Wow! Speed does kill.

GreeBo

God Christ there is a whole lot of myopic shíte being spouted in this thread!

As for someone actually using the term "cager" :rolleyes:
Look at me in my cage, it makes me feel like a tiger, rarrr!

Lets look at some of the facts and see if we cant draw our own conlusions, hmm?

There are more cars than bikes.
thus cars will be involved in more accidents than bikes.
People are driving both vehicles.
Its people who accidents, not vehicles.
Bikes, by there nature are less visible.
Bikers by there actions are in "less obvious" places on the road than other users. (read "stupid")
Bikes get hit by cars more than cars get hit by bikes.

so you are more likely to get hit, you are less visible, drive in strange "temporary" positions on the road and yet wonder why you get hit?

Bikes seem to end up at the head of the queue at the lights, crazy huh?
How do they get there if they are staying in lane?
Are they overtaking stationary vehicles in a queue of traffic?
Are they pasing out tens of stationary vehicles on the wrong side of the road?
Do they feel they have the right not to sit in traffic?
Shouldnt they all just get themselves a taxi and drive like lunatics but be sage in their cages?

causal

prospect wrote:

So why did you post only 2 of 55 findings?

I already told you they were in support of the data I presented on insurance payouts. Do you really expect me to post the other 53 findings.

Just in case you don't understand :
Bigot = One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

I do understand. Maybe you don't. I already told you I'm a driver and a biker - so I'm on both sides of this debate; afaik you're not a biker - so you're only in the drivers group. That makes you likely to be a bigot, but certainly not me.

Also, as I bow out, happy that I have shown that a mere 6% of the car/bike driving public are responsible for 25% of the car/bike related accidents (ableit partially based on guesstimate),

You fabricated figures and commented on them - pathetic.
But more pathetic is the gaping error in your analysis:
The 75% and 25% do not apply to the total driver + biker population; they only apply to the 'driver:bike collision' population which is a tiny percentage of the overall population.
The fault ratio is 3:1 drivers:bikers, if you were to increase the number of bikers so that half road users were bikers and half were drivers - the fault ratio would still be 3:1 drivers:bikers, although the absolute numbers would change - the ratio is constant.

I would like to state that I have no gripe with bikers in general.
I applaude their speed and superior mobility in a ever worsening traffic enviornment.

Good to hear you're not a bigot after all

causal

echomadman

gaaah


i said i wouldn't come back to these threads but the Hurt report got dragged in and Prospect chose a few shining examples from it to further his cause, however, he didnt note that

43. Seventy-three percent of the accident-involved motorcycle riders used no eye protection, and it is likely that the wind on the unprotected eyes contributed in impairment of vision which delayed hazard detection.

this study was american, where helmets are not compulsary everywhere, and loads of people ride with none/open face/beanie helmets

11. Weather is not a factor in 98% of motorcycle accidents.

this was a californian study, of course weather wasnt as dominant a factor

the other points have already been discussed, but those two really stuck out to me as highlighting Prospects uninformed viewpoint regarding biking in ireland.

causal

GreeBo wrote:

Bikers by there actions are in "less obvious" places on the road than other users. (read "stupid")

It's a road - you should expect hazzards on every part of it - pedestrians, cyclists, bikers, cars, trucks, road works, traffic islands, pot-holes, animals etc.

so you are more likely to get hit, you are less visible, drive in strange "temporary" positions on the road and yet wonder why you get hit?

No-one is wondering why bikers get hit - the majority of the time it's because of a car drivers poor observation or poor judgement; the mionority of the time it's the bikers poor observation or poor judgement.

causal

RicardoSmith

Lets repeat for the hard of hearing....

7. The failure of motorists to detect and recognize motorcycles in traffic is the predominating cause of motorcycle accidents. The driver of the other vehicle involved in collision with the motorcycle did not see the motorcycle before the collision, or did not see the motorcycle until too late to avoid the collision.

13. The view of the motorcycle or the other vehicle involved in the accident is limited by glare or obstructed by other vehicles in almost half of the multiple vehicle accidents.

Thats not poor judgement or deliberately pulling out in front of a bike...

DRIVERS CAN'T SEE BIKERS

For the love of mike, cars hit other cars because they can't see them, never mind bikes.

