lucky7! more like unlucky7!

shit lucky7, hope the elbow is okay dude and you don't require a titanium upgrade a la mashton. hope you got the drivers details and can get him/her to fork out for the, uhh, fork.

dude, don't get fed up man. you know riding is the best thing.

i got knocked off on friday by a courier in a head-on collision. he was going at mach2 on the wrong side of the road, aroudn the front of a bus.

i took a massive blow to the face and my nose bled profusely for half an hour. now my shoulder really fucking hurts, 3 days later.

i feel your pain.

Assertive and not aggressive I believe is the key. Not that I follow my own advice all the time.

Cheers chaps. The bike is worse than I had thought. The forks are bent and there is a kink in the down tube! I just tryed putting a different front wheel in and it is touching the down tube. The only good thing is, I am o.k. I just feel a bit bruised and achy. I have got the drivers details and I will see what happens.

i got knocked off on friday by a courier in a head-on collision. he was going at mach2 on the wrong side of the road, aroudn the front of a bus.

i took a massive blow to the face and my nose bled profusely for half an hour. now my shoulder really fucking hurts, 3 days later.

i feel your pain.

He had an urgent direct - you were at fault for obstructing the corporate workflow.

Sorry to hear about this Lucky7, let us know what happens.

I note that there's an assumption been made that your were filtering down the gutter-side of cars, though you never actually stated you were filtering. Plenty of times cars have 'overtaken' me insufficiently far enough onward, then turned left without indicating. Blinking wallies.

Did you do one of those emergency turns? ie. turn with the direction of the car to reduce the impact?
With time I've found you get to notice the spots where drivers will pull out/over without indicating so I might slow or be 'more' ready for such evasive action.

a wise man once said to me:
" if you hit the car then it's you're fault"
and i said: " well, not sure abouit that"
he sais: " it is, it's simple"
and bitterly realised that the man was right indeed.
btw a fellow rider, quite an experienced one.

I hit a car which pulled out of a side road into my path. I was the only thing travelling towards him on the main road, he pulled out of a minor road attempting to turn right into a slow moving line of traffic. It was travelling downhill, I hit him HARD, I flew a long way and was quite badly injured. (so was my bike)
My solicitor begs to differ with your wise man.

i ride a lot and a bit crazy at times, but never hit cars. these people hitting cars aren't doing the right thing!

first rule of fixed club. Never undertake or go inside banked up traffic.
second rule. same as first.

Last week I'm cycling along an empty road at 1am with a front light. 100 yards ahead I see a guy approach a T junction. He doesn't take to chance to pull out, rather he waits for, like, 6-7 seconds. I assume he's waiting for me, so as I get closer I speed up, make an effort to get past so he can pull out, and at the last minute the novice pulls out. Straight over the bonnet, landed afew meters down the road.

Haven't had an accident in 4 years, I also ride a lot and a little crazy sometimes. Point is, sometimes there's nothing you can do, no matter how good you are

+1 brain and picco
-1 stef and your wise man

Shit luck dude, hope you heal well. Thing is you ask about accidents as you've had a couple recently. I've had 3 or 4 smashes in London (but on a motorbike) and can hand on heart say they were pretty much all my fault, or at least all avoidable by me. Not a dig at you but I think there's a tendency for any more vulnerable road-user (mainly those on two wheels) to blame everyone except themselves for accidents. This is unhealthy and will lead to more tarmac/face interfaces. Were you undertaking the car that hit you and was it near or just before a left-hand turning, parking space on the left or similar? If so and you're questioning your desire to ride then I think you're staring the answer in the face. And can enjoy many more hours of accident free riding.

Shit luck dude, hope you heal well. Thing is you ask about accidents as you've had a couple recently. I've had 3 or 4 smashes in London (but on a motorbike) and can hand on heart say they were pretty much all my fault, or at least all avoidable by me. Not a dig at you but I think there's a tendency for any more vulnerable road-user (mainly those on two wheels) to blame everyone except themselves for accidents. This is unhealthy and will lead to more tarmac/face interfaces. Were you undertaking the car that hit you and was it near or just before a left-hand turning, parking space on the left or similar? If so and you're questioning your desire to ride then I think you're staring the answer in the face. And can enjoy many more hours of accident free riding.

@ me?

@ me?

Your accident was in entirely different circumstances chap, that reply was @ lucky7. But hope you heal up also.

I once got hit from behind on my motorbike by a woman driving a Fire Service van. I was sitting smack in the middle of the road, traffic behind me, traffic to the right of me, waiting for a break in the traffic on the right, indicating right to turn right. What could I have done to avoid the accident?

