did you see this bike video?

http://www.aron.org/Accident20060210.wmv

It's a video filmed from a helmet mounted video camera lens.

Watch the black car in the left lane, see what he does about 5 seconds
into the video. Watch for the guy in a white T-shirt who gets out of
the black car. He was later quoted that the woman rider hit him causing
him to swerve. Little did he know that the whole thing was caught on
tape!

I followed up on this and the cops are going to charge the driver, based
on the tape. Without the tape it would be a tiresome investigation.
Maybe I better get a cam for me.

That whole thing happens so fast, that many would end up with the same
fate, pinched between the black car front and the right car side. The
only way out would have been to dive right, brake, and pop in behind the
car to the right with about 500msec to spare. You could probably only
execute that move if you began it just as soon as the black car front
fender crossed into your lane. Just about all her time gets used up
recognizing the situation, and she just barely starts moving to the
right, before impact. If she had froze, it would have been a T-bone
impact with her going over the top.

Thinking more about this, maybe one should ride next to the gap between
cages on your sides so you can duck into it, although this might put you
in their blind spot. What do you all think?

Ken

 

Do you know what the charges are?

1. Keep good following distances; be aware that someone in the next lane over
can drastically shorten that distance.
2. Use the Force; Trust Your Feelings. It's eery how riding a motorcycle has
sharpened my Spidey-senses for impending lane changes.
3. Get really bright flashy brake lights and make sure people stay well behind
you. I haven't measured her speed or deceleration in that incident but I think
that maybe harder braking could have avoided the crash ... at the risk of her
getting hit from behind.
4. Always have a way out, although in this case, all avenues of escape were cut
off.
5. Beware of squidly drivers. Mister Black Honda was acting kind of weird from
the start of the video; I'd like to see it from ten or fifteen seconds earlier.
Was he irritated at the bike passing him, then paying too much attention to the
bike? You can tell when someone's being strange ... I don't put up with anyone
who gets close to me and turns on the bumper-magnets. I don't like cars pacing
me and I try to end that sort of as soon as I can.
6. Don't overanalyze this particular incident. The one that gets you (or me)
will be completely different, and all we can learn is big handwavy generalities.

 

Geez, what the heck was THAT all about? Not a U-Turn, it's a one way
street, right? That was just bizarre and unexpected. I was hit by some
dipstick woman once, she made a left turn from the right lane cuz she
was late for the friggin SF opera!

She told the cop I was passing her on the left side, which was
true...except she tried to claim she was in the LEFT lane, and I was
passing illegally. Not so. Cop asked, "then why is the back end of your
car still in the right lane?"

Sued.
Won.
Bought a BMW.

I like the camera idea, yes. People in the LA area just change lanes
without warning. Oh, they exhibit a "tell." But you'd better be paying
attention!

cheers,

 

Traffic up ahead had slowed down and the fool was accelerating.
The silver car slowed hearing the skid, didn't look like an option
diving behind it. Other paths look worse. Would have had to
slowed earlier, seeing ahead in his lane. He didn't see the white
car slow down till he was on it.

I am curious about the camera rig.

 

Maybe not. I had to go through it a couple of times, snippet by
snippet. The white car ahead of the black one is slowing. The driver
of the black car notices late with distance closing, panics and hits
the brakes hard while trying to swerve, losing control.

I've been in similar situations to this riders, usually without the
panic braking, but I notice the slowing of the car ahead, and slow
down myself. But then, I'm a rather cautious, conservative
rider/driver, and used to drive deliveries and saw a lot of accidents.

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

I hope the rider he hit sues the pants off him!

 

When in doubt, gas it!
It's worked for me several times when hitting the brakes would have
surely been a crash.
It also helps when you have 100+ HP at the rear wheel. ;-)

 

Showoff!

 

So how would that have worked in this instance?

 

We'd have been treated to an even more spectacular crash video!

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

Assuming the cager's insurance doesn't come across promptly, he
certainly should. He should also understand how he could have avoided
the accident, however, or at least mitigated it. Being in the right
is only so satisfying when you're recovering from injuries.

