Motorcyclist filmed own death with head cam

[citoyen]

Leaving generalisations aside, in this specific instance the biker was doing close to 100mph on a road with a 60mph limit.

Do the math, as they say over there.

[hellymedic]

Whilst most of us can do the math, Joe Random Public  (or Joe Random Politician) may not appreciate how kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the speed. (I appreciate that some accident potential varies as the fourth power of velocity.)

'About 50%' over the speed limit results in tripling the kinetic energy...

[greenmeansgo]

I feel sorry for this guy because he died but he died because of is own fucking stupidity. Not only that but his utter stupidity could have taken the lives of the occupants of the car.

Yes, he was partly to blame.

I hate bikers. Biggest pricks on the roads. Our roads.

All nicely tarred with the same brush there 

[Wowbagger]

I didn't watch the video. I find such stuff too upsetting.

[TimC]

I was a motorcyclist for many years, and I was pretty reckless at times. Certainly, open-road speed limits were something I paid scant attention to. Many of my motorcycling mates were similar, but I'd say we were a relatively small subset of motorcyclists generally. I gave it up after I was taken out by a car driver in a low-speed crash (<30 mph) from which I'm still suffering the after effects 18 years later.

I won't associate myself with Flatus' comments, but I can understand why he might have come to that viewpoint. Like anti-social cyclists (but more so), andti-social motorcyclists are highly visible, noisy, and so blatantly ignore the law and accepted standards of careful riding that they engender very strong reactions from others. The tendency to generalise is always a problem, but there's no doubt that there's a larger proportion of nutjob bikers than car drivers - bikes are cheap, are very, very fast, and have a culture of speed and risk-taking which doesn't apply to most Ford Fiesta and Nissan Micra drivers.

My brother is a full-time advanced motorcycle instructor, and he tears his hair out at the antics of so many bikers. Yes, a number are keen to improve their riding and pursue further qualifications, but few of them ride supersport 600/750/1000cc bikes, which are the largest part of the UK market.

[nicknack]

I didn't watch the video. I find such stuff too upsetting.

Me too.

having seen a motorcyclist kill himself and his girlfriend in real life I have no wish to relive the experience.

[spindrift]

The clip is horrible, his poor mum. But taking that junction at that speed was dumb, why would you do that, it's taking your life and placing it in the hands of a random stranger-the stranger could be an alert and sensible driver or it could be the sort of person who phones up Jeremy Vine to share their opinion of wheelie bins, you just don't know, why gamble like that?

[Andrew]

Is it a good thing, because it may shake up some of the "it couldn't happen to me" idiots?

Kind of my take on seeing the video. It's unusual (ime), not to mention brave, to release it in this context. And, tbh, it made me think not of fault but of vulnerability.

As a motorcyclist, I'm aware of just how vulnerable I am. I'm not only reliant on me not doing anything stupid but also other road users. A dent in a car's wing is my hospitalisation, or funeral. It's hard to square that with the enjoyment of riding, restraint is ever necessary.

[Gattopardo]

I don't understand what you are saying.

Have modified what I said, sorry bit emotional last night.

[Gattopardo]

Mostly, overcooking it on a slippery bend leaves you in a hedge or a field.

Yep, you get dead straight Norfolk roads then a sudden sharp curve where bikers just go in a straight line through the field because they realise they're hooning it too fast to turn. My brother lives in north Norfolk and he's pretty sure bikers time themselves doing circuits near his house, noisy bastards.

Like strava...

[Freya]

But taking that junction at that speed was dumb,

He had been riding a motorbike for 22 years, so I don't think he could have got away with riding like that all the time. He'd just come from a race (or maybe a track day) so perhaps he had a bit of adreniline in the system. Who knows?

[mcshroom]

Looking from the outside having never had much experience of motorbikes, it seems that they combine the power and speed of a car with the lack of protection of a bicycle.

Idiots on the road are idiots on the road. I'm sure we've all seen cyclists, motorists and motorcyclists do ridiculously dangerous things. Unfortunately motorbikes seem to offer the most lethal combination when the luck runs out, so, although you have many people kill themselves losing control of their cars, and indeed a decent number on bicycles in proportion to usage, motorcyclists fair the worst. 

Overarching this however, is road users' attitudes to driving/riding on public roads. I don't think it's just bikers behaving badly, I think all road users need to remember they're not on a race track.

[Martin]

I watched the BBC version; it was harrowing enough, am not about to watch the YouTube full version; I've seen one in real life  and had to suffer the aftermath (other drivers trying to recussitate a corpse; having to give a witness statement to the polis- he left a pregnant fiancee)

I'm just so glad my boys have shown no interest in the things; my oldest has totalled two cars and walked away from both. In hindsight the severe restrictions they placed on young motorcyclists years ago have improved safety simply by reducing the number of them

I passed my MC test in 1977 in those days it was literally ride round the block do a few hand signals emergency stop and a few HC questions; I could have gone out and bought a Kawa Z1 the next day and wiped myself out, I never owned anything bigger than 250 they were scary enough. On emptier roads, with no mobile phones or Facebook

[Pete Owens]

At the time the driver was making the decision to make the turn the motorcycle probably beyond the last car they overtook. The driver will have seen a car in the distance assesed there was a sufficient gap to complete the manoever - and the motorcyclist will have seemed to come from nowhere.

