Road Safety Advert Using Video Filmed On Fatal Crash

I am a firm believer if you not look properly you should be accountable for your actions and the biggest proportion of blame, most people have condemned the rider, saying it is all there fault. I blame the car driver for all of it, the rider in my view was always on to a loser at what ever speed he was doing, just the faster is related to how bad it was going to end

There seems little else info around on the others involved in the accident if any, but one snippet I did find, and rather shocked to read:-

"Officers from Norfolk and Suffolk roads policing unit believe the video, entitled David’s Story, is the first of its kind in the country, and have worked closely on it with Mr Holmes’ family.

The 38-year-old was an experienced motorcyclist, who had been travelling at speeds of up to 97mph as he returned home to Sprowston from King’s Lynn on June 8 last year but an inquest heard that driver Benjamin Austin would have had sight of him and his bike for seven seconds before the collision.

Austin, 29, of Long Lane, Stoke Holy Cross, pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving in April and was disqualified from driving for 18 months and ordered to carry out 130 hours’ unpaid work.

Ch Insp Chris Spinks, head of the Norfolk and Suffolk Roads Policing Unit, said the car should not have attempted the manoeuvre, for which Mr Holmes had paid “the ultimate price”.

7 Seconds is a hell of a long time looking ahead, and not seeing something, as big as a car and a bike coming towards you and not see them.

 

Hi guys i'm new here so be gentle! The car driver had a bad solicitor in my opinion as i think it could have been argued that the car driver began the manouvre at the stage when he first saw the bike!

At 97 mph the bike is travelling at roughly 146ft per second! so he has travelled approximately 1022ft in that time!
If the (overtaken) car was at 60mph it will have travelled 630ft and had it been a switched on driver they could have stopped 152ft away from the turning car!!!! In fact it probably wouldnt have to had brake to allow the car to finish its turn!!!

At 100mph the overall stopping distance is 700ft but that is only if you are switched on with a 0.67 of a reaction time and your vehicle has a braking efficency of 85% (yep i know this is based on a car), the biker is being corteous by thanking the car driver for moving over that he overtakes rather than actually taking notice of all the important clues! When he reaches for the brake lever, its far far too late! Very very sad!

Another fact is that if you have two identical cars and one is doing 70mph and the other is doing a 100mph and that they brake at a given point say x, then when the car that was doing 70 stops at point Y the other car that was at 100mph will still be doing 70mph!

So my point is that as sad as this is, the biker could have done far more to significantly reduce the risk he was taking, sorry but all the clues were there! I am not on the side of the car driver, just giving a few facts! As for eye contact people, forget it, it means nothing, all you can really say is that the person looked in your direction!

Trying to judge the speed of an approaching motorcycle is very very difficult as there is no looming effect, the Honda VFR 1200 has tried to encompass this in its design but again relying on this is not a brilliant idea.........

I could go on but i think i have said enough!

 

Ok so why did the car that he overtook not crash into the carnage?

The average car driver looks for about 0.6 of a second to see if they can turn, into or out of a junction!

That could be any member of your family! You need to understand the looming effect (or lack of) of a motorcycle! Had it been an arctic lorry capable of doing that speed, i doubt the car driver would have attempted that turn!

The person driving that car has to live with that "mistake" for the rest of their lives! I do not envy them that as any decent person would have trouble coming to terms with that! Had it been some slag they would have had a decent brief that would (in my opinion) got them off of that offence!

 

Sorry but that is my whole point, the car was back a few seconds because they were not speeding yet the junction was in sight at exactly the same point the bike overtook that very same car! And yes had the car been speeding they would have arrived a couple of seconds earlier! The point of the video is trying to demonise the car driver! But in my opinion the lesson is in the fact, that the car he overtook did not get involved in the very same collision! That is because sadly they were driving so that they could stop in the distance they could see to be clear! The junction was not clear and the biker could not stop, sadlty very much as was proved!

 

The Fixer, it all is irrelevant the Car Driver SAID he did not see the car or the bike, even the police do not understand why, and said he should not have pulled out.
We do not know if the car was involved, but the car in my view was actually doing over 60 anyhow.
Fact is when you look and stop the video at where the car pulled across the bike the bike was on the junction, he had no chance, and I bet if the bike had not over taken the car, the car would have hit the car pulling across. but once the car was overtaken he slowed down.
No one knows why the car pulled across the junction. 7 seconds not to see something, watch something, and time to check continually to make a judgement even before he came to the junction, let alone cross.
I think the driver has not let on really as to why he did not spend time to look correctly, but we will never know.

 

No you cannot disregard the bikes speed because the car he overtook did not get involved in the same collision, sorry!

He was travelling at nearly 60ft per second more than the car he overtook, therfore in 4 seconds he was at the cars ability to stop, hence why it did! He arrived several seconds earlier at his fate than the car did, you cannot disregard his speed at all, it is a major contributing factor!

Had the car driver had hard boiled eggs for breakfast instead of runny eggs (about a minute difference) the collision may not have happened! That sounds horrendously flippant but i am sure you can see waht my point is there...... dont rely on hard boiled eggs, ride carefully people :-(

The fact that the car stopped regardless of what speed they were doing is the proof! I hate to have to be the person that points these facts out as it is a fellow motorcyclist but you have to face the facts, he was unable to stop!

And had he been doing 40 mph and been within 240 ft of the car he would have hit the car but he may well have lived :-(


I completely understand your point of view but his speed was the over riding factor in his death! Very very sad but true! Actually as with all collisions its not the speed involved its the degree of deceleration if youd like to be accurate! It is why moto gp riders etc can come off at high three figure speeds and survive if they are not slowed suddenly by another object or indeed hit by one!

