Another bike down - "I didn't see him"

In aus.motorcycles on 27 Jun 2006 23:06:43 +0200

It's the "no chance" that's difficult.

I'm sure there are such ones, and I'm equally sure we have no way to
know how many such crashes were of that kind.

I have had people turn across me, and I've avoided them. I was
looking for them to do it, I expected they might, and I had already
some idea of what I'd do if they did.

Yes, one might have done it when none of my plans would have worked.
So far, that's not been so.

Now... if, in one of those ones I avoided, I didn't avoid it, then did
I have no blame at all?

Zebee

 

Nah, G-S has some explanation of why I was partly at fault when my Spada
got hit by the guy in the HiAce... While it was legally parked... And I
was two suburbs away asleep in bed... I _should_ have avoided him
somehow I guess...

;-)

big

 

In aus.motorcycles on 28 Jun 2006 06:33:03 +0200

I'm not talking legal, Im talking moral. I'm talking taking
responsibility for myself.

Obeying the road rules isn't driving/riding the same way breathing in
and out isn't living.

Zebee

 

Yeah, like I said in the hang-shit-on-Shane thread, in that situation
_I'd_ personally consider myself to have failed, but I'd expect the cops
and the insurance company and the legal system to consider the other guy
100% at fault. I've only got myself to answer to about whether or not I
could have avoided the accident - everyone else can leave out the
question of whether I'm partially to blame - if _he_ broke the rules and
_I_ didn't, then _he's_ 100% to blame.

big

 

In NSW they are. At both L's and P's courses

It's called Roadcraft

ck

and wouldn't it be nice if they listened

 

Some of us preach the "assume they're all out to get you and ride
defensively enough that they fail" school of thought.

This quote is originally about bicycles, but you'll recognise a lot of
aus.moto posters if you google for it. A lot of people in here have
quoted this over the years:

"I had to ride slow because I was taking my guerrilla route, the one I
follow when I assume that everyone in a car is out to get me. My
nighttime attitude is, anyone can run you down and get away with it. Why
give some drunk the chance to plaster me against a car? That's why I
don't even own a bike light, or one of those godawful reflective suits.
Because if you've put yourself in a position where someone has to see
you in order for you to be safe - to see you, and to give a **** -
you've already blown it."
-Neal Stephenson, Zodiac

The way _I_ interpret it is, I'm going to take on complete
responsibility for my own safety on the bike. I'm going to do my
damnedest to ride in a fashion that doesn't give cars the opportunity to
hit me even if they try. As the quote says, if someone has to avoid
_me_, I've blown it. But what I've blown is my own personal deal with
myself, my own perhaps self-deluded conclusion that _I_ can make riding
a motorcycle "safe enough" for me to justify the obvious dangers
involved. *But*, if I screw up and let you hit me when I'm obeying the
traffic rules and you're not, I'm not going to accept *any* legal or
moral or financial or any other sort of responsibility for an incident
that was caused by _you_ breaking the rules while I was obeying them.
The deal when you get a licence is that you agree to obey the rules, and
you agree to take responsibility for what happens if and when you break
them.

I guess it kinda outlines my difference of opinion with you about
daytime headlights too...

big

 

Yep.

Shane, have you seen the MOST requirements/syllabus in the last 10 or so
years? (I know you've taught advanced rider training to police, but I'm
not sure how up-to-date you are on current (ie, in the last 10 or 15
years) mandatory rider training in NSW).

They _do_ teach you all this stuff (admittedly mostly at the P's test
stage from memory). They'll actually fail you on the road ride section
of the MOST if you don't cover the brakes as you approach intersections
- not just intersections with cars waiting, but _all_ intersections.
They'll also fail you for not noticing a car coming up behind you and
repositioning yourself in your lane to allow for it.

I guess part of the problem is that the 16 or so hours of training a
learner motorcyclist gets is infinitely better than learner car drivers,
but still not really enough (or more likely, its too much for the amount
of time you get to take it all in, while still being not enough to
really make you a "safe" rider).

I still think we get a way better learner education that 99.99% of car
drivers ever get.

big

 

Well, browbeating people with stuff they already know *is* a part of
being a sanctimonious prick, after all...

 

Because the situation Martin describes is different to what you're
banging on about. The traffic analogy would be a rider not wearing a
helmet, not a rider not looking out for themselves.

Whether you're too inflexible in your thinking to recognise that, or
deliberately misconstruing someone else's point to support yours, is
hard to say. You've done plenty of both and been blatant about it in the
past...