RicardoSmith

Chalk wrote:

youve got the figures backwards,
in 75% the biker was not at fault,
ie, he did nothing wrong and could have done nothing to prevent said collision

its the smaller 25% figure that the biker had a hand in that could do with the reflective vest / better brikes / louder exhaust

No...

RicardoSmith

causal wrote:

True. And drivers could reduce it by being more observant and generally better drivers.

At least you recognise that bikers have a some ability to help reduce these accidents. The HURT report that your so fond of, says that not seeing the bikers is the problem, NOT the being a poor driver. The last bit is your own opinion and not part of the HURT report or the insurance stats.

causal wrote:

Hopefully. But you have to look to see. Lack of observation is one of the biggest causes of driving test failures.

What has the driving tests got to do with it?

causal wrote:

True. But drivers can improve their own standard of driving. How many have IAM advanced qualifications for driving.

The visibility of bikes is listed as the problem. Where in the report does it say that advanced driving instruction would help? Whereas it does specifically mention biker instruction.

Why not mention that instead of driving instruction? Which again is opinion.

causal wrote:

I'm not interested in blaming, I'm trying to raise awareness - education.
It's important to me as a driver to know that I'm 3 times more likely to hit a bike than a bike to hit me. But it seems some ppl on this board don't want to acknowledge the 75:25 fact and try to twist and contort all the figures.
All road users need to improve - but most especailly car drivers.
causal

How can you raise awareness by only stating a small part of the report and none of the parts that are reflect negatively on bikers?

I never disputed the figures. My point is that figures you give are only the result of the accidents. They do not give an complete picture of the cause of the accident. The fact that your argument is 100% anti driver, and 100 pro biker is complete unbalanced.

The biker has to make it easier for the car to see him. The Hurt report makes that clear. The other side of the is that car drivers need to be more observant. But I don't think its realistic that you are going to improve the driving test, and the standard of those 75%. So biker have to get up off their behinds and do something about their visibility. For me thats riding defensively and creating a car sized space in traffic.

Remember experience bikers do not have the same rate of car vs bike accidents. Why is that? Nothing has changed on the drivers side. Only the biker is different? Obviously the biker has some effect on car vs bike ratio if they have the skills to do so.

saobh_ie

RicardoSmith wrote:

Lets ignore that theres probably 10x the number of cars than bikes on the road. (Where would you get stats on that?) or that there's less visibility from a car than a bike and a bike is harder to see than a car. Or that a biker has less ability to avoid an accident than in a car, worse braking for example. Or that a bikes usually approach a driver faster than other road vehicles giving them less time to react. All these things are not factors at all.

It’s a much bigger number than 10x, motorcyclists could account for as little as 2 or as much as 5 percent of road users, I cannot remember the exact figure but its always throw up every time one gets squished.

The brakes on my motorcycle are far superior to those on many of the cars on the road, while its true that conditions sometimes dictate I cannot use their full potential I and all other motorcyclists try to ride accordingly.

There is less visibility from a car but its more than sufficient if people are alert, cars do have huge blind spots but everyone knows this and you’d have to be fairly inexperienced, whether on a bike, in a car or behind the wheel of a truck to stay in somebody’s blind spot for very long.

Bikes do not usually approach other road users faster, the speed limits apply to us to and more often than cars we’re forced to adhere to them otherwise we swiftly get to know members of the Gardaí by name. Motorcycles make you very popular with the forces of law and order.

As for German tanks… say there’s four motorbikes in the country and ninety-six cars. All four of the motorcycles have been in two vehicle collisions. Three of them were the fault of the car driver; one was the fault of the motorcyclist.

Three bad car drivers out of ninety six, and one in four bad motorcyclists. Those flipping dangerous bikers.

Eh no. How about the car drivers who’ve hit, other cars, bus’s, little old ladies, dogs, street signs, walls, lorry’s… need I go on?

As for accidents, there are no accidents. You run over a biker because you didn’t see him? That’s not an accident, its negligence. What were you doing puttering along in your car not concentrating on the task in hand… unless that was eating your dinner of a plate on your knee with a knife and fork while steering with your knees? (More effort on not spilling the dinner than getting around the corner.)

RicardoSmith wrote:

Quite often the determination of fault is a matter of financial and legal convience.

After a motorcycle has hit a car, at any speed it will have significant damage to the frame and massive external damage, which is not just cosmetic, controls will have been ripped away destroying their mountings while they’re at it. The shock will do all sorts of wonderful things. The average repair is usually a couple of thousand if your lucky, a lot of the time the bikes a write off and a new one have to purchase.

