Caring biker shows what happens if you ride like an idiot

"A motorcyclist has had a lucky escape on one of Europe's most notoriously dangerous roads and published the video as a warning to others."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26848603

So a speeding biker films himself riding like a maniac, putting his own and others lives at great risk, crosses the solid white no overtaking lines, narrowly avoids missiling a car head on and comes off his bike, as a warning to show how dangerous the road is.

If he'd hit that car square on, he would have been pretty poorly, possibly dead, but the occupants of the car wouldn't have got off without a scratch either. Fair enough a car is bigger and has a lot more mass than a bike, but a bike still has a lot of mass, and with a combined impact speed of 100 mph or more, the car would have been destroyed. The driver's head would have mashed into the airbag smashing his face, pretensioners firing, snapping collar bone, possibly the engine could come through the firewall crushing legs. All because someone thought it would be fine to use the road as a race track for his own fun, flouting numerous laws.

I don't get why the BBC are treating him as some poor lad with a lucky escape. He nearly killed himself through his own recklessness, and nearly killed someone else in the process. And what if the car had also swerved? There was another bike coming up not far behind the mental one. Had the car driver panicked and swerved onto the wrong side of the road, the other biker could have also been wiped out.

 

I don't think that the report was easy or hard on him. By his own admission he screwed up and from what I saw he wasn't basking in his own glory. As an ex rider I can confirm the ease with which the adrenaline sucks you in and I was lucky at times too. I was lucky more often though avoiding stupid car drivers. Hopefully a few younger riders will take note of this accident and think a bit harder in future.

 

As a driver of a big comfy car that will happily completely smash the speed limit without even labouring, I know how easy it is to just let the speed creep up too. But, I wouldn't take the racing line and as much as temptation tempts me, I wont treat the roads as a race track. The reason being that the consequences are just too much.

I've had the misfortune of having witnessed the worst possible outcome, more than once. I also think some bikers are too keen to play the 'poor biker - stupid car driver' card. The car driver in the video clip was doing nothing wrong. Chances are, even though there was no collision, I wouldn't mind betting his day was ruined. Obviously because its never nice to see someone come off, even if it is their own fault, but also because the adrenaline surge from the shock probably left him feeling quite sick for the rest of the day.

A few years ago, I had to give a statement to the coppers after witnessing one biker doing CPR on his mate who was probably already dead. I had to explain to the coppers how I was doing about 50mph (on a 60mph road) when 2 motorbikes flew past me as though I wasn't even moving. I guess some people might have blamed the tractor driver for pulling out when he did. The tractor driver probably looked, saw that the road was clear on the assumption that number behind the bend was doing more than 60 or 70, and so pulled out. Some might say its his fault for not anticipating that someone might be doing well in excess of the speed limit and so will cover the distance he can see to be clear in a much shorter time than he anticipated.

 

Having driven many supercars and ridden a few superbikes there is a world of difference in the buzz that you can get from a bike. I still get excited just watching bike racing on the TV.

Sadly I would say most bikers have had to play this card on at least one occasion. Despite riding with my lights on and observing the speed limit I got rid of mine after one (very) near miss too many.

I totally agree. Despite it reputation, I have rode the Cat and Fiddle and it is no place to go hooning around on a bike.

 

Oh how I wish these bikers would come here to the TT, they'd value there lives more! Every year we see horrendous accidents both during racing and outside of it, but I hasten to add, when you have up to 30,000 bikers here the casualties are minimal. I think the worst being fourteen casualties for the two week duration. When the course is open to the bikers most of them have a healthy respect for other road users but you always come across the few idiots that think they will get away with it. As you may be aware we have no speed limit outside of usual restrictions and the bikers can do there 100mph plus legally, particularly on the mountain part of the course as that is made one-way throughout the two weeks of TT. Having said that, most people that live here avoid the mountain road during TT as the accident risk is very high.

The bikers do take liberties and try to follow the racing line on open roads (non race days), crossing white lines and cutting corners but they are very aware of the dangers and I think it would be an education for the likes of the chap above to come here, it's an eye opener in all respects!

My family are all bikers and my son and his friend experienced the death of a rider a few years ago, during TT on a fast stretch of road. They were the first on the scene having seen the crash and it affected my sons friend so much he gave up biking!

 

There are probably as many idiot car drivers as idiot bikers, but its strange how you hear bikers rant about car drivers more than the other way round. There is even the 'Think Bike' campaign. I think it should be changed to 'Think Other Road Users In Or On Any Vehicle Or Even On Foot', but that is far less catchy.

 

True, but only because there are more cars on the roads than bikes.

I hope nobody thinks I'm anti-bike or anti-biker, because I'm not. I'm anti-idiot, be that idiot on a bike or in a car makes no difference.

Tonight on the way home, I was waiting at the traffic lights where there is a major project going on in the road (a new roundabout and junction for the new Park and Ride). The surface is still pretty horrible because its far from finished, and workmen were actually still working away, with the only thing between them and the traffic being some tape suspended between some cones. There is an existing junction there too, and another junction to get in and out of the pub/hotel.

So there I was, waiting for the light to turn green so I could use the one lane currently still available, that goes right over the unfinished, unsurfaced new junction, when a motorbike came through like a missile. I'm not talking about a few miles an hour over the speed limit, I mean he must have been approaching the ton when he emerged from the unfinished junction. That rider clearly didn't care much for himself, or at all for the workers literally a few feet away from him as he passed through the unfinished junction, or his friends and family.

There are tracks that you can take cars and bikes to if people want to cane it. They don't need to do it on the public roads, especially in particularly hazard conditions such as I've just described.