That does not seem to be the case here. If you look carefully at the video (I mean the one on the BBC link), and freeze it at exactly 0:57, you will see that the M/C is in primary position, still some distance away from the junction, with no vehicle in front of it; and the oncoming car has not yet started its turning manoeuvre.  I think more blame attaches to the car driver, but that is not to condone the unfortunate biker's utter disregard for speed limits.

Ill repeat my first paragraph again at this point:

"When you turn right you not only need to check the road ahead, but the road you are turning into, any pedestrians that may be crossing and so on. This all takes time, and despite our perception of a complete panaramic view in which we are aware of every detail we can only look for one thing at a time. It also takes time from the decision to move and the vehicle starting to move - and once you are moving it takes time to initiate a stop - so while it looks from the video as if the driver simply pulls out at the very last minute, the initiation of that manoevre will have been taking place very much earlier. "

The video at 57 seconds gives the motor cyclist's perspective - and from that distance (about 100m) and that speed it is very difficult to tell whether the car has started to pull forwards or not. The manoevre will certainly have been initiated earlier than that (at a point before the biker overtook the car (when the driver had a view similiar to that at 48s and could reasonably have judged that there was a sufficient gap). Having assessed a safe gap in oncoming traffic they would need to turn their attention to looking where they were going.

At 57 seconds the biker will have only been in view for about 2 seconds and still so far away that it would still be reasonable to assume that the gap was sufficient. (the bike is travelling at twice the speed limit ffs). I would guess that 57 seconds (3 seconds before the collision) was about the time the driver did realise that both (a) a bike had appeared in their field of view AND (b) it was going very very fast.

If you look at rather more complete footage from the independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/video/?videoid=3768785399001

You can see that the car did swerve in the second before the crash - again you need to take into account the reaction time and the time for that reaction to be apparent in the footage.

[levitator]

Well, no amount of analysis and blame assessment will restore David Holmes to his grieving family.  I accept that.

The purpose in releasing this harrowing video, is surely, so that lessons shall be learnt.  What have we, and road users in general (that includes most of the population, a large proportion of whom seem to have watched this video) learnt from it?

I think, speed is the factor that most comes to my mind.  Road users will always have to turn right somewhere, across the path of oncoming traffic.  That's unavoidable, unless we turn every single junction in the country into a roundabout or flyover, which would be utterly impracticable (as well as making it worse for cyclists).  Most right-turns are of course, executed completely safely.

But we could change the mindset of that minority of drivers who go at such appalling speeds.  If there were a sea-change there, this alone would save many lives a year.  I'm not talking about getting at the (admittedly large) sector of the motoring public who think it's OK to go at 35mph in a 30mph zone - they're still in the wrong, but it's a lesser wrong.

No.  It's the 'thrill' of attaining speeds of 100mph plus, that has to be combated.

I know that there's a forum website, out there, one which I don't even want to name.  It advocates such things as torching speed cameras and impersonating dead motorists to escape prosecution.  Many of you will know what I mean.  I haven't visited it for years.  I wonder what it's saying about the speed factor in this accident?  I'd rather not look for myself.

[Jaded]

The 35 in a 30 is absolutely part of the problem. It normalises law breaking. Everyone does it and the vast majority think it is outrageous that otherwise law-abiding motorists are penalised for doing it. There is no societal respect for speed limits and there is little understanding of what breaking them means for others.

Once you have a culture where 85% of people admit to breaking the law, breaking the law a bit more isn't much of an issue.

With the crash, the speed of the motorcyclist means that the car driver had half the time to see the bike that he would have if the bike had been doing a law-abiding 50. Do you think the car would have cleared the carriageway? Looking at the video, I think it is marginal - the driver took a huge risk.

Busy road, lots of traffic, maybe one of those situations where the longer a driver waits the shorter the gap he/she is prepared to accept as acceptable to carry out the manoeuvre.

Having said that, if speeding is such an issue, why do the police ignore it? I've not seen a proper random police speed trap for maybe 10 years, only things like specialised vans on motorway bridges. Are the police nobbled, or do they not see it as an issue, or has the spectre of Eric Pickles and his brand of utter fuckwittery turned their heads?

[Peter]

Targets, I should think.  This possibly contributes to all sorts of bad practice from the major (not taking abuse victims seriously) to lesser ones (asking me to investigate CCTV footage when my Scott was stolen - the shop with the camera told me it was a police matter!)