This is what I'm saying. Provided you walk away from it fine, it just makes you extra sketchy, which can serve as a reminder not to get too cocky.
I've been like a fucking hawk the last week, I'm watching everything and anything that moves and anticipating the worst.

My bad, I didn't explain myself properly. Being extra vigilant is a very good thing, think like a driver and assume that nobody has actually seen you - at all times. Someone mentioned watching a vehicles wheels to see what it's going to do, this is a good tip. My point was that I could have avoided the accident I had even though I was hit from behind - if I'd have glanced in my mirror a couple of times to see what was going on behind me, instead of fixating on waiting for a gap to appear in the traffic in front of me. See what I mean?

I hit a car which pulled out of a side road into my path. I was the only thing travelling towards him on the main road, he pulled out of a minor road attempting to turn right into a slow moving line of traffic. It was travelling downhill, I hit him HARD, I flew a long way and was quite badly injured. (so was my bike)
My solicitor begs to differ with your wise man.

The wise man would argue that you should have seen him and anticipated that he would pull out and formulated a strategy to deal with that eventuality.
As a motorcyclist it becomes second nature to assume that everyone else on the road is an idiot and that if they can do something stupid, its odds-on that they probably will....

Right, I hear ya.

Right, I hear ya.

@VanUden

I know everyone says you shouldn't filter up the inside, but on roads where the traffic stops (for lights/whatever) then goes back up to 30 it's less safe to keep weaving out to the outside then get stuck there jousting with motorbikes, than just to stay on the inside and watch the fuck out for morons.
I see what the wise man up there is saying. You should *really *be going slow enough to stop even if the assclown pulls out right in front of you.

Speedy recovery Lucky7.

I hit a car which pulled out of a side road into my path. I was the only thing travelling towards him on the main road, he pulled out of a minor road attempting to turn right into a slow moving line of traffic. It was travelling downhill, I hit him HARD, I flew a long way and was quite badly injured. (so was my bike)
My solicitor begs to differ with your wise man.

If I was traveling down hill at speed and could see a car lurking in a side-road I'd either shit myself in anticipation or slow down and cover the brakes. If I couldn't see the car or side-road then I wouldn't have enough visibility for my speed in those circumstances so would also slow down just in case.

Hope you're healing well. And no doubt you'll have the driver bang to rights in terms of 'legal' responsibility. My gripe with avoiding accidents and taking more personal responsibility as someone who's ridden motorbikes and bicycles for 20 years is more to do with the fact that we get hurt, cars and vans don't.

The wise man would argue that you should have seen him and anticipated that he would pull out and formulated a strategy to deal with that eventuality.
As a motorcyclist it becomes second nature to assume that everyone else on the road is an idiot and that if they can do something stupid, its odds-on that they probably will....

i understand you're point and while riding London roads I am constantly formulating the kind of "strategy" you describe. I can't image that any cyclist would last long without that kind of mentality. Since my accident i am more vigilant and I do ride a little slower. I have also made adjustments to my brakes and ratio to aid slowing/stopping.

I could ride around at 5mph in a yellow hi-vis jacket but when you are the only vehicle travelling down the centre of a long open stretch of road on a clear day and a vehicle is waiting to pull out and has way more than a reasonable amount of time to see you I'd say it is reasonable to assume that the driver has seen you and is waiting for you to pass.

Short of getting off my bike and walking on the pavement, no alteration in my behaviour could have changed what happened. He was only concerned with looking for a gap in the traffic on the other side of the road and obviously didn't even glance in my direction for the whole 10 seconds or more that I was travelling toward him. I was lucky that I'm incredibly bouncy and not very brittle. He was lucky that I wasn't a bus.

Similar view to you VanUden. You can be legally as correct as you like (in any accident car on car whatever) but it's better if you do something differently avoid the accident and just mutter to yourself "that drivers a twat" while riding away rather than "that drive is a twat" while lying in a hospital bed.

Of course with every accident hindsight is wonderful.

The wise man would argue that you should have seen him and anticipated that he would pull out and formulated a strategy to deal with that eventuality.
As a motorcyclist it becomes second nature to assume that everyone else on the road is an idiot and that if they can do something stupid, its odds-on that they probably will....

Yes anticipating the worst is a good idea. But if you fully play this out you end up with a stale mate at every junction because you are prepared for if you move forward an inch so may the other vehicle and you have an accident. We have a highway code which would say there is a major road and a minor road in this situation and the major road has right of way. So whatever way you look at it in this situation the person unreasonably pulling out is at fault not the person diong the hitting, so the wise man statement is shit!

They're targetting drivers in NYC with these.
Bad luck lucky7.