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

Must be one of these:-
http://www.smoothcurvesracing.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=304
http://socalsportbikes.info/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=34948

--js

 

Yeah...

I think another 30 seconds earlier to set up the situation would give
all of us a bit better idea of the situation.

Obviously, the wheel lock of the Accord (no ABS on those things?) set
everything in motion, but I had a hard time seeing WHY the Accord
locked up?

I want a camera rig like that as well - *that* will be priceless when
it comes to dealing with the insurance ass-wipes!

--kw

 

For sure! I'd like to find out more about them as well! Do you have to
bungee a VCR on the back, or what?

 

As long as it doesn't show my speedometer, yes... ;-)

 

Definitely a male accident vicitm, he focuses on the (nice) rack of the
first woman to come to his ressue...

 

No, you could use a small handycam or one of the new all solid-state devices
coming out soon. Ask me again in August; I'll have something extremely cool to
show you.

 

Bad call buddy.
The rider was a female.

--
PC Paul
89 PC800
77 R100RS

Trip pics at: http://photos.yahoo.com/paul1cart

"To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to
society" - Theodore Roosevelt

 

It was not a Honda Accord that hit her on the bike. The car the spun
out and hit her was either a black or a purple Honda Civic around year
'98 generation platform. The car on her right was also an older model
Silver Honda Accord. It's hard to tell where this took place, it could
be the SF Bay Area or it could be someplace else in North America.

What caused the Black Civic to spin out of control? Many things could
have caused this, weather is not a factor.

An oil slick on the right hand side of the lane the civic was it could
have caused it to veer sharply to the right if the car had slammed on
the non ABS brakes while on top of it. A spilled Diesel slick could
have caused this too.

Whatever the case something caused the wheels to lock up. Judging by
the video, likely the Honda Civic had a mechanical brake problem. A
bad master brake cylinder will not cause this type of accident. What
happened was the hydraulic brake cylinder in the front driver side had
no pressure. In other words it malfunctioned and didn't do it's job.
Because of this the braking of the car was uneven. If the front
passenger side brake locked up, but the front driver side brake went
free this would likely cause the car to veer sharply to the right
exactly like what had happened in this video.

Many events needed to take place for the accident to happen just like
it did:

#1 The none ABS brakes on the civic go bad after years of driver
neglect

#2 The driver finds himself in a situation where he needs to panic
stop

#3 Driver slams on the brakes causing the malfunctioning non ABS
brakes to lock up and stop the car unevenly

#4 The car veers sharply to the right uncontrollably

#5 A motorcycle in the next lane over has no "out" to go since there
is a silver Accord also in the way

#6 The biker crashes into the Civic.

And last but not least #7 The biker suffers serious injurious.
Possible road rash, internal hemorrhaging, broken bones, and paralyzed
for life never making a full recovery.


The idiot driver of the civic obviously noticed the brake grabing a
long time before the accident. On his civic before the accident if he
pressed on the brake it must of wanted to lurch to the right because of
a bad brake cylinder. He would have to correct this by steering the
car to the left while braking. A kink somewhere in the brake line can
do this. So can brake fluid contamination.

The driver of the civic should go to jail for 5 years for neglecting to
maintain his car to be reasonably road safe.



East-

 

I meant to say that an oil slick on the *left* hand side of the lane
would cause a car to veer off sharply to the right under hard braking.
What happens is one side of the car wants to STOP while the other side
wants to keep going. The result is the car veers off to the side
sideways loosing control.

A malfunctioning brake system can do the same exact thing as well.
Causing one wheel to lock up and the other one on the opposite side of
the car keeps going. Resulting in the same thing as above.

Judging by the photos the honda civic had a malfunctioning brake
system. It is not something that will happen all of a sudden during a
panic stop. The driver obviously knew for a long enough time that
there was something seriously wrong with the car and that it should
have been towed to the repair shop and not driven there. Such a car
should not be driven at all. The "BRAKE" warning light would have been
clearly illuminated on the idiot honda drivers instrument cluster.
It's a safety feature that every car must have by law.

By the very least he should have gotten his drivers license suspended
for a long long time. At most he should be sent to jail for
involuntary manslaughter.


East-