Fazer Owners Club - Unofficial
General => General => Topic started by: Grahamm on 03 April 2013, 11:17:56 pm
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Another reminder that we're all vulnerable on bikes :(
A police officer riding an unmarked motorbike has been killed in a crash outside a Southampton petrol station. He was on duty at the time, but was not involved in a pursuit or responding to a 999 call, Hampshire Constabulary said.
The officer's police bike collided with a BMW outside the Shell garage on Thomas Lewis Way in Swaythling at about 14:00 BST.
He was taken to Southampton General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-22019006 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-22019006)
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My thoughts are with his family.
Lets hope his cameras were on if fitted when this happend.
Daz
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Driver will be let off with a caution i expect.
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Will be interesting to see what does happen in that regard - was it not Hampshire where the cps decided not to prosecute that pcso who pulled out while on the phone and killed a biker?
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Driver will be let off with a caution i expect.
As far as I could interpret the article it didn't say who was at fault.
My condolences to his family.
I feel for the driver of the car too, it won't be easy knowing you've killed someone while you survived. Very humbling.
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Driver will be let off with a caution i expect.
As far as I could interpret the article it didn't say who was at fault.
My condolences to his family.
I feel for the driver of the car too, it won't be easy knowing you've killed someone while you survived. Very humbling.
Agreed on all points.
Looking at the coverage on the itv website, impact was on BMW offside, and it looks as though the BMW pulled out of the garage forecourt into his path.
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Poor bugger! Rip
Shows it can happen to the best of us,even with advanced training.
This type o thing seems to be on the increase & i cant see an easy answer,apart from doing 20mph past every junction with a waiting car which isnt the most practical,people are so busy & increasingly confident about their own driving that they dont feel the need to really stop & look & look again to be sure,its all sandwiches between the knees,phone in one hand,radio blasting.
For me just going out on the bike for fun, i can afford to lose a bit of time & my mistrust for car drivers seeing me has led to me doing just that & an agreeable nod to them to say thanks for seeing me i hope gets the message across how vulnerable i am.
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I hopefully ride in a risk averse way and go as slowly in built up areas to ensure I'm seen.
I know what pillocks some people can be even when I'm in a car so being on a bike makes it a risky business.
Poor people, ruined lives for the sake of observation and/or a wait of 20 seconds. I'm guessing there, it could have been inevitable in some cases, a bit of oil, a sudden puncture. It reminds me of a snoop dog song "a million ways to die, choose one"
I keep the speed down unless I have good visibility, a straight road and I know it like the back of my hand. Even then I scare myself sometimes, it keeps me level headed (to some degree)
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Rest in peace, poor bugger.
Regarding Simon's comment:
I feel for the driver of the car too, it won't be easy knowing you've killed someone while you survived. Very humbling.
There was an incident near me a couple of years back. There's a 180 degree, sharpish right hand turn going down a reasonably steep hill a few minutes from my house. A biker overcooked it going down the hill, went straight into the front of a lorry coming up the hill. The biker was killed on impact, but it was completely his fault (lorry was well on the right - this is France), and wasn't going fast. The poor lorry driver had to be treated for shock, and as far as I know, had to be hospitalised for trauma afterwards too.
Living with that knowledge, even if you weren't to blame must be an unbearable burden.
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I use that garage often and there is a central refuge between the 2 lanes and coming out if the garage there are no right turn signs. You have to go left and then turn sharply but so many cars do it.
R.I.P PC Rawson
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Looking at the coverage on the itv website, impact was on BMW offside, and it looks as though the BMW pulled out of the garage forecourt into his path.
I don't think so.
If you look at the video clip here (http://vimeo.com/63304791) it definitely looks like the BMW was hit on the driver's side and it seems that the driver was making an illegal right turn into the garage (at 00:19 there's a No Right Turn sign visible).
It may have been that the bike was filtering past not expecting the car to turn but the driver suddenly moved into his path :(
ADDENDUM Ok, I'm not sure why there's a problem with that clip appearing, but if you click on the word "here" below it, you can see it on the web site.
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Looking at the coverage on the itv website, impact was on BMW offside, and it looks as though the BMW pulled out of the garage forecourt into his path.
I don't think so.
If you look at the video clip here ([url]http://vimeo.com/63304791[/url]) it definitely looks like the BMW was hit on the driver's side and it seems that the driver was making an illegal right turn into the garage (at 00:19 there's a No Right Turn sign visible).
It may have been that the bike was filtering past not expecting the car to turn but the driver suddenly moved into his path :(
ADDENDUM Ok, I'm not sure why there's a problem with that clip appearing, but if you click on the word "here" below it, you can see it on the web site.
I'd agree with your description, it certainly looks that way. If they'd extended the island enough to block the ability to turn right it would have saved a life :-(
What would the be repercussion be ? Causing death by dangerous driving, involuntary manslaughter ?
