In the news

You wouldnt think it’s ok for a car driver to honk the horn and drive around a pedestrian who has stepped out without stopping

I don’t think you’d get much argument to that here. However the courts clearly have a very different view of cyclists involved in serious injuries and motorists. Wanton and furious driving offence has a 100% conviction rate in the last 10 and every one of those cyclists has gone to prison for between 50% - 75% of the full tariff, regardless of a couple of them admitting the offence at the earliest opportunity.

If only careless driving had that level of success at getting convictions and custodial sentences the road would much safer and we’d need to build about 10 new prisons, a year!

I totally get that and agree that the law is not applied equally. However that is totally irrelevant to the matter of how a road user is expected to behave. Just because a law is unfairly applied doesn't change a thing about how anybody should operate their bike to be safe.

You wouldnt think it’s ok for a car driver to honk the horn and drive around a pedestrian who has stepped out without stopping

"when I realised she was going to carry on I shouted, blew my horn and braked as hard as I could."

Acquited:

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/norwich-bus-driver-in-court-charged-with-careless-driving-over-pedestrian-death-1-4596111

But wasn't the court case for the recent incident a civil case, with a lower burden of proof? IANAL, etc, etc

(not challenging your reference, which is spot-on)

You're right, yes.

The law firm involved are drumming up trade now by inflating the danger cyclists pose.

"when I realised she was going to carry on I shouted, blew my horn and braked as hard as I could."

Anyone who knows me can confirm I'm definitely not on the side of drivers in this kind of thing, but just to be completely fair in this context, one could argue that a driver can honk and brake hard simultaneously, while a cyclist will usually need both hands for optimal braking performance. So operating an airhorn at the same time probably doesn't really work - though shouting would, of course.

Dunno what his set up was but you can rig an Airzound so you can brake and sound the horn at the same time.

I stand corrected, I'd only seen them as handlebar 'add-ons' that wouldn't lend themselves that well to simultaneous braking before!

My issues is that I really done think you can judge a cyclist and a motorist in the same way.

A motor vehicle takes up the full lane and swerving isn’t an option in normal circumstances when a ped appears in the lane in front of them. It’s not the same for a cyclist, a ped and the cyclist can pass each other in the same lane safely. Also given cyclists own vulnerability they cant just perform an emergency stop without taking into account the traffic conditions around them at the time, you could very easily end up under a bus like that.

These are all issues that solicitors acting for cyclists need to get better at arguing, given that there fighting against a jury and judge who in all likelihood won’t have any sphere of reference of what a carful and competent cyclists would do given these circumstances.

In some respects I hope that the Briggs campaign gets there way with the change to the law as the wanton and furious cycling charge is way too easy to get a conviction, it holds cyclists to level of perfection that you don’t get with the motoring offences. If the cyclist offence come in and are apply in the same way a motoring offences then the conviction rate will fall to zero.

Not that any of this is a good thing, I’d prefer that motorist were held to the same standard as cyclists currently are.

I really don’t want to get sucked back into this thread, it is so so so depressing, however...

Is there an element of danger involved in motorcycles performing a hard stop, that is not considered for pedal cycles?

My question is such that there was a massive ‘think bike’ operation to enforce the vulnerability of a motorcyclist, and the perceived dangers in performing a hard stop or emergency stop. Okay, a very competent one would probably endo, and the weight of the bike would avoid stacking it in many situations like pedestrian beelines.

Really my question is such that I am not sure people expect a motorcyclist to action the manoeuvre to the same degree as a pedal cyclist, though the level of danger could be equivalent to the rider.

There is, in my experience, a degree of sympathy toward motorcyclists that is not there for pedal cyclists.

I’m not sure that motorcycle get it any easy than cyclist, there in an even small minority than pedal cyclists 1% vs 2% of journeys. What they do get is the benefit of doubt of the careful and competent test which seams to hold people to a much lower bar when compared to the current cyclist offence wording and more importantly allows a value judgement by a jury or rule braking fellow motorists.

I do think motorists suffer from the same casual generalisation that cyclists have to listen to.

First thing any road user should do when seeing a hazard is apply the brakes.

Plenty of people are also completely incapable of acknowledging potential hazards and moderating their speed accordingly.

Pretty much any accident you have on a motorcycle is caused by speed. Most experienced motorcyclists will admit that. In most of the cycling cases mentioned it's the same, lower speeds would have lead to less damage.

