Accident London Bridge

fuck! terrible news

Fucking buses!

My word. Sounds horrific.
Too hard to blame the buses for example. I have seen motor cyclists flying over some of these bridges at close to 60mph. But I am not saying that was the case here. Just that for a bike to be flung accross the central reservation like that. It must have been shifting a fair bit

Ducati 748 from one of the other sites- plenty of power there to get up to a high speed somewhere the length of London Bridge.

Fuck, I rode past this this morning, Saw a (pretty intact) chevelo and the heap of cut off leather next to the mbike. I didn't think it was fatal due to seeing the police joking with eachother etc. I hope everyones okay. I Ride over everyday and its always pretty sketchy with the tourist buses etc. Anyone know how many cyclists involved? I could only see 2 bikes.

This is a link to a pic of the aftermath showing vehicles (only) position to each other; the bus on the right looks like it has pulled out sharply from the bus stop to the inside lane for some reason (go around a bus stopped in front of it?) , a bike would have had nowhere to go if traveling at speed.

http://twitpic.com/ec4bx

Assigning blame at this stage is risky, and should rightly be overshadowed by sadness if someone has infact been badly injured/killed, but according to a witness on the BR thread (no guarantee of veracity however) the motorbike was said to be travelling at full throttle (he/she estimates up to 70mph).

For information only- if the bike is a Ducati 748 then it can get to 60 in 3.1 seconds from rest.

Utterly terrible news...

I went past when the blue sheets were up and still 20+ emergency services on the scene, can't have been soon after it happened, lots of m'bike fairing all over the road...

I ride that bridge twice a day and i feel sick thinking about what happened, i've had a few close calls there over time, not the safest bit of road by any stretch of the imagination.

There would be absolutley fuck all you could do about that motorbike coming towards you...defensive riding, blind spot checking...all counts for shit when your numbers up.

Fingers very crossed for all concerned.

I have seen plenty of bus drivers do this all the time with NO regard whatsoever for the other road-users around them, it was only a matter of time before one of those fuckwits killed someone, I ride round this corner very carefully because I know exactly how these twat-cunts behave when pulling out of the bus stop, and its not because they HAVE to pull out from the inside, its just because they're impatient, and instead of pulling away in their lane and filtering across further down the bridge (as some of the SENSIBLE drivers do), a few of them think its their god given right to just pull across both lanes without giving a fuck.
Travelling at a sensible speed this is relatively easy to anticipate and deal with if you know the route and you're expecting it, if you don't it can catch you out, but again travelling at a sensible speed (sub 30mph) this is easy to deal with, judging from that pic, I think the motorcyclist and the bus driver are both in the wrong here, the motorcyclist would have to have been speeding to be unable to react in time to this situation, and the bus driver is simply enacting his normal stupid move that almost kills loads of road-users on a daily basis.
I truly hope they take this bus-drivers job away and ban him for a year.... at the bare minimum. They need to make some kind of statement to stop cuntish bus drivers continually behaving in the same manner at the same stop day in day out.

I am a little bit ashamed to say I used to hit 100mph on that bridge heading South on my motorbike. I was an idiot on that thing and learnt my lesson the hard way. I still have scars and health problems 5 years on. I am thankful no one else was hurt by my stupidity. But I know how easy it is to ride like that without considering the possible effects of your actions.

I feel for everyone involved in this accident and am sad that someone through no fault of their own has lost their life on the road.

For information only- if the bike is a Ducati 748 then it can get to 60 in 3.1 seconds from rest.

It can also sound like it's going very fast, even when it's only doing 25mph.

I really hope that some of these reports are wrong and that no one is seriously injured or worse.

I don't know who caused the accident. What I do know is that if someone has died it is a tragic and needless waste of a life. For the moment, my thoughts are with that person's family and the others who are hurt or involved. The trauma of today's event will stay with everyone who was there, including passers by and bus passengers, for a long time.

Once we know the facts, we can discuss blame and what can be done to prevvent this ever happening again. For today, however, let's focus on wishing those who are affected by this awful incident, well.

I went past the aftermath this morning too... it's all to common for vehicles to cane it across the open space of the bridge (note, not just motor bikes) in fact I saw one do a stoppie (I think unintentionally) before the weekend because of going to fast and a bus pulling out.

