OUCH

On 10/03/2011 19:28, Mr Pounder wrote:
wrote in message
...
Mr Pounder wrote:
wrote in message
...
Steve Walker wrote:
Nuxx Bar wrote:
Cyclist hit head on by car, looks bloody painful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvJBNiEVSug

Incidents like that are belittled by people like Jackson who go out
with their helmet cams looking for trouble.

Atrocious driving by the motorist. No fault whatsoever by the
cyclist IMHO.

sees a vehicle heading towards him (which any competent road user
could see was a possibility) takes no avoiding action and is
travelling too fast to stop . They are both at fault.

It *was* 100% the driver's fault.

Mr Pounder

The cyclist failed to take avoiding action when there was time to do so.
Just because someone else does something silly there is no requirement to
crash into them, and it is very silly to do so, especially when you are an
unprotected cyclist.

Look, I like cyclists as much as you do.
The car pulled out in front of him.

That is absolutely true and will no doubt be taken into account in the
appropriate place(s).

But no matter what sort of vehicle you were using, had you been in that
cyclist's overall position, wouldn't you have tried to slow down or stop?

Would you have just continued at speed into a collision?

Mrcheerful wrote:
Mr Pounder wrote:

Look, I like cyclists as much as you do.
The car pulled out in front of him.

yes it did, and a competent road user would not have collided with it.


You would rather be provocative than accurate? Fair enough.

On 10/03/2011 19:34, Simon Mason wrote:

On Mar 10, 7:04 pm, wrote:

The cyclist failed to take avoiding action when there was time to do so.
Just because someone else does something silly there is no requirement to
crash into them, and it is very silly to do so, especially when you are an
unprotected cyclist.- Hide quoted text -

On a bike, there becomes a point of no return when you just have to
trust that the driver has seen you and will give way. Once you have
passed that point you are in their hands,

You are making a bicycle sound like a very dangerous machine.

I'm sure it isn't as dangerous or as uncontrollable as you are trying to
paint it. If it were, there'd be a strong case for banning bicycles from the
highway.

unless you assume nobody
ever sees you and you pull up at every give way point "just in case"
which will no doubt aggravate the situation even more and annoy the
people behind you.

But that is exactly how one is taught to behave when driving. "Cover the
brake pedal" is what I was taught for going through junctions. OK, you can't
do that (exactly) on a bike, but you can exercise caution.

Steve Walker wrote:
Mrcheerful wrote:
Mr Pounder wrote:

Look, I like cyclists as much as you do.
The car pulled out in front of him.

yes it did, and a competent road user would not have collided with
it.


You would rather be provocative than accurate? Fair enough.

not at all. any competent road user would not have hit that car.

On 10/03/2011 20:20, Mrcheerful wrote:

Steve Walker wrote:
Mrcheerful wrote:
Mr Pounder wrote:

Look, I like cyclists as much as you do.
The car pulled out in front of him.

yes it did, and a competent road user would not have collided with
it.

You would rather be provocative than accurate? Fair enough.

not at all. any competent road user would not have hit that car.

To be fair, that's imponderable. Maybe they would, maybe not.

I would still have expected a sufficiently cautious traveller to make a
serious attempt to slow, stop or change direction.

On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:23:11 +0000, JNugent
wrote:

On 10/03/2011 20:20, Mrcheerful wrote:

Steve Walker wrote:
Mrcheerful wrote:
Mr Pounder wrote:

Look, I like cyclists as much as you do.
The car pulled out in front of him.

yes it did, and a competent road user would not have collided with
it.

You would rather be provocative than accurate? Fair enough.

not at all. any competent road user would not have hit that car.

To be fair, that's imponderable. Maybe they would, maybe not.

I would still have expected a sufficiently cautious traveller to make a
serious attempt to slow, stop or change direction.

It appears to me that the cyclist did attempt to change direction, but
it was too little, too late.

The motorist slows down as he approaches the roundabout, then enters
the roundabout appearing to accelerate.

According to the cyclist, the motorist claimed he stopped at the
roundabout, but dazzled by sunlight moved cautiously forward. This is
evidently untrue, but from the cyclist's headcam it does look like the
driver is about to stop.

At the moment the driver enters the roundabout the cyclist blasphemes,
and tries to swerve to the right, but there is no time to avoid the
collision, even an instantaneous stop would not have helped at that
point.