Ok guys i will be quiet on this subject, if you choose to ignore the facts and live in blissful ignorance then hey good luck, in some respects we all do, otherwise we would all be driving around in sherman tanks i suppose!

Peace brothers, oh and go get some further training you might learn something lol

 

The Fixer. I never said his speed was not the cause of his death , but even at 60 MPH he would have hit the car and the outcome prob the same. The problem for me, was not how bad he was injured due to his speed, it is the fact the car pulled across at all not looking at oncoming trafffic with 7 seconds not to relise something was coming.
I also think that anyone driving on an A road should have the common sense that some traffic will be traveling faster than the speed limit.

We also do not know if the car did stop or went past as he more time to drive around. there is so little info on the actually accident except the video, and the police report, Most Info it seems has been pulled.

 

His approach speed is only irrelevant in relation to what his deceleration speed was, if, had he been doing 180mph and been allowed to slide for a very long time having had a "relatively" soft landing and not collided with anything then his deceleration would have been low! (as in a lot of motogp collisions)

"but even at 60 MPH he would have hit the car" No he wouldn't have, because he would never have overtaken that car!

"We also do not know if the car did stop or went past as he more time to drive around." My point entirely either way it didnt collide!


I have been extremely lucky to be a participant in Dr Cris Burgess seminar into what the human brain sees! I believe i'm a competent motorcyclist/driver (i didn't say good) and i missed a red london bus dissapearing in a video amongst a black taxi and 5 other items in a video of a potential of 10 items and apparently i was above average as most missed 8!

Your problem should be his speed, sadly if it was allowed to be accepted in court of how the human brain percieves things then every person in charge of a vehicle would get off for not seeing objects that are clearly visible! Dr Burgess words not mine! (i'm not qouting him, just my recollection)

When he described what happens to the human body (heart/brain) on impact you would remember it!

 

are theese the same 7 seconds, that the biker could see the car for ??? 5 seconds of which the car was either entering, in or leaving the filter lane and yet he chose not to adjust to the conditions, not that he should of been overtaking there anyway

I see the video as a warning to bikers to consider riding a bit more defensively

 

Not enough car drivers saw this for sure as 2 young men were killed last night on the Ashdown Forest on Chuck Hatch Road, they were local lads of 19 and 20 from Forest Row and Turners Hill. RIP

 

Sorry guys but staying with this subject............

You cannot disregard the speed it was ultimately his demise, just like you cannot disregard any of the other contributing factors!

It is one of the factors in accident investigation, which is always something you want to try and ascertain amongst many others! The accident started over 7 seconds back from the point of impact!

Had he not of been wearing the headcam the investigation would have been difficult because I would hazard a guess there were no skid marks on the road nor any drag/scrape marks!

Overtaking there is not illegal, the chevrons are surrounded by broken white lines! They are there to try and seperate the traffic, the red Tarmac is to highlight them, the more money spent the bigger the danger!

I feel sorry for everybody involved had he slowed down it may never have happened, had the car not turned it may never have happened it's just a question of what if's, well there are no what ifs in this, only the facts which you cannot ignore, well you can of course but, why do you want to ignore it, so you can apportion more blame on that poor bugger driving that car?

It's a major contributing factor amongst many to his death!

As for a conviction by the cps, he pleased guilty, you can charge anybody with any offence, if you have sufficient evidence for anything but that sounds like a decent person admitting to "a mistake" sadly a serious mistake with horrendous consequences!

 

well i can see what fixer is saying.....as you said BH remove the car and the incident is gone, agreed ...however ...reduce the bikes speed and we introduce a whole new variations of the outcome, ..rider is later to arrive, rider is able to take evasive action, rider is able to predict the possibility of the oncoming traffic turning and can make himself more likely to be seen by altering his road postion... but.... likewise, increase the riders speed and again another set of variables ..rider is gone and past the incident scene. as fixer said its a whole bunch of what ifs , we can debate that had the rider been at the junction doing the posted limit and had the car been there too performing the same turn without seeing the rider then the collision would still have taken place..agreed yes whole heartedly, but what we are trying to determine is keep everything the same on the timeline and alter either driver or riders actions. 1. driver takes another second to look a little better for oncoming traffic that its about to turn into, incident probably averted. 2.rider looks up and scans back assesses the junction and its possibilities and acts accordingly , reduces speed and road position making himself and his machine just that little bit more obvious and giving hinself half a chance to take action if required result, possible collision at much reduced speed thus reducing the deceleration factor that probably ended his life, or even possibly enabling the rider to take evasive action and totally avoid the incident altogether. i get the message think bike and agree most car riders need to be better trained to understand bikes and thier vunerabilities, however that doesnt negate us from a duty of care to ourselves in having the knowledge that not every car driver is going to be perfect 100% of the time regardless of thier intention or training likewise with bike riders not being perfect regardless of their training ( sorry Fixer even the best get involved in incidents where they could have done something different regardless of what the other driver/rider does to avoid an incident http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ck-motorobike-outrider-smashes-head-taxi.html ...a lucky escape as the rider recovered ) aportioning blame to one individual in most incedents is usually wrong and there are normally fors and againsts for either party.

 

My what if is DON'T pull out of a junction till you have had a good look, and 7 seconds is in-excusable, who ever was coming down the road at what ever speed.

Another Theory, The Bike does not over take the car, the car did not slow down as he would have after being overtaken, and the car still doing over 60 MPH, (judging by the bike speed going past) hits the car pulling across. (he did not see car or bike) and then the bike hits car in front. and more injury and and more fatal's