Near Miss - Who Is At 'fault'?

Lurch said:

Bear in mind, it can be VERY difficult to gauge the distance and speed of a bike, we're not big enough to change in size to set off alerts that we're near until we're there.

All very well the driver not having seen that guy who died, but would they have been able to judge speed and distance if he had, especially at nearly double the speed limit, which is also an unreasonable thing to have to account for when assessing an oncoming vehicle.

While I don't think that driver should have necessarily "got away with it", they didn't deserve what they got.

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It can be hard to judge speed at times, no doubt about that. But you have to actually look and see what's coming first, something the driver didn't do.

I'm not about to watch the video again to double check my facts but from what I remember the bike was around 50m from the junction when the car pulled out, not really any excuse for not seeing a bike from that distance, if the driver had seen the bike from that distance I'd be concerned if any driver could not judge whether it's safe or not to pull out. At 60mph (limit on that road) it takes less than 2 seconds to travel 50m, not a great deal of time to react even if he had been doing the speed limit, so I have no doubt the result probably would've been the same.

When riding, you always have to consider other drivers beeing really stupid. From a law perspective I would say the Car is at fault. On the other hand, if the bike was going faster, he would already have been past the car so....

/jk

Coming real late to this, but having survived a crash I have some thoughts.

From a riding technical sense it’s the rider’s fault. Legally, depends on the law. Hitting someone from behind is generally the driver/rider’s fault. Did the car driver fail to see the MC rider? If so it may legally be their fault as well. Hard call.

For me the rider should be blaming himself for not seeing this coming. For me it’s the responsibility of the rider to manage the factors that may lead to a crash. See and be seen.

The things we don’t know are the rider’s speed, but I’m going to say he was speeding as he was trying to overtake three cars.
Because if this the rider may have:

Failed to observe the positions of the two cars -- how close they were and the possibility that one car would overtake another.

Failed to see the driver’s blinker/signal light.

Failed to allow himself to be seen by the driver(s) in front of him (except when he honked his horn to avoid the crash)

Because of his speed the rider only allowed himself a reaction time and not a strategy for the situation in front of him.
Legally it doesn’t matter who’s at fault. If you’re dead, you’re dead. I can only hope the rider’s learned from the experience.

- Wuf

Only been riding for two years, but driving for 30+

I'm ashamed to say that until I began riding I can't remember giving much thought to bikes overtaking me while my thoughts were focused on getting past the car in front.

Even if I'm going for a multiple-car overtake, I treat each one individually as I'm approaching them, always ready to slow or pull in.

Of all the videos on YouTube showing motorcycle accidents where the rider wasn't to blame, it's rare to find one where I don't think to myself "too fast for the situation".

R-Rated said:

I had a similar near miss.

There I was in the left lane of the interstate which is for faster vehicles. Heavy traffic. This pack of cars merges from the right and about a mile goes by when the sedan to my right comes over on me.

Well I started yelling at her, "HEY! HEY! HEY!" She heard and jerked back to the right.

Then I took a breath and twisted the throttle to GTFO.

I think the pickup that had been behind me for the last 8 miles must have thought they were about to witness a heck of a crash.

No road rage.

I guess fault would be if the rider forgot:

Always ride invisible and assume folks resent your freedom machine. Just don't do anything embarrassing like, pick your nose, you're not that invisible on a bike.

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Wait...nobody is impressed by the fact that I can fit a kangaroo hide gloved finger up my nose under a full face helmet?

Tough crowd.

MiGlyRides said:

Yes, 100% yes people do no realise how underspeeding is MUCH MUCH more dangerous than overspeeding especially the effing police! No matter the situation if you're going too slow you are going to cause someone to do something that they wouldn't normally do, most likely recklessly. Weather it's quickly changing lanes to overtake or focus their attention on how best to overtake you vs concentrating on the important things like safe following distance, observing the road conditions, & KEEPING AN EYE OUT FOR BIKES!

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Underspeeding is NOT the cause of accidents.

Furthermore, I'm not sure where this occurred but looks like a left hand drive region, so if moving slowly, they should have been in the left lane anyway (I could be wrong though but everyone looked to be in the left lane and the overtake was on the right).

People speeding use "slow drivers" as their scapegoats far too often. But I explain it as this. If you are driving at 40KM/H and there is a wall in front of you and you are driving straight toward it, and you hit it, can you call yourself a good driver? If you are driving toward something at 40KM/H should you not be able to tell there is an obstacle and make smart decisions to not hit it?

Now...if someone is doing 80 in a 100 and you are doing 120, you are approaching them at a relative 40KM/H should you not have time to recognize that the person is travelling slower than you and make appropriate decisions? If not...then you are not a good driver.

If you cannot avoid someone in front of you, you were driving too close to them. If you just HAVE to make an aggressive passing maneuver and you mess up, it's not the person in front of you's fault.

Driving too slowly may be illegal in a lot of places, but driving too fast is as well, and the onus of avoidance is on the person in the rear.

The motorcyclist in this video looked to be blowing by any sort of speed limit, and it's hard to say how fast the lead car was driving here. The car that changed lanes also did not practice due care in his maneuver. The bike owned the lane, but it's also very hard to tell how fast a motorcycle is moving toward you, relative to cars, due to their narrow footprint, which gives far less of a visual cue to it's approach speed, but that would be the car driver's only defense, and at the distance in question, it's not a very good one.

Superballs said:

Wait...nobody is impressed by the fact that I can fit a kangaroo hide gloved finger up my nose under a full face helmet?

Tough crowd.

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If it is your finger - no. If it is your passenger's - yes.

R-Rated said:

If it is your finger - no. If it is your passenger's - yes.

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It should be noted, my passenger has smaller fingers than I do.

It's a well known fact that gorillas nostril's are so large, only so that they can fit their fingers in them. Just saying.