So some bikes after a 30km/h collision you can be looking at 6000 euros before writing them off is considered. And if they’re written off they can cost anywhere from 8000 to 17,000 new and stock. Then you need to replace the motorcyclist’s protective clothing and helmet, 1500 easy. Helmets can cost 600 alone.

Typically once a bike is down that’s it, its gone until its repaired, which it won’t be until the claim is settled so there’s loss of use penalties while the biker suffers taxis and bus’s to get where he needs to go.

So, if there is any way possible that an insurance company can avoid paying out, by proving that their driver was not at fault or rather, by failing to decide either way “They might have been wrong, you might have been wrong. Piss off, see you in two years in court.”

A car on the other hand… Large motorcycle slams into it at 60km/h, body panel gets busted in. 2000 euros and half a day in a garage, simple. Still motoring both before and after the collision.

As for legal connivance, I don’t get how this helps your case? Legally the car driver was in the wrong, case settled. Legally the motorcyclist was in the wrong, case settled. The legality of the situation is the only way in which insurance payouts are judged. It’s right or its wrong. We pay or we don’t, or the old stand by. You say one thing; he says another, we say ‘great’ and put the checkbook away.

Right, on to my old buddy prospect… damn… I’m going have to write an essay for this lot. =D I expect casual didn’t mention them because we are talking about two vehicle collisions here, but can’t let them go without comment.

prospect wrote:

2. Approximately one-fourth of these motorcycle accidents were single vehicle accidents involving the motorcycle colliding with the roadway or some fixed object in the environment.

We do tend to go down by ourselves a fair bit but it’s very hard to fall over in a car. In a car you make an error, you get some tire spin as one of your four wheels looses grip. You might not even hear it, you probably won’t ever know about it. An advantage of cars, they forgive almost all of your mistakes and those of others and those they don’t forgive, the punishments are not severe (for you inside anyway).

prospect wrote:

4. In single vehicle accidents, motorcycle rider error was present as the accident precipitating factor in about two-thirds of the cases, with the typical error being a slideout and fall due to overbraking or running wide on a curve due to excess speed or under-cornering.

Ah ****! Tar over banding! Squirrel in the road! Car coming towards me on my side of the road! I’m being tail gated! I’m going to die! Argh! **** there’s gravel everywhere! Oh my god, it’s a decreasing radius curve!

Ever been scared on the road? No, try getting on a motorcycle and surrounding your self with lunatics driving a couple of tonnes of flesh and bone squishing metal.

That said, damn right, it is rider’s error and the rider is at fault. The rider needed to accept their lack of experience and make up for it by getting training, riding slower, recognising threats and potential threats earlier and responding to them.

prospect wrote:

11. Weather is not a factor in 98% of motorcycle accidents.

I had a low side, two, in my motorcycling youth. My first winter, the weather was horrible. The first was ice on a roundabout; the second was diesel on a wet roundabout.

I however agree that weather was not a factor in those two failures to maintain control of my motorcycle. Inexperience was, what did I do about this; I invested essentially the cost of my bike (my cheap first bike) on training with a couple of highly qualified, highly experienced instructors. Making up for my own lack of experience by learning about theirs.

I now pay greater attention to the road surface and weather conditions while riding.

prospect wrote:

26. Lack of attention to the driving task is a common factor for the motorcyclist in an accident.

Yeah, I can understand that one. Break your concentration for a couple of seconds and somebody will run into you, you’ll run into somebody, you’ll fall over.

prospect wrote:

28. Motorcycle riders in these accidents showed significant collision avoidance problems. Most riders would over brake and skid the rear wheel, and under brake the front wheel greatly reducing collision avoidance deceleration. The ability to counter steer and swerve was essentially absent.

The text that you have entered is too long (13989 characters). Please shorten it to 10000 characters long.

saobh_ie

The fear factor obviously. However this is collision avoidance that means somebody put him self or her self into a collision course with us. For example, a motorcyclist might be on a two-lane carriageway driving side by side with the car going around a nice gentle bend. The car starts moving in from the outside lane into the motorcycles space.

The motorcycle is tipped over cornering so if he applies the front brake he’s going to be on the deck and sliding out of the bend under the car before he knows what has happened (certain death), but he knows this so he drags the back brake as much as possible to slow himself without washing out the back, which would result in a slower side under the car (certain death). He slows down rapidly and almost makes it out behind the car but no joy there… he gets killed or worse, sorry.