Pretty much any accident you have on a motorcycle is caused by speed.

Hotly denied by certain motorcycle advocates I've met ...

(True all the same.)

Is it? I think a lot of accidents I’ve seen or know about have been caused by cars pulling out of junctions having not seen the motorcyclist. Speed might be a factor, but driver inattention is the root cause.

According to some articles, e.g. the Telegraph article, he braked, swerved and shouted.

You'd hope that they demonstrated a safe braking distance was possible but not taken by the rider, in order to find him partly responsible, but it's a civil ruling and they don't go into all that or something. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Feed might be a factor

Yep, but not sure how often hunger is cited as the reason for an accident.

U wot m8?

Nice edit

If you ever t bone a car with a motorcycle you might live to think about the why's and wherefore's. It could have a significant effect on my statement if the dead could give an opinion.

I don't want to derail this discussion but motorbikes were mentioned and the biggest safety problem with motorbikes is how fast they travel.

One of the problems with push bike riding is the incentive to save speed because it requires effort to achieve. With motorbikes it's about self control when so much speed is on tap.

In the situation being discussed a motorbike rider would rather stop the bike before the obstacle than pass behind the pedestrian because it's a simple risk reward calculation that doesn't cost much physical effort.

Well, as ever, the full picture is complex, and the debate will, of course, rage forever, but such crashes as you describe are far more likely when motorcyclists travel at higher speeds. The fault obviously lies with drivers. However, I believe that crashes at junctions, which are the main locations of road traffic collisions, form a smaller percentage for crashes involving motorcyclists than they do for crashes involving only other road users.

The key thing to understand about speed is always whether any given speed, even if it may appear low, is appropriate for the situation, and this is where motorcycle rider behaviour scores lowest of all road users, I'm afraid. Much of this behaviour is perfectly legal, by the way--most motorcycle crashes occur at legal speeds. However, they may still be inappropriate for the situation. I'm not attributing fault here, and I have little sympathy for SMIDSY-type excuses, but even if motorcyclists travel at perfectly legal speeds, there is still a greater likelihood of a collisions than if they had been driving cars at the same speed--because motorcycles are smaller and less easy to see, harder to control, etc. The SMIDSY problem is obviously a very similar problem as for people riding a bicycle, but with higher stakes.

The main problem is the high number of motorcyclist fatalities and serious injuries.

Although motorcyclists only account for 1% of total road traffic, they account for around 18% of deaths on the road.

Some numbers in this report (which the above quote is from):

https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-services/road-safety/motorcyclists/common-motorcycle-crash-causes.pdf

What surprised me was the alcohol thing. I've only ever known motorcyclists who were scrupulous about not drinking a drop of alcohol when they were out on their bikes.

There have been two motorbike fatalities and one very serious injury virtually outside my house in the last three years. All three were a result of the rider losing control of the motorbike while taking evasive action from an unexpected hazard (ped stepping out, car out of side road). All three happened while the bikes were being filtered through slow moving or stationary traffic.

There are so many factors in these sorts of accident. You end up mulling over endless circumstances in your mind. Unsuitable speed for the conditions could definitely be a contributing factor though. I mean, if I'm riding my bike, I try to ride it at a speed that is suitable for me to take action to avoid unexpected hazards because I know that people and cars act in unpredictable ways and that my life and the lives of others depend on me factoring that in. There is no point in me deciding that people shouldn't step out and cars shouldn't pull out of turnings...because they will!

But if a motorcyclist collides with a phone-staring-beelining pedestrian in a somewhat unavoidable collision at a somewhat reasonable speed having taken most/every option to avoid it, is it treated as (tragic) accident, or a witch hunt?

I meant very much the perception of motorcyclists, rather than the reality. That is, where the perception may be of greater sympathy to their vulnerability and the reality that the risks taken are often entirely avoidable.

I find it difficult to believe if at an equivalent speed a motorcyclist was hit by a pedestrian, and they both needed hospital treatment, the arguments presented would be the same or reach the same verdict.

By the way in the space of 8km today in Germany, on designated cycleways, I have had a number of cyclists nearly cycle into the side of me, pedestrians step out, cars try hook me whilst crossing traffic to turn into side streets, vehicles do a ‘five minute hazard light’ park in the lane, and so on. Even on a designated cycle lane, I have had to factor in an incredible amount of stupidity before even considering my own shortfalls.

I've only got 2 pages into that report and I'm wondering what I'm doing riding a motorbike.