Tintin
Race Dog
This article on IOL: https://www.iol.co.za/motoring/bikes-quads-karts/are-bikers-invisible-or-what-1.1102539
The rear ending is a big scare factor for me...
Article below:
Are bikers invisible, or what?
July 20 2011 at 12:10pm
Comment on this story
.
It is bright red - but some drivers still do not see it!
There has been much research over the years into the causes of motorcycle accidents, from Professor Hugh Hurt's aptly-named Hurt Report of the mid-1970's to the EU's authoritative Powered Two-Wheeler Survey of 2002 and many more.
One conclusion, however, is constant throughout: a little more than half of all motorcycle accidents are caused by car drivers, either through knockdowns or by turning directly across the path of the rider.
So well documented is this that British insurance companies have invented a whole new category of motorcycle accident to describe them, the Smidsy (Sorry, mate, I didn't see you).
Possibly the scariest, though, is when you stop at a red light and the car behind you doesn't. I've had that happen to me - twice - and to a mate in the lane next to me, which was infinitely more frightening.
Interesting aside: The SAPS declined to take any action against the driver in that particular incident because “nobody has been killed”. I kid you not.
Less than a week ago the driver of a silver Honda Ballade in Durban Road, Bellville, felt constrained to move from the right lane to the left, even though I was right next to him on a big red sports bike, wearing a red jacket and a red helmet.
That love-tap put a bruise on my leg, a scratch on my Triumph's tailpipe and my heart in my mouth.
There is a school of thought that says it was partly my fault because I was riding at the same speed as the car; a motorcycle, it says, should always be travelling slightly faster than the traffic so as to move consistently away from danger.
I disagree; moving away from the driver next to you means you're closing on the driver ahead and he's even less likely to have seen you.
The most thought-provoking crash I've had in four decades of motorcycling was when a lady in a Fiat Seicento went through a red light and took a 1200cc Buell out from under me.
She came out of absolutely nowhere because she was on what, for her, was the “wrong” side of the road; she was in the right lane of a one-way street. I was simply not programmed to look for oncoming traffic in that lane and I didn't see her until a split second before she hit me.
And that is the real point of this story: whether we're on two wheels or four, we see what we expect to see.
The days of black leather-clad riders on black machines are long gone; today's motorcycles and (especially) scooters are brightly multicoloured and many of their riders wear fluorescent green vests. Yet we still get knocked down.
The Think Bike people have got it right - it's time to think outside the box (pun intended - a car is a tin box with a wheel at each corner) and consciously look for small, brightly coloured, fast-moving objects popping up in traffic where you least expect them.
That way, I hope, you can avoid turning me into a statistic.
The rear ending is a big scare factor for me...
Article below:
Are bikers invisible, or what?
July 20 2011 at 12:10pm
Comment on this story
.
It is bright red - but some drivers still do not see it!
There has been much research over the years into the causes of motorcycle accidents, from Professor Hugh Hurt's aptly-named Hurt Report of the mid-1970's to the EU's authoritative Powered Two-Wheeler Survey of 2002 and many more.
One conclusion, however, is constant throughout: a little more than half of all motorcycle accidents are caused by car drivers, either through knockdowns or by turning directly across the path of the rider.
So well documented is this that British insurance companies have invented a whole new category of motorcycle accident to describe them, the Smidsy (Sorry, mate, I didn't see you).
Possibly the scariest, though, is when you stop at a red light and the car behind you doesn't. I've had that happen to me - twice - and to a mate in the lane next to me, which was infinitely more frightening.
Interesting aside: The SAPS declined to take any action against the driver in that particular incident because “nobody has been killed”. I kid you not.
Less than a week ago the driver of a silver Honda Ballade in Durban Road, Bellville, felt constrained to move from the right lane to the left, even though I was right next to him on a big red sports bike, wearing a red jacket and a red helmet.
That love-tap put a bruise on my leg, a scratch on my Triumph's tailpipe and my heart in my mouth.
There is a school of thought that says it was partly my fault because I was riding at the same speed as the car; a motorcycle, it says, should always be travelling slightly faster than the traffic so as to move consistently away from danger.
I disagree; moving away from the driver next to you means you're closing on the driver ahead and he's even less likely to have seen you.
The most thought-provoking crash I've had in four decades of motorcycling was when a lady in a Fiat Seicento went through a red light and took a 1200cc Buell out from under me.
She came out of absolutely nowhere because she was on what, for her, was the “wrong” side of the road; she was in the right lane of a one-way street. I was simply not programmed to look for oncoming traffic in that lane and I didn't see her until a split second before she hit me.
And that is the real point of this story: whether we're on two wheels or four, we see what we expect to see.
The days of black leather-clad riders on black machines are long gone; today's motorcycles and (especially) scooters are brightly multicoloured and many of their riders wear fluorescent green vests. Yet we still get knocked down.
The Think Bike people have got it right - it's time to think outside the box (pun intended - a car is a tin box with a wheel at each corner) and consciously look for small, brightly coloured, fast-moving objects popping up in traffic where you least expect them.
That way, I hope, you can avoid turning me into a statistic.
