the right of way in the motorcycles lane of travel. In fact, the vehicle maneuver the car took showed that the driver's intention was to move the car into the pull off lane which was across the motorcycle's lane of travel.

The average speed of the vehicles in the video looks to be conservatively somewhere around 35 mph. The motorcycle seemed to be traveling a little faster. I did not see any physical evidence (skid marks, front shocks were not collapsed, etc) that the motorcycle rider was trying to stop until right before impact.

A vehicle traveling at 35 mph is moving a distance of 51 feet per second and a veh at 45 is 66 feet per second. It takes the average person 1.5 seconds to react to a situation in front of him. The veh will travel a distance of 77 ft in the time it takes to react at 35 mph and 99 ft at 45 mph. (That is the distance traveled before the braking of the motorcycle begins.)

It would take a car (a veh with brakes on all 4 wheels that are working properly) a distance of 135 ft to stop at 35 mph. It would take a distance of 195 ft to stop at 45 mph. I am giving you a car's statistic just as an example for thought. The stopping distance for the motorcycle would depend on the amount or percentage of front and back brake applied while stopping.

If you pause the video right before impact you will find that the rider was just beginning to react based on the collapsing of the front shock. That means that the motorcycle would have been at least 75 to 100 feet back at the time the car entered into his lane. There was more front brake than rear brake applied which caused the rear wheel to leave the ground. That immediately cut his total amount of coefficient of friction available for stopping in half.

So....when the motorcyclist states, "I tried to stop or maneuver but there just wasn't enough time." He would be right. Driver of the car would probably state, "I did not see him" which could be correct because the motorcycle would have been located somewhere in the vehicles proverbial blind spot (off the right rear corner). However, it is the duty of the driver of the car to make sure the lane he is about to move to is clear.

The car was in the motorcycle's lane for 3 seconds. If the motorcycle was traveling at 35 mph he would have been 153 feet back when the car entered the lane. At 45 mph he would have been 198 feet back. Regardless, and not knowing the exact speeds involved, I also believe the driver of the car was at fault because if the car was traveling closer to the flow of traffic speed, it would have cleared the motorcycle's lane faster and the crash would have been avoided.

[dantama]

I like the way you analyse dui.

If you will help me out with the estimates, at 2 seconds in there is a silver car right next to the offending white car and right at a white line.

At 5 seconds when the rider is in mid air and the camera pans back a bit, the silver car is beyond the 4th line from where it was at the 2 second frame.

That silver car is going with the flow of the rest of the traffic, so if we assume that the rider was also, we can estimate the distance back that he could have seen the white car enter his lane, even longer from when it signaled its intentions.

How many feet do you estimate the distance of 4 lines is on that road?

This is just for curiosity and conversation.

My point of bringing this up was to first have it look like the car was completely at fault, then see if something happens however many feet you estimate the 4 lines are down the road in front of you, shouldn't you abe to react to it without hitting it. Even if it is the cars fault.

[dantama]

I found I way to explain more clearly what I mean. I took two views of the tape and spliced together keeping the perspective and distance the same.

The photo shows the sliver car entering the frame at the bottom, and by the time the bike gets to the white car, the silver one has traveled to the upper line (in the photo it's different car up there, one that was behind the silver one).

So the point I wanted people to take away from the discussion was that in this photo, if you were behind this lower line, and the car in the top of the picture was traveling slow and came into you lane, is it a given that you would hit it? If I bus was just pulling in at the arrow at the top at a very slow speed, is it a given that you would hit it?

I liked the video because it looked like clearly the with car caused the bike to crash. But with that kind of distance in which to react, you should be able to avoid the accident. You don't need to slam into the back of someone, even if they are not very wise in their movements.