the white van in front of me had an emergency brake in inner lane of a dual carriage way, because the driver spotted a stationery car(after an collision obiously) in the middle lane, i followed the van at about 70 miles an hour, I managed to brake to a halt when my front wheel literally touched the van, my bike fell. a few driver stopped to ask if i was ok. The van driver helpt me to lift up my bike. Before i restarted, i saw a shocked young driver sitting in a damaged car in the middle lane, the front wheels of the car were in weird shape.this morning in old Kent road i saw another bike accident, a pedestrian suddenly ran cross bus lane, the bike in front of me braked sharp and skided. I stopped and help to lift the bike for the poor guy. He was all right in his full protective clothes, but upset about the damages, broken pegs and indicator, maybe mirror. He complained to the young man who caused the accident. I don’t think he can claim anything from a pedestrian(can he?)
When I parked my bike to help, i was hesitant for a moment, not sure if i should park in the double yellow/red lined bus lane or not. too many rules indoctrinated into my brain by riding school teachers.
Glad you’re ok, BBSMonk. We’ve all been there, just takes a moment of loss on concentration or looking elsewhere (eg doing a lifesave) and you’re pulling that front brake lever for all your worth, hoping it doesn’t lock up and you stop in time. Had this once on a Harley on a wet road, a very scary experience indeed.
I have not experienced this since August 2007, when I got a bike with ABS. Now I can stop just as quickly as before but can stay in control, makes a huge difference, wouldn’t contemplate riding any other bikes that don’t have ABS.
A pedestrian is as liable as anyone else if they cause an accident. Their household contents insurance usually provides some personal liability cover and they may have other relevant insurances. Even if they don’t you can still take action against them for damages, although insurance companies don’t bother they just screw their customers instead!
throwing shoes at the pedestrian or the shoe fetish like you is like Americans throwing expensive missiles on low value targets of civilian mud houses in Afghanistan, just not worth my expensive shoes:)
Hmm, I’ve taken onboard your comments, and although I agree low-level targets aren’t worth aiming at.
Having said this, I still feel the best course of action for this matter would be to slowly unlace the ‘expensive’ shoe (obviously savouring the last moment before you’re parted), then take in to consideration the windage before proudly launching in an ‘un-manly’ fashion (I’m picturing John Inman for this) towards your target.
this morning in old Kent road i saw another bike accident, a pedestrian suddenly ran cross bus lane, the bike in front of me braked sharp and skided. I stopped and help to lift the bike for the poor guy. He was all right in his full protective clothes, but upset about the damages, broken pegs and indicator, maybe mirror. He complained to the young man who caused the accident. I don’t think he can claim anything from a pedestrian(can he?)
Same road almost same outcome happened to me.
But big burly guy crossing whilst I was filtering between the 3 lanes. His head came out from the white van on my left. Was travelling around 15mph and the guy instead of getting flattened by me ran straight into me from the left side.
The bike jolted 1 metre to the right, and he bounced off. Flippin’ heck I thought. He made it to the other side of the road and was staring in shock. Lucky guy.
Sounds like the rider grabbed a handful of front brake in panic and floored it. That isn’t the pedestrian’s fault. The rider’s lucky he found out that his braking technique needs some working on, before it gets more risky. If he’d knocked down the pedestrian, now then that would have been the pedestrian’s fault. :crazy:
I was filtering through Mitcham this morning between 2 lines of traffic and a girl stepped out into the gap from behind a white van. Locked the front for a moment but luckily JUST missed her. Had a good shout at her to make myself feel better…
too many rules indoctrinated into my brain by riding school teachers.