What he should have done was immediately turn towards the car that was coming in on top of him. Thus getting his bike upright so that he could apply both brakes to their full potential, he wouldn’t even need to use that much braking such are the quality of brakes generally fitted to the machines.

However, he lacked the guts to turn kamikaze and steer directly at the other car, and he might have a tailgater, he hasn’t checked his mirrors for the last twenty seconds because he was watching for hazards ahead in the bend.

Legally, his best option is to maintain his futile back brake and corner escape because then the other car will clearly hit him. If he goes for the potentially far more dangerous option of righting his bike and slamming on he risks it looking to the world that he decided mid corner to ram the car beside him.

The poor unfortunate f*****.

These are the choices bikers are faced with in emergency situations.

prospect wrote:

35. Motorcycle riders in these accidents were significantly without motorcycle license, without any license, or with license revoked.

Ah crap, I should have read them all before getting to this one. This one is the get out of jail card. Joy riders my friend. They crash the cars they steal too, of course they’re going to crash the motorcycles as they are more unstable (advantage to those who know their stuff, disadvantage to joyriding punks).

No licence, then its pretty much guaranteed that they’ve had no training. Nada, zilch. Of course they’re going to fall off.

prospect wrote:

43. Seventy-three percent of the accident-involved motorcycle riders used no eye protection, and it is likely that the wind on the unprotected eyes contributed in impairment of vision which delayed hazard detection. [/prospect]

The Hurt report is from America. There is no helmet law in many places over there and where there is many Yank riders in all their squidlyness, are wearing little more than a ice hockey helmet. I’m sure you’ve noticed the majority of Irish riders wear helmets… err sorry, all of them. The vast majority then have visors, which they close down when they’re travelling much faster than a bicycle. So, there’s that one gone, Irish Bikers are riding around with their eyes open and unimpaired.

prospect wrote:

55. Less than 10% of the motorcycle riders involved in these accidents had insurance of any kind to provide medical care or replace property.

So 90% of these accidents were uninsured joy riding punks. Nice one.

prospect wrote:

Your bigoted attempt to portray all bikers as innocent victims of car drivers has failed miserably.

All bikers… did he… no… nope. Has anybody?

edmundf wrote:

From looking at it, if every bike driver was perfect (which Prospect's stats show are not true) the best they could hope for is a 25% reduction in accidents?..

What he said.

RicardoSmith wrote:

Car drivers can't make bikers more visible can they?

Okay, this statement taken in isolation. Car drivers can’t make motorcyclists more visible no, no more visible than they can make little old ladies walking down dark country lanes dressed in black, bicycle couriers splitting lanes faster than a lot of motorcyclists can, kids running out between cars…

Should everything and everybody be painted day glo reflective yellow to increase their visibility so that cars can go about their business.

A motorcycle with rider on top is taller than the average car; they have daylight running lights and make vrooming noises. They are a lot easier to spot than you think. Even as a five year old kid I could see motorcycles coming against a cluttered background for as far as the eye could see… although maybe that’s just because I a little f***ed in the head. Must be I suppose if I’m riding a bike on the roads when people don’t car if they run me over, or through their actions cause me to crash without actually colliding with me.

Why should we drape ourselves in bright colours, ride around with a thumb constantly covering the horn. Which I do by the way.

And here’s the kicker. It didn’t help on fuppin’ bit!

Also, back to the hurt report and others like it. Car/bike isn’t what you think its other vehicle/bike. Four or more wheels/two or three wheels.

Kazujo wrote:

As I mentioned in the other thread it's all a question of mass. If that accident had involved a sports car instead of a sports bike the devistation would have been much worse, but we wouldn't be hear talking about it then. It would just be another accident. Beacuse it is a quite rare and spectacular accident it has genertaed the bike vs car driver arguement all over again.

Yeah, I agree with that. It is spectacular, unusual, news worthy, and debate worthy when a motorcycle suddenly scythes through a car at ballistic speeds devastating the bodies of its occupants before flinging the vehicle head over heels sending it skittering down a roadway where it could have massacred countless pedestrians or even the people in other vehicles.

