Biker Nearly Binned It

[spoonoff]

Two nights ago, turning right off a duel carriageway onto a NSL road, a biker coming the other way peeled off left in front of me. The road we turned onto has a long straight, followed by series of tight, winding, and mostly blind corners. He gave it a squirt down the straight I thought 'OK then' and gave my car a bootful behind him. I still maintained a good big gap. Possibly a bit immature but no other cars around so thought no harm would come.

Saw the rider looking in his mirrors a couple of times to check where I was, then he gave it a bigger squirt to leave me behind. I had already started easing off for the appraoching twisties, but the chap (or chapess) didn't, went flying into the first turn way too quick, cue heavy braking, a little wobble, use of wrong side of road on a blind bend and much shaking of head shortly after. We both proceeded to cruise gently into town.

Now I'm not suggesting for a minute that if the bike had crashed it would have been my fault, I kept a properly good distance throughout, showed no lights etc. I did feel a little guilty though and the incident also made me think that how you drive does have an influence on other road users, even if it is a totally indirect one.

[BertBert]

spoonoff said:

He gave it a squirt down the straight I thought 'OK then' and gave my car a bootful behind him.

I'm not being judgmental, but that's thinking that's pretty far away from any kind of AD thinking. It doesn't take much to go from there to "racing" which is serious.

Bert

[deviant]

Rightly or wrongly (probably the latter) I would not spare any guilt for him / her. You backed off, the biker didnt and had a moment on their own. Not your fault.

I should think though that any witness to the incident would have seen a bike giving it some and then a car giving it some and would assume a race is on.

[A - W]

deviant said:

I should think though that any witness to the incident would have seen a bike giving it some and then a car giving it some and would assume a race is on.

I would agree with this, always work on the worst case and you wont be surprised.

[hman]

As a driver of 2 and 4 wheels I can tell you.

The bike will pump up adrenaline much higher, leaving you on edge more, and heightening the fight or flight response.


If you give it some beans in some twisties and a car driver does the same then you may be prone ( in an adrenaline fuelled decision) to open up some more to increase the distance between you (flight), or open up some more to show the car driver that bikes are quicker (fight).

I think the biker did one of these and then didnt concentrate enough on the braking point for the bend, perhaps they were not familiar with the road or were not paying enough attention to the road as they had a car chasing them.

Either way as stated above a witness to this would have seen what to all intents looked like a bike and a car having a race.

Presumably had the bike come off you would have stopped to lend assistance, and make a statement as you have above ie. he gave it beans - so I gave it beans... could lead to a few visits to court at the sharp end of the wedge.

[spoonoff]

BertBert said:

spoonoff said:

He gave it a squirt down the straight I thought 'OK then' and gave my car a bootful behind him.

I'm not being judgmental, but that's thinking that's pretty far away from any kind of AD thinking. It doesn't take much to go from there to "racing" which is serious.

Bert

I think this plus the rest is fair criticism of my driving in this instance. Certainly when I have someone behind me wanting to 'race' (used to happen all the time in my old 182 Cup), I'd slow down, and even pull over if they were right up my chuff. I think it is a good point that even if you are giving chase to some enthusiastic driving with some enthusiastic driving (which I'm sure we have all done, probably mostly with friends), then to an onlooker it would look like a race.