I still wouldn't want to be that guy and I'd still feel sorry for him since it was clearly an accident however stupid the manoeuvre (and it looks pretty damn stupid). No right turn and no U turn is a PITA for getting to the petrol station, does anyone know the reasons for the signs ? I'd have thought, given the width of the road, they could even have had a dedicated filter for the petrol station.
There must have been a lot of traffic otherwise I can't see any reason why the rider wouldn't have seen it coming. Maybe he moved to the left of the road and was swinging a U turn due to congestion ?
here is a street view:
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Thomas+Lewis+Way&hl=en&ll=50.937437,-1.379244&spn=0.008735,0.026157&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=8.337531,26.784668&hnear=Thomas+Lewis+Way,+Southampton+SO17,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=50.937437,-1.379244&panoid=xPYkjhKVNl_xGfRJuLc9tA&cbp=12,343.54,,0,19.12 (https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Thomas+Lewis+Way&hl=en&ll=50.937437,-1.379244&spn=0.008735,0.026157&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=8.337531,26.784668&hnear=Thomas+Lewis+Way,+Southampton+SO17,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=50.937437,-1.379244&panoid=xPYkjhKVNl_xGfRJuLc9tA&cbp=12,343.54,,0,19.12)
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So sad and so unnecessary.
I believe the mind can play tricks with our perceptions. In the mind of a driver who expects a clear road, they may not actually "see" an approaching vehicle, simply because they do not want to as it would impede their progress.
Similarly I am sure we have all been frustrated by the guy in front who sits at a junction when there are no approaching other vehicles, presumably because they "believe" there will be.
If you watch pedestrians when they cross a busy road they often give only a cursory glance left and right, if at all, because they don't want any cars to be coming.
There are plenty of clips on Youtube showing this. There is one I recall where a woman is crossing a four lane busy main road and she does not look at all, presumably because her brain tells her it is clear????
She gets mown down.
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Looking at the coverage on the itv website, impact was on BMW offside, and it looks as though the BMW pulled out of the garage forecourt into his path.
I don't think so.
If you look at the video clip here ([url]http://vimeo.com/63304791[/url]) it definitely looks like the BMW was hit on the driver's side and it seems that the driver was making an illegal right turn into the garage (at 00:19 there's a No Right Turn sign visible).
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That doesn't make sense at all. To be hit on the drivers side, and pushed down the road away from the garage, the car must have been back end towards the garage, front end out into the road? I don't see how the car can have been going into the garage, particularly as to do so, it would have had to drive a (short) distance down the wrong side of the central refuge.
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If the car pulled out of the garage, and tried to do a uturn around the end of the refuge (as someone else suggested) that could easily end up with the biker being collected as he tried to go round a car who had just pulled out.
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Did some training recently and was advised to do a SMIDSY manouevre when approaching a car at a T junction as they can apparently be blind to you coming straight at them but if you move sideways on your carriageway in relation to the driver he will notice you better..
Havent tried it yet
Also the instructor said that fluorescent isnt always best to be seen as it is like splinter camoflage put on warships to break up the outline better to have helmet, jacket and bike all the same colour to accentuate the size of you......... but then all the jam sandwiches (apart from the covert ones) have battenburg camoflage on them in blue and yellow which is the opposite to that advice
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If the car pulled out of the garage, and tried to do a uturn around the end of the refuge (as someone else suggested) that could easily end up with the biker being collected as he tried to go round a car who had just pulled out.
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Richfzs,
It's worth having a look at the video clip and the google street view map. They may shed some more light on how the road is set up. It's possible Grahamm might be right.
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Assuming the car was traveling with the garage (it may have spun on impact) on the right there are clear signs saying no right turn or u-turn.
I reckon this is all the drivers fault im afraid.
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Assuming the car was traveling with the garage (it may have spun on impact) on the right there are clear signs saying no right turn or u-turn.
I reckon this is all the drivers fault im afraid.
On investigation this does look like the drivers fault but I'm sure the accident investigation will clear it all up. It's difficult to pass judgement when you can't see the skid marks, or the traffic camera footage etc.
Given the direction the wheels are pointing in it does look like the driver was trying to do a U turn or was ignoring the no right turn sign. Poor sod would have got away with it 99% of the time (not endorsing it, just stating a fact). This time someone's killed. Bad day for both of them.
:(
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Simon, I'd already looked at the video clip before graham posted it - I believe I mentioned the itv website in one of my earlier posts. I stand by what I've said - I don't see how the car can have been going into the garage, given the damage on it.
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What you cannot see on the video are any tell tale skid marks to suggest the back of the car was flipped round. This suggests that the car was turning right INTO, not out of, the garage but any witnesses will have told plod the correct answer already.
