Accident

daveg

I was traveling to work the other morning (Tuesday) on the Tuam road in Galway. Just at the entrance to the SDS office there was an accident involving a bike and a jeep. The garda's and an ambulance were there. It looked like the bike had traveled up the hard shoulder and the jeep was turning into the SDS office (traffic into town was at a standstill hence the bike traveling on the hard shoulder). The bike had obviously crashed into the jeep. Didn't think it was too bad but I heard yesterday the guy on the bike died. What a waste

Sorry for depressing everyones day.

mike65

Dont use hard shoulders as a rat run as you stand as fair chance of being turned into...

Mike.

daveg

True Mike... but a bit harsh considering the guy is now dead.

seamus

In fairness Dave, dead or not dead, the guy fvcked up. Of course, the jeep will be deemed to be at fault (he should have checked the hard shoulder for emergency vehicles, etc etc), but it may teach other bikers to keep an eye out. If I'm ever doing anything like this (driving down a bus lane, driving between the traffic) I'm always on the lookout for gaps in the traffic or yellow boxes. They're the places where you're most likely to have someone cross in front of you, or where someone will change lanes without looking.

It's mainly country bikers who get caught out by things like this, and get killed in heavy traffic. City bikers are used to the hazards that come with heavy traffic (and of course, have better roads :rolleyes: ).

Just another reason for compulsory biker training, just another statistic........

bugs

I dunno, to a certain degree training might help. But when you start riding a bike you can overlook these things (box junctions etc.) when you're running outside the lanes of traffic.
To be honest, the best thing to teach you a good lesson is to have a crash asa result of not paying proper attention and care. Nothing else will make you look for a box junction or anything similar. I would imagine this accounts for a huge amount of the crashes in the city, so i wouldn't pigeon hole country riders, they just happen to have the crash outside of a built up area where the build up of speed means they don't walk away with a few cuts and scratches.

Victor

Originally posted by mike65
Dont use hard shoulders as a rat run as you stand as fair chance of being turned into...

It's obligatory for pedal cyclists to use the hard shoulder .... damn I hate that bitch who did the u-turn across 4-lanes :mad:

RicardoSmith

I reckon that anyone thats using the Hard Shoulder to rat run is at fault. If you are doing it, it would be very likely someone is going to cut across it into a junction. Especially in a line of traffic. Feel sorry for all involved though.