Would you have seen this coming?

happened to me except the car was in lane 1. I braked hard but it wasn’t good enough (I have my brakes set up so that I CAN’T lock them up).

regardless of the distance and how fast you were going, the driver shouldn’t have set off.

you mean they are s**t, or you have abs ?

dude dont beat yourself up.
a very good friend of mine had about 20 crashes, and he’s a very competent rider, done countless amount of miles on road and track in uk and abroad, he still cant shake his bad luck so st happens to him. had about 15 different bikes and only one managed to get sold in one piece!
you dont have do go around london as a nervous wreck BUT all this will soon enough get used in your head to avoid all those wan
rs in due time.

the answer to your question is I DONT KNOW. my bike has never locked the front either and never let me down in emergency, but as i said s**t happens, to some people more than once :laugh:

but i always ride expecting the unexpectable and as loud said i also use my horn a lot :slight_smile:

ps. i got my blood boiled up by Mel’s comments btw, i thought that was completely out of order. just my view, you should never beat someone up when already down, thats just plain nasty.

No I couldn’t say 100% I would have avoided it, I have done so far but sometimes circumstances conspire against you - you look at the speedo and look up, there’s a pedestrian catches your eye doing something daft on the other side of the road, you hit a slipery patch of road etc. Sometimes people pull crazy **** on the roads and they’re not the only thing you’re looking at. i don’t think any of us could say 100% that we would have got away with the situation you were in.

I quite often use my horn as an “I’m here” warning but it seems like there’s a lot of people in London who take it personally, I’ve beeped plenty of people because the indicated to turn when they may have hit me, only to have them going mental at the next set of lights. A guy squeezed down the bike lane at stockwell a couple of days back to yell out the window that me beeping didn’t scare him - what the f#ck is that about?

In a lot of countries I’ve been to, the horn is used as a reminder that you are there. In London it seems to translate as “F#ck you!” to a lot of people.

Got out of work and did some ‘panic’ breaking in the parking lot at <10mph. That was some great front wheel skidding I did. Needless to say if the car suddenly suddenly turned on me I wouldn’t be a happy bunny.

my brakes are ****. means that having a panic and locking up isn’t an issue

He might be competent riding the motorcycle but if all those are on the road then there is something he is lacking - road knowledge, observation, anticipation? Just too fast for the conditons maybe. 20 accidents is not just bad luck.

Shiver, imo you’re still missing the point. No one can say yes/no to this for several reasons - we weren’t there so cant call it. The constructive parts of Mel’s posts on both threads means simply this:

You could have been better prepared to deal with this.

What you and I have discussed off forum would have you processing available information far, far earlier. This means that you have more time on your hands to think and plan. All this could have made no difference in this case, but I guess it would’ve.

The trouble with this(?) forum, we have hugely experienced motorists on here and they tend to be the quietest, the most vocal tend to be the “sh1t will always happen brigade” (when we can reduce it hugely) and the ill informed (have you seem my post count! :blush: ) :smiley:



An less not forget the more you actually ride the more at risk you are fella if you an your bike see 48 a year tops of glorious sunshine an quaint vilage’s bet there is more than a couple of people posting here that aint even seen rain let alone rode in a real live winter urban situations so i wouldn’t sweat it fella see you next summer .

Some relevant stuff here:

http://londonbikers.com/forums/889757/iam

He’s had 20 crashes and he’s a competent rider? Brilliant. Whilst there’s many tools on our roads and in an ideal world we’d be able to say it’s all their fault - our job is to anticipate their toolish actions. That’s Hel’s point.

So without “beating someone up when they’re down” (even though they were the one who invited alternative viewpoints to their situation) - I’d say locking your brakes at “20-25 mph” is not a great piece of riding, it’s a panic response to a situation that could have been better prepared for. That’s not to say the u-turning driver isn’t a tool.

Having ridden over 30,000miles in 3 years riding daily I have locked the front once. You say it’s rider error but it’s not like the front skidded. it went down straight away so lack of grip was the cause on a COLD road COLD tyres, POOR road surface what’s so hard to comprehend about that?

My one error would of been not bibbing the driver which wasn’t one of my habits anyway.

It happens - same thing happened to me going VERY slowly in similar conditions, must have just grabbed slightly too much front brake like shiver:

Don’t suppose you checked whether there was diesel or similar on the road?

This obviously might have caused the front to skid and tuck.

You should know better than to post a thread like this, this is the internet, it is technically impossible for everyone to agree on anything on the internet.

To the real question, do I agree with Sneaky and Mel? I dunno, it isn’t that straight forward. Yes in general being more aware will always be better, but you could spend all your time and all your money doing IAM and a million other things to “improve” your ability to second guess what other road users will do.

This could still have happened the day after you did that, because it is a very odd situation that is a combination of a lot of factors that came together to cause a crash.

I will say this though Shiver, in my experience, some riders have a sixth sense almost, it is a subconscious ability to see dangers before they are dangers. I have seen it in many riders and I have seen it in myself. CheekyChick and D Two Nine are two riders I have spent a lot of time riding with and they both seem to have it, I have experienced it myself, a time where you check your speed and brake slightly, not even sure why you are doing it…and then a pedestrian walks out from behind a big lorry…perhaps I saw a reflection in some glass, or a shadow, or a driver turn his head toward them, I don’t know, I can’t say what it was that made me slow down and brake for no conscious reason.

That I think is worth working upon more than any IAM or any other “taught” ability. Listen to your inner voice, if you feel a twinge to brake or slow down, come off the throttle etc listen to it immediately, if it is wrong, nothing lost.

Might not have changed what happened to you, because of the number of factors, but you will know more than anyone if there was a voice, if you had a thought flash across your head to slow down.

Maybe you just don’t have that, and perhaps IAM is better because it will force you to think about looking at the road, they have lots of useful mantras and abbreviations for helping you look at the environment you are in.

Just remember, when they tell you not to indicate…they are wrong!!! lol

tehswerver, unlucky there but not surprising you dropped it, the road surface didn’t help but you should have spotted it and known it was wet. You accelerated hard there (needlessly, lack of forward thinking with a crossing up ahead) causing your rear suspension to contract and your front suspension to expand so when you applied the brake(s) your front wheel would have been practically floating on top of the wet road surface as opposed to having firm contact with it. If you had pulled away smoothly you would have been OK, rider error.

Nice vids though.

our job? what the heck are you on about???

my JOB is not to anticipate d**ks who use their cars as takeaway, gamestations, private lounges and such as, i have to do it because it will keep me alive for a little longer but in no way shape or form should be allowed or condoned or even mentioned as ‘safest way to ride’!!!

the world has gone mad. now it makes more sense to be doing whatever you f**k want on the weel and for others have to be aware of your sudden changes of directions, rather than change that for better road awareness!!!

not cool mate, not cool.

silverr6, its people with your attitude that will end up hurt. Not cool.

so: shiny - that means wet right? thanks for that

attitude towards what?

teaching people to be more aware on the roads? that alone will cause people to crash less? how’s that going to get me hurt? :blink: