Close friends will know about this already, but about 18 months ago I was involved in a particulary nasty RTA where a drunk woman impersonated a hare and bolted across the road at night straight into my path where we collided and were both pretty messed up.
I thought I’d post up a little something here just to add as a cautionary tale to those of us who ride around London all day. The risk from pedestrians is huge out there, as they’re unpredictable and suicidal.
I won’t go into many details here, but the summary goes something like this; 1am, outside the ritz, busy road, well lit, raining, shell-grip road. Pedestrian is collapsed on the pavement, drunk. Comes to, see’s friends on other side of the road and gets up and runs straight out into the road without looking. Bike collides with her. Jay does a superman off the bike and lands on head unconscious.
The scary thing here is that I had zero time to react, there were no warnings. Due to the conditions I was riding at an appropriate speed of just under 30mph after having just turned a corner and could have stopped on the shell-grip very quickly had a normal road incident occured in front of me, but all I have from my memory is a single image, like a frame from a negative, of the woman about 11-o-clock to me. The next thing I know I’m sitting in the road waking up and wondering WTF has just happened.
Foxy was riding behind me and saw it all. She suffered mental trauma because of what she saw. I suffered in the short-term with concussion and a smashed up bike, but in the long-term my neck has a lingering injury and is prone to locking up and causing me to take time off work.
The pedestrian was critically injured and spent months in hospital. I have no idea of her lasting injuries but no doubt she will live with the consequences of her stupidity for the rest of her life.
So that’s three lives badly affected, just because someone didn’t respect the road for a second. Due to the severity of the accident, the road was blocked off and a full accident investigation was conducted by the Police. After several months the case was concluded and I was found not at fault and that was the end of a worrying time.
Whilst not applicable in this particular situation, the moral that can be drawn from something like this is please, please look and expect pedestrians to come jumping out from hidden places, i.e. from behind parked cars, buses, vans, and any other obstruction.
We can at times forget that situations change in the blink of an eye, and the results can be devistating. In London, it’s all too common for people to walk out, and most times we have time to react, but there’s times when you can’t. You can only defend yourself against this by riding proactively and expecting it when you recognise a situation where it might happen. Keep you eyes peeled and don’t take anything for granted. You don’t want to go through what I did. It was tragic, and terrifying for all involved.
) Headless chicken action from one dashing out in to the road on regents street late on a sat night. she got halfway then panicked, then darted left and right to avoid me. had the reverse effect as i went into a tank slapper from trying to change direction too many times myself. last second she leapt back to pavement and somehow the front came back under control (purely the bike, i was along for the ride at that point).
My new Yoshi exhaust turned up from the States today and although there are a lot of you that will say riding with a loud exhaust is irresponsible I also carry the police “no action” statements from both of my accidents when peds said to me “sorry mate, I didnt hear you”!!! FFS, use you eyes and not your ears you $%*&^%£&. They will hear me coming now.