Having said that, so far the deaths mentioned have been unsubstantiated, lets hope they turn out to be false. Hearts go out to all those involved.

....

Well said. Hopefully everyone involved is ok.

.

No fatalities according to the evening standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23733703-details/Three+in+hospital+after+bicycle,+bus+and+motorbike+collision/article.do

Horrible accident and I really hope it is not as serious as it seems.

To be honest, looking at the pictures, I don't think the bike could have been going that fast. Any kerb impact over 30 would shatter the front wheel and / or tear the forks off and the 748 looks largely intact.

(Edit) Looking again 70mph sounds ridiculous, I've seen multiple times what happens to motorbikes sliding at 70 and they'll slide a hell of a lot further and with more damage than in that picture.

Really hope that all involved are OK.

No fatalities according to the evening standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23733703-details/Three+in+hospital+after+bicycle,+bus+and+motorbike+collision/article.do

Ok I'm glad no-one's hurt, but that article pissed me off!

Why the fuck does the accident raise fears about bike safety, it should be raising fears about motorcycles speeding, buses pulling out without looking and generally of vehicles hitting cylists! Arrrgghhh!

Horrible accident and I really hope it is not as serious as it seems.

To be honest, looking at the pictures, I don't think the bike could have been going that fast. Any kerb impact over 30 would shatter the front wheel and / or tear the forks off and the 748 looks largely intact.

(Edit) Looking again 70mph sounds ridiculous, I've seen multiple times what happens to motorbikes sliding at 70 and they'll slide a hell of a lot further and with more damage than in that picture.

Really hope that all involved are OK.
I think (assuming the stories we've heard so far are true) after a motorbike slammed on the brakes and bounced of the bus it's speed would be considerably under what ever it was as it went over the bridge (hence the damage as it bounced over the median wouldn't be that of a 70mph bike), but even if it was 45, that's a 30 mile an hour road and it's not uncommon for bikes to be doubling the speed limit there.

The point of the speed limit is not that it gives you time to react to normal driver actions, it's that it gives you time to react to unexpected actions. If you speed and a vehicle has to take evasive actions, you've cut your own chance of survival. Same can be said of RLJ, a lot of people play the odds and squeez the hell out of the margins and if you do that eventually you could come acropper.

Note, I'm not saying this motor cyclist is at fault, but if he was speeding he was gambling with not only his life but bystanders too. The same is true of buses that pull out without looking and of pedestrians that step into the road assuming that everyone else will avoid them and cyclists that bend the rules... for all we know it might have been one of the latter that caused the bus to pull out infront of the motor bike.

No fatalities according to the evening standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23733703-details/Three+in+hospital+after+bicycle,+bus+and+motorbike+collision/article.do

Let's hope this is true. It looked horrific this morning.

Its also too far and too much damage caused by the bike for it to be doing only 30. And the angle that the bus was at when it had stopped means that the bike wouldn't have hit it dead on. The wheels of the bike may not have even touched the kurb either. Who knows what position it was in when it corseed the central reservation.

Whether the bus was a t fault or the motorcycle, the thing that needs to happen is speed cameras to be put there. My window is just above the bus in that picture further back in this thread. I sit there and see cars and bikes cracking on way past the speed limit every day. Some bike's can't resist the oppotunity to show off and pull a wheely in front of the hundreds of people doing the rat race.

Anyway hopefully the evening standard is right and thank god no one was killed. That would have been the 2nd fatal accident I have seen in 6 months outside my work.

I it was only a matter of time ..blah fuck..shit..blah... blah ...day in day out.

swearing this much in a post, is it really needed? when really you don't have much to say as blaming the bus driver, given that there are limited facts, is about as intelligent as blaming a cute boy/girl wearing short shorts for distracting the cyclist who swerved in front of the cat that distracted the motorcyclist who happened to be going at 60+mph....but yes must have been fucking bus drivers fucking fault

He is risen!

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=15549486#15549486

Why the fuck does the accident raise fears about bike safety, it should be raising fears about motorcycles speeding, buses pulling out without looking and generally of vehicles hitting cylists! Arrrgghhh!

because it was a collision between a bus, a motorbike and a cyclist.
if anything i think the tone is "this still hasn't been addressed properly".