Two cars collide… “EU ministers meet today to endlessly discuss the same topic saying the same things over and over ad infinitum. A collision over the bank holiday weekend resulted in the death of four people. The Irish football team squares up against…”

GreeBo wrote:

As for someone actually using the term "cager"

Ooops, Crap. That was I. Too late to edit it out now isn’t it? But lunatic has been mentioned a couple of times about bikers… but that’s true I guess. We’re all mad to be taking our lives in our hands to know two thirds or more off our commute.

Now, I am tired and hungry. Check back later for parts three and four lol. Nah, kidding.

RicardoSmith

saobh_ie wrote:

....
Okay, this statement taken in isolation. Car drivers can’t make motorcyclists more visible no, no more visible than they can make little old ladies walking down dark country lanes dressed in black, bicycle couriers splitting lanes faster than a lot of motorcyclists can, kids running out between cars…

Should everything and everybody be painted day glo reflective yellow to increase their visibility so that cars can go about their business. .....

If you think theres no problem with wearing dark clothes down dark roads then you simply have no common sense.

The Hurt report thats theres a problem with the visibility of Bikers. You either want to dismiss that or act on it. Again it comes down to common sense. But if you want to ignore and throw that out. Then throw the rest of it aswell.

What I don't get is if Bikers are better skilled, better brakes, better reaction times, ARE perfectly visible, and are anticipating all these hazard of junctions, and cars. How the heck to they manage to get surprised and hit by a car.

Shouldn't be possible...

RicardoSmith

saobh_ie wrote:

....
Why should we drape ourselves in bright colours, ride around with a thumb constantly covering the horn. Which I do by the way.

And here’s the kicker. It didn’t help on fuppin’ bit! ....

Yes and thats what I suggested wasn't it....not :rolleyes: Why do bikers not do some course on proper defensive driving. How about backing off and let a car go ahead and keep your distance. When was the last time you saw a biker let a car, truck or bus, go ahead of them out of good road sense?

Hotblack Desiato

RicardoSmith wrote:

If you think theres no problem with wearing dark clothes down dark roads then you simply have no common sense.

You're putting words in peoples' mouths again.

The Hurt report thats theres a problem with the visibility of Bikers. You either want to dismiss that or act on it.

Oh, I act on it all right.

I ride with the dipped headlight on at all times.
With a fluourescent orange helmet, with multicoloured reflective stickers.
With a day-glo vest with large reflective stripes.
My exhausts (although standard) aren't the quietest either.

Every day - every single fuppin' day - one or more (but likely more) of the following will occur:

- Some idiot looks in my direction, fails to see, pulls out (or makes to pull out, but my honk stops him in time)

- Some idiot looks me RIGHT IN THE EYE, still pulls out

- Some idiot makes to pull out right in front of me WITHOUT EVER EVEN LOOKING IN MY DIRECTION

- Someone displays complete ignorance that a red light means stop, or that you yield when entering a roundabout, or some other basic principle of motoring, placing me in clear and present danger.


Just to clarify: bike within speed limit, lit up like a fuppin' christmas tree, not filtering, in correct lane, on main road, with right of way, and some idiot just thinks he owns the bit of fecking road that I'm imminently heading for.

FWIW, I've taken quite a number of advanced riding lessons and have a RoSPA silver qualification (NB advanced as in defensive, not Valentino Rossi)

All that that does is let me anticipate the actions of morons better and (mostly) keeps me out of their way. The fact remains, I am sharing the road with large numbers of utter morons who, in any other country, wouldn't have a hope of getting a licence.

Yet you still seem to think it's my fault for not being seen.

Perhaps it's my fault for riding a bike in the first place, in this God-forsaken country. Riding in France, Spain, Germany, or Greece is bliss compared to here and it's not just the weather. It's the competence of other road users and the fact that they show riders respect equal to other vehicles that is so refreshing - and so conspicuously absent here.

mike65

ninja900 wrote:

Every day - every single fuppin' day - one or more (but likely more) of the following will occur:

- Some idiot looks in my direction, fails to see, pulls out (or makes to pull out, but my honk stops him in time)

- Some idiot looks me RIGHT IN THE EYE, still pulls out

- Some idiot makes to pull out right in front of me WITHOUT EVER EVEN LOOKING IN MY DIRECTION

- Someone displays complete ignorance that a red light means stop, or that you yield when entering a roundabout, or some other basic principle of motoring, placing me in clear and present danger.

.

Funnily enough most car drivers can and do complain of same.

This thread really is played out so in the interests of my sanity (and others) I'm closing it.

Mike.