[Regulator]

Targets, I should think.  This possibly contributes to all sorts of bad practice from the major (not taking abuse victims seriously) to lesser ones (asking me to investigate CCTV footage when my Scott was stolen - the shop with the camera told me it was a police matter!)

Just as an aside, it's not - the shop was wrong.  Under the Data Protection Act you have a right to access CCTV on which you might appear (which of course you might have locking the bike up, etc) - which is the reason that you see lots of notices saying 'CCTV is being operated by....' all over the place.

[hellymedic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-29106421

Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. 

RIP riders. Thoughts are with your loved ones.

[Biggsy]

(Some) people need extreme excitement in their lives, so alternatives need to be promoted if we don't want the public roads to be used for that excitement.  How about building loads of government-subsidised motor racing circuits so that more people can enjoy track days more cheaply (without endangering those who don't opt in)?  It's not the same as speeding on the open road, but could satisfy somewhat.

(I'm not watching the video.  The descriptions on this forum are graphic enough).

[Byronius Maximus]

While I can understand Norfolk Constabulary's reasons for releasing the video, and I think that it is incredibly brave of the mother to allow the footage to be used, I think the video misses the mark somewhat.

It provides more 'shock' value than any road safety video I've seen, which might serve to make people think momentarily, but what does it achieve? The video only seems to help people viewing it apportion blame to one side or the other, or both, rather than giving messages or advice about what road users can do to avoid such situations. If people had entrenched views about the safety of motorcyclists or var drivers before watching this, those views will only become further entrenched after watching it - you only have to see some comments made about it around the internet to see this.

For motorcyclists, I guess the message is obviously to ride with an appropriate speed (amongst other things), but what about car drivers? Look twice? Move your head when looking for vehicles to avoid your natural blind spot?

I don't see any of these messages coming through in the video so I feel it merely has a momentary shock factor which is soon forgotten but doesn't really give the viewer much to go away with to think about what they as a road user could do better, rather than looking at a video and simply talking about what others are doing wrong.

I guess there is room for both educational videos and 'shock factor' ones (like the Christmas drink driving ones), but I seriously doubt that the latter really has a positive impact on how people act on the roads, and that is surely the goal of these things.

[Peter]

Targets, I should think.  This possibly contributes to all sorts of bad practice from the major (not taking abuse victims seriously) to lesser ones (asking me to investigate CCTV footage when my Scott was stolen - the shop with the camera told me it was a police matter!)

Just as an aside, it's not - the shop was wrong.  Under the Data Protection Act you have a right to access CCTV on which you might appear (which of course you might have locking the bike up, etc) - which is the reason that you see lots of notices saying 'CCTV is being operated by....' all over the place.

Cheers, G.

[caerau]

The 35 in a 30 is absolutely part of the problem. It normalises law breaking. Everyone does it and the vast majority think it is outrageous that otherwise law-abiding motorists are penalised for doing it. There is no societal respect for speed limits and there is little understanding of what breaking them means for others.

Don't ask how I know this        but this is actually a major focus of speed awareness courses.  They cite data of traffic going past a school at 3.30 pm (ish) and show that about 2 cars and hour go through at 60 mph - but something like 30-40% (iirc about one every 5-10 seconds) goes through at 35 - 40 mph.


The point being that you're actually much more likely to get run over by one of these drivers than the real killers doing 60.

[levitator]

It provides more 'shock' value than any road safety video I've seen, which might serve to make people think momentarily, but what does it achieve? The video only seems to help people viewing it apportion blame to one side or the other, or both, rather than giving messages or advice about what road users can do to avoid such situations. If people had entrenched views about the safety of motorcyclists or var drivers before watching this, those views will only become further entrenched after watching it - you only have to see some comments made about it around the internet to see this.

Words of wisdom there.  I suppose the shock value is the main thing of worth in all this.  I'm hoping more and more people think 'that could have been me'.  If you look at the picture of the car after the collision (it's on some of the videos), with its front end shredded and unrecognisable, you'll see by what a whisker the car driver escaped his own death.

Because almost all accidents are caused by people.  Think about it.

Don't ask how I know this        but this is actually a major focus of speed awareness courses.  They cite data of traffic going past a school at 3.30 pm (ish) and show that about 2 cars and hour go through at 60 mph - but something like 30-40% (iirc about one every 5-10 seconds) goes through at 35 - 40 mph.

Quite right.  I think the "10% + 2mph" rule has something to do with this - if the police actually apply it and, regrettably, this knowledge has got into the public domain.

Problem is, how on earth do you re-educate 30-40% of all motorists?  We're talking about millions of individuals.  We can't send each and every one of them on a course!  The only thing we can do, is make the Driving Test far tougher on this front.  I must admit, I took my Driving Test well over 40 years ago, and things have changed a lot since then.  What do they test you on, regarding excess speed and awareness of it?

[sg37409]

Problem is, how on earth do you re-educate 30-40% of all motorists?

IME, its a lot closer to 100 % of all motorists than it is to 40 %.  Which is the problem.  Its totally normalized.