Given the fact it looks like it is turning INTO the garage, suggests it was a last second "fuck I need fuel" situation and the driver didn't even look, just swung right and got hit by the bike doing close to the limit
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What you cannot see on the video are any tell tale skid marks to suggest the back of the car was flipped round. This suggests that the car was turning right INTO, not out of, the garage but any witnesses will have told plod the correct answer already.
Given the fact it looks like it is turning INTO the garage, suggests it was a last second "fuck I need fuel" situation and the driver didn't even look, just swung right and got hit by the bike doing close to the limit
I wondered if there was a queue of traffic and the guy swung to the left of his lane and did a u Turn to find an alternative route. That might explain why the bike and car didn't see each other until the manoeuvre took place.
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What you cannot see on the video are any tell tale skid marks to suggest the back of the car was flipped round. This suggests that the car was turning right INTO, not out of, the garage but any witnesses will have told plod the correct answer already.
Given the fact it looks like it is turning INTO the garage, suggests it was a last second "fuck I need fuel" situation and the driver didn't even look, just swung right and got hit by the bike doing close to the limit
Given the central refuge, he can't have swung right as you suggest, and have the car end up where it is. All he can do is drift right, in which case it would be a glancing blow if the bike was alongside, or hard into the boot. Still don't see how the car wasn't coming out of the garage (and most likely doing an immediate u turn to achieve the effect of turning right, which the refuge prevents)
Whatever, tragic... :-(
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No right turn and no U turn is a PITA for getting to the petrol station, does anyone know the reasons for the signs ? I'd have thought, given the width of the road, they could even have had a dedicated filter for the petrol station.
Having had a bit more of a dig around, the road is part of the A335 aka Thomas Lewis Way and I think I've actually ridden it in the past as it's a major route into and out of Southampton from the M27 so having traffic trying to turn right into the garage (or turn right coming out of it) would probably be very risky and cause a lot of disruption, hence the barrier in the road, but clearly it's not long enough to stop idiots like the BMW driver ignoring the "No Right Turn" signs and trying to get into the garage the wrong way :(
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That doesn't make sense at all. To be hit on the drivers side, and pushed down the road away from the garage, the car must have been back end towards the garage, front end out into the road? I don't see how the car can have been going into the garage, particularly as to do so, it would have had to drive a (short) distance down the wrong side of the central refuge.
If you look at the Street View Simonm posted above and at the video clip, the barrier doesn't go past the garage exit, so probably the driver was trying to get in that way (not observing the No Right Turn) signs.
The bike is behind the car to the right hand rear (the road is a 40 limit) so it must have hit the car as the driver started to turn and then bounced back (there's only a little bit of debris ahead of the car)
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What you cannot see on the video are any tell tale skid marks to suggest the back of the car was flipped round.
You can't see skid marks, no, but there are yellow cones marking out something, roughly where you might expect marks to be?
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We are a contentious lot.
I vote we drop this and think about the tragic loss instead.
What we think won't change anything.
Peace lads :-). Me too btw.
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sad news
there but for the grace of God
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Another tragic loss for the family and a reminder to us all of how a momentary act can last forever....
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I thought the car was coming out of the garage and then turning right. Whether nearly 300kg of bike and rider could spin a car around like that I don't know, although the car was maybe half way around already?
Whatever, it won't change the outcome?
Mickey
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poor bastard, never stood a chance.
Fireblake, i'd go with the car was pulling out of the forecourt, trying to turn right around the end of the island.
The combination of the bike hitting the accelerating/turning RWD car flipped it round.
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Tragic loss. Unmarked Police bike not responing to emergency call etc but "on duty"......could have been on mobile surveillance.....probably one of the most difficult things you could do on a bike, concentrate on safety whilst covertly following another vehicle? .....what a tragedy for all concerned. Sometimes we have a pop at the plod, but lets be honest, sometimes they do the most difficult of tasks.
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It still unnerves me when coming up to any junction with a car waiting to pull out. Me I do the smidsy swerve quite often, a movement to interrupt a fixation stare...its not yet failed to work ! I also have been known to parp my very loud horn if I get even the slightest worry the twat is going to pull out.
I have been T boned three times in my life, managed to survive all of them, though two were classed as serious injury.I also got twatted off by a idiot reversing round a blind bend as I was entering it ! I have the scars to prove it all, and the compo !
If there is any moral to such stories its the case for eternal vigilence and dont relax into " it cant happen to me mode" ...ever.After all my extensive training it still happened to me...so its NOT a training thing,I dont believe any training will per se stop such happenings... the only defense is a be scared of it happening mentality every time you go out , and thats the best advice I can give to anyone. I tend to give myself a commentary when I am riding , as if I am on test ...it really helps to keep sharp. I have thwarted many many possible accidents by extensive forward obs, restraining speed appropriately, but still nevertheless enjoying my ride. Above all never trust another driver to have either seen you or be willing to do anything to help you.It is IMO a battleground out there, especially at commuting times.