Tom Crispin wrote:
On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:23:11 +0000, JNugent
wrote:

On 10/03/2011 20:20, Mrcheerful wrote:

Steve Walker wrote:
Mrcheerful wrote:
Mr Pounder wrote:

Look, I like cyclists as much as you do.
The car pulled out in front of him.

yes it did, and a competent road user would not have collided with
it.

You would rather be provocative than accurate? Fair enough.

not at all. any competent road user would not have hit that car.

To be fair, that's imponderable. Maybe they would, maybe not.

I would still have expected a sufficiently cautious traveller to
make a serious attempt to slow, stop or change direction.

It appears to me that the cyclist did attempt to change direction, but
it was too little, too late.

The motorist slows down as he approaches the roundabout, then enters
the roundabout appearing to accelerate.

According to the cyclist, the motorist claimed he stopped at the
roundabout, but dazzled by sunlight moved cautiously forward. This is
evidently untrue, but from the cyclist's headcam it does look like the
driver is about to stop.

At the moment the driver enters the roundabout the cyclist blasphemes,
and tries to swerve to the right, but there is no time to avoid the
collision, even an instantaneous stop would not have helped at that
point.

so he was travelling too fast for the situation.

"Mrcheerful" wrote:

not at all. any competent road user would not have hit that car.

From the moment the front bumper of the car crosses the white line to the
moment of impact is 0.6s. The average fingertip reaction time is about
0.25s. Braking from 10mph at maximum for a bicycle (~0.5G) takes 0.45s.
That's 0.7s to stop under ideal conditions from travelling at a slow speed.
The accident was unavoidable.

--
Tony

On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 21:41:20 -0000, "Mrcheerful"
wrote:

Tom Crispin wrote:
On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:23:11 +0000, JNugent
wrote:

On 10/03/2011 20:20, Mrcheerful wrote:

Steve Walker wrote:
Mrcheerful wrote:
Mr Pounder wrote:

Look, I like cyclists as much as you do.
The car pulled out in front of him.

yes it did, and a competent road user would not have collided with
it.

You would rather be provocative than accurate? Fair enough.

not at all. any competent road user would not have hit that car.

To be fair, that's imponderable. Maybe they would, maybe not.

I would still have expected a sufficiently cautious traveller to
make a serious attempt to slow, stop or change direction.

It appears to me that the cyclist did attempt to change direction, but
it was too little, too late.

The motorist slows down as he approaches the roundabout, then enters
the roundabout appearing to accelerate.

According to the cyclist, the motorist claimed he stopped at the
roundabout, but dazzled by sunlight moved cautiously forward. This is
evidently untrue, but from the cyclist's headcam it does look like the
driver is about to stop.

At the moment the driver enters the roundabout the cyclist blasphemes,
and tries to swerve to the right, but there is no time to avoid the
collision, even an instantaneous stop would not have helped at that
point.

so he was travelling too fast for the situation.

Evidently, yes. Had he been pootling at 5 mph he would have been able
to avoid the consequence of the incompetent driving of the culprit.

But that says little. It is not reasonable to expect cyclists to keep
to 5mph in case an unfit driver is approaching. The correct course of
action is to punish the unfit driver, and make him accept appropriate
remedial consequences.

On Mar 10, 7:34*pm, Simon Mason wrote:


On a bike, there becomes a point of no return when you just have to
trust that the driver has seen you and will give way. Once you have
passed that point you are in their hands, unless you assume nobody
ever sees you and you pull up at every give way point "just in case"
which will no doubt aggravate the situation even more and annoy the
people behind you.

--
Simon Mason

This point of no return exists for cars as well; there comes a time
when approaching such a junction, one has to trust that the other guy
is going to do the right thing.

In this case I'd say that the driver was 100% responsible for the
collision. It's hard to judge how fast the cyclist was going. I
suspect that I'd have been going slower if that had been me. I think
most of us, whether in a car or on a bike, would have taken the
decision to enter the roundabout given the conditions that presented
themselves to this cyclist; there was no approaching traffic from the
right, so no reason not to proceed. After that it's a matter of speed
and reaction times.

The ******** about being dazzled is probably just that; the sun was
behind the driver.

I agree with the negative comments on mini roundabouts; I don't much
like them on a bike or in a car.

BTW, great quality video; certainly makes some of us think.