Cycling crash report - your thoughts ?

[Arjimlad]

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/vide...ng-side-road-wants-horrific-video-act-warning

I saw this and my initial view was that the chap was possibly going too fast for the road but we can't see the full picture from the video.

I have in mind myself, when riding, the mantra drummed into me whilst driving on country lanes, that you should be travelling at a speed where you can safely stop within the distance you can see. Some of the roads I ride like this mean that I have to step off the gas and go carefully around bends.

The motorist had 2 seconds to see the cyclist and not pull out, from what I can make out on the limited view offered by the video. Perhaps it was longer in real life.

With 2 seconds, by the time she had decided to cross the road the bike would be on her. Horrid to see the flying glass when he hits the car and I am pleased to note his injuries were not severe.

 

[mjr]

Can anyone find a direct link to the video or one from a mainstream site, please? Cycling Weekly seem to be using Brightcove which is broken for me.

Another key thing to remember when travelling along small roads is to allow for a vehicle to appear at any turning and possibly misjudge the stop line by a bit. This may mean riding further from the edge with the side road than seems natural, stepping off the gas and/or covering brake levers.

I've had a couple of sharp stops in the last year where that extra few degrees of being able to see into the side road were vital in letting me grab the brakes a split-second earlier and stop before a motorist pulled out across me against priority. Even then, I was surprised I didn't hit one of them and I lifted the back wheel when stopping for the other.

 

[martint235]

Glad he wasn't badly injured.

Purely in hindsight, cos that's all we have, I think he was going too quick not just for the junctions but also the road surface, there's a large pothole just before contact for example. If you're on that kind of surface it's worth going a touch slower. But as I say hindsight. Hope he's fully recovered or well on the way.

 

[Milkfloat]

This was posted a couple of weeks ago and discussed then. I will try some google-fu to find the topic.

 

[Drago]

While the car driver is ultimately to blame, the rider was careless verging on reckless. Not once in the whole video does he shoulder check. He takes a blind left hander at speed with no attempt to moderate his velocity, despite not know what is round the corner. The junction is visible before the car but he makes no attempt to approach with any degree of caution or to alter his road positioning. He's made himself vulnerable by his own sloppy cyclecraft and wilfully daft riding.

 

[the snail]

But but but.. it was his right of way (would make a great epitaph on your gravestone eh?) Clearly the rider feels his riding was beyond reproach, but I can't help wondering if he was transported back in time whether he would behave differently?

 

[martint235]

But but but.. it was his right of way (would make a great epitaph on your gravestone eh?) Clearly the rider feels his riding was beyond reproach, but I can't help wondering if he was transported back in time whether he would behave differently?

Priority!

And what's the principle? If a driver sees nothing approaching and crosses the line, does priority then transfer to the driver to complete their manoeuvre?

 

[the snail]

Priority just means the driver should have looked properly and not pulled out - the accident was clearly the fault of the driver. But in the real world people make mistakes, they don't look properly and this sort of situation is pretty much inevitable. As the cyclist here, you can't control the actions of the motorist, you can only control your riding. If this was my video, I'd be blaming the motorist and getting my insurance claim in, but I'd be thinking about what I could have done differently to avoid or minimise the impact. It's difficult to judge from a video, but I'd say there was a failure in hazard perception here. There was probably a warning sign before the junction, which would make me alert. When I saw the junction I'd probably ease off a bit, and be wary and ready to brake because the LH turning isn't visible. Seeing a car waiting on the left alarm bells would be ringing and I'd probably slow down. If I saw the car over the line, I'd be on the brakes. By my reckoning the driver has about 2s from being visible to impact. If you look at the psychology/neurology of perception, it probably takes about 2s to look properly and register the presence of a cyclist, and the driver has to be checking to the left/right/ahead, so at the speed the cyclist was going, it's not really surprising that the motorist made a mistake. My guiding principle - assume every other road user is an idiot, not to assume that the fact that you have priority is going to magically protect you somehow.

 

[fossyant]

Simple driver didn't look.

 

[raleighnut]

I'd add that a lot (if not most) of car drivers expect cyclists to be moving slowly and fail to realise the speed we're at when 'clogging on'. Same as the nobbers who pull 'left hooks' on cyclists when they think they've overtaken but have yet to get fully past.

 

[DRM]

Looks like an unmarked crossroads to me. when I learnt to drive many years ago there was one locally that the instructor would have me drive through regularly in order to impress on me to proceed with caution and look carefully before continuing throught the junction, and never to just go straight through as that driver did.

 

[Pete Owens]

I have in mind myself, when riding, the mantra drummed into me whilst driving on country lanes, that you should be travelling at a speed where you can safely stop within the distance you can see.

That should be HALF the distance you can see - on the grounds that the thing you need to stop for is likely to be moving towards you at the same speed as yourself. You also need to allow for the fact that you will take longer to stop when going downhill. The crash is entirely down to the excesive speed of the cyclist - he really didn't give the car driver a chance.

Pause the video at 10s. The rider is approaching a farmhouse with a blind bend beyond. He would have had no chance of stopping had a car been coming up the hill at 35mph and just about to appear round the corner - fortunately the two cyclists he passes at 13s were riding in single file at the edge of the road.

Now roll forward to 19s (3s befor impact). The cyclist can see the junction with the side road entrance on the right, but the left hand entrance and the car are obscured by the bank and the slight left hand bend (obviously the visibility in the other direction will be equally restricted). This is the point at which the driver will have made the decision to move forward - at walking pace - she can hardly be expected to yeild priority to vehicles that are not yet visible. Pause again at 20s (impact -2s) - this is where the cyclist first becomes aware of the very front of the vehicle - though probably still out of sight from the driver. 21s "Worth shouted a warning to the driver" What did he think she could have doneo in the remaining second he was bearing down on her? Though she appears to have stopped by the time he hits her.