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It still unnerves me when coming up to any junction with a car waiting to pull out. Me I do the smidsy swerve quite often, a movement to interrupt a fixation stare...its not yet failed to work !
...and for those who'd never heard of the SMIDSY swerve before like me, here's a vid. Very useful and it'll be used from today, thanks, Pitternator.
Crash Course - The SMIDSY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQBubilSXU#ws)
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Interesting Vid, thanks. ;)
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good vid.
will give it a go next time im out :)
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It still unnerves me when coming up to any junction with a car waiting to pull out. Me I do the smidsy swerve quite often, a movement to interrupt a fixation stare...its not yet failed to work ! I also have been known to parp my very loud horn if I get even the slightest worry the twat is going to pull out.
I have been T boned three times in my life, managed to survive all of them, though two were classed as serious injury.I also got twatted off by a idiot reversing round a blind bend as I was entering it ! I have the scars to prove it all, and the compo !
If there is any moral to such stories its the case for eternal vigilence and dont relax into " it cant happen to me mode" ...ever.After all my extensive training it still happened to me...so its NOT a training thing,I dont believe any training will per se stop such happenings... the only defense is a be scared of it happening mentality every time you go out , and thats the best advice I can give to anyone. I tend to give myself a commentary when I am riding , as if I am on test ...it really helps to keep sharp. I have thwarted many many possible accidents by extensive forward obs, restraining speed appropriately, but still nevertheless enjoying my ride. Above all never trust another driver to have either seen you or be willing to do anything to help you.It is IMO a battleground out there, especially at commuting times.
Well im glad im not the only one a bit paranoid with junctions & i have often wondered whether doing a little bit o swerving would help make me more noticeable.
Back to my earlier statement about me really slowing down when i see a car waiting to come out,on further reflection i think ive exagerated saying i do 20mph & thinking about it a bit more i got thinking that this maybe makes car drivers think that im about to turn off into the junction as im slowing down.
I need to go somewhere quiet & practice what speed i can do & still comfortably stop within a couple o car lengths without much fuss.
As much as the test i sat last year was quite anal in much of its ways i really appreciated the swerve test that i feel could be useful for swerving out in front of a car thats just pulled out on you.
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Would also add the need for appropriate speed, the instructor relates the observation process of the car driver, so a rapidly approaching bike will probably be out of his observation ( especially the left check), as he will be looking right and if clear will pull out. Meanwhile maybe 2 to 3 seconds of left hand traffic will be unobserved. A fast approaching bike may well emerge in that time, Hence the driver thinks its clear and pulls out in front of you !
So yes, do some sort of movement to make yourself stand out , but be aware that even a well intentioned car driver could miss seeing you approach, let alone the ones who dont check hard !
myself I do the right left right left check to ensure its clear, and take pain to visually estimate the speed of any distant vehicles to ensure I can get out safely in time. Its all done in a fraction of a second, but its a system. Wish every one did it !
Nothings foolproof, but all these little defensive riding techniques will combine to reduce risk.
Reading further about this crash , I did see a video of the crash site which clearly shows the drivers side of the bmw as the impact zone and its at rest at 90 degrees to line of traffic, and wedged up before the traffic bollard.... Hard to see how else the crash happened but an attempt by the car to turn right before the bollard( ie illegally) , and the bike must have been filtering, but at some speed. I do wonder if there was a covert surveillance actually going on and the bike was trying to catch up by overtaking a line of cars.?? ..tbh its just not the sort of manoeuvre you would expect a police rider to do when not on a shout...I have seen police cars do it with blues and twos on,. but so risky for an unmarked unlit up...wonder if we will ever know ?
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Most police forces use unmarked bikes for surveillance which often includes "loss catching".... This is where cars following a subject loose sight of the subject.... They call the bike up which is normally well behind and the rider has to make ground to catch up with sight of subject, talking the cars back into the following..... This is often used in heavy traffic as the cars can easily get stuck in traffic etc..... They use unmarked bikes incase subject sees them etc.... It is a really useful role but really dangerous as the rider is under pressure to catch the subject without drawing too much attention.....
Don't know if this is what the rider was doing but may explain it if he was filtering at speed on an unmarked bike.....
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If I'm approaching a junction where there's a chance someone may pull out (especially if I can't see into it), I'll move to the outside of my lane, throttle off and cover the horn button with my thumb to give myself the best chance of a) being able to avoid someone if they do pull out, b) brake if they don't stop and c) give them an audible warning of my approach and, if someone appears, add a swerve too to make myself noticable.
All the time I'm also looking for any clues such as reflections in windows opposite, headlights showing, pedestrians who are waiting to cross the junction instead of walking across, the actions of other vehicles at that junction etc.
Of course don't forget to watch for the idiot turning *into* the junction across your path who hasn't seen you coming either...!