He was wearing sunglasses.
The interior of the car was in the shade.

Aren't your accident investigation guys supposed to be able to tell you
this down to the nearest tenth of a kph?

What's a more appropriate lane?

Am I more conspicuous in the centre lane, where I am closer to the
driver's most likely line of sight, but where my motion is less apparent
to them?
Or am I more conspicuous in the kerbside lane, where my motion will
subtend a larger parallax angle as I approach, but where I'll be further
away from the driver's most likely line of sight?

Do I have a better chance of swerving around the car as it makes its
move in the centre lane, where I can duck around the back of it, or in
the kerb lane, where I can duck around the front?

Last year, an ausmotian had an oncoming car turn across his path. He was
riding one of these,

http://www.mcnews.com.au/Testing/Kawasaki/ZX-10R/Static_Orange_RHS_700p.jpg

For the umpteenth time, accidents don't occur because people don't *see*
bikes and riders; they occur because they don't *look*, and if they
don't look, they're not going to see something, regardless of how
conspicuous it is.

Although, again for the umpteenth time, this is all a dayglo herring...

....at the sorts of ranges over which the risk of a collision if one
vehicle crosses the path of another becomes significant, a bike with a
rider on it is not going to be rendered any more conspicuous with
high-visibility measures. Furthermore, in daylight conditions, at longer
ranges, the dayglo vest, or the bright-red helmet or, for that matter, a
lit-up headlight is going to be far too small, and part of far too busy
a shape to add significantly to the conspicuity of a bike with a rider
on it.

If that's the case, why do you keep crapping on about headlights-on and
high-visibility clothing?

 

it's actually more a case of that they see what they want to see.

what are they looking for? other vehicles? no............

they are looking for a gap - _nothing_ - and they see nothing

all this other shit on here about driver training - forget it

car drivers can drive - they just don't concentrate on the task at hand. The
car is a device, a tool. They don't want to be driving - they want to be
there already.

you can't teach people to concentrate so training would make sweet f.a.
difference

 

see the response below - still

 

Yup; and here you are in all your corpulence, advocating that the police
and the law adopt an approach to assessing traffic accidents which will
make it even easier for them to do that.

I think the words I'm looking for are "Thanks, ****."

Um, the sky falls in? I dunno...

Because donning a dayglo vest and traipsing off into traffic headlight
ablaze isn't accident avoidance; it's a rabbit's foot.

Then piss off to aus.bicycle and condescend them...

No, it just needs an answer sufficiently non-committal for the insurance
company lawyer to cloud the magistrate's thinking.

Missed this bit, did you?

Classic Shane. Why respond to a point when you can just be dismissive
and arrogant?

And it's a choice which, according to you, someone should be penalised
for should an accident occur.

For the precise reason illustrated in your response immediately above...
by dodging simple challenges instead of responding to them, you indicate
that you don't really know what you're talking about.

You destroy your own credibility, I go back to whatever I was doing before.

BTW, aren't you supposed to have killfiled me earlier in this very thread?

 

Some of the motorcycle instructors are really very nice people, some aren't.

Or was that a dig at Shane?

regards,
CrazyCam

 

The two half-days of the pre-learners is designed to give a complete
beginner motorcyclist enough of the basic skills to have a chance of
surviving, while they learn to ride.

Comparing it to a months training for police riders is hardly constructive.

I agree with your statement that even a month isn't enough time to teach
everything, but suspect that this isn't explained properly to the
trainees. ;-)

In an ideal world, perhaps it might be a good thing if learner riders
did do a month's course before being let loose, unsupervised, on the
roads, but, wouldn't that ideal world have a similar course for car
drivers? After all, how long is the training for HP drivers.

But, I think we can agree that such a cost of time and resources would
be unacceptable for both car and bike operators.

Were I in charge of the current set-up at St.Ives, I'd try and offer a
5-day course, for folk about, or just after the time they go for their
P-plates.

I'd have a day on dirt bikes, in the dirt, some classroom stuff, some
riding on St.Ives' "road", some road riding, and, possibly a day down at
Eastern Creek.

If such a course was offered at, let's say two, to two and a half grand,
and was totally optional, I think there could be enough folk want such a
think to make it a goer.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

In aus.motorcycles on 30 Jun 2006 06:22:34 +0200

There's a lot of literature out there about task blindness. The
famous study about the gorilla for example.

That's where people were shown a clip of a basketball game, and given
a task that involved concentrating very hard on one of the players.
In the middle of the clip a bod in a gorilla suit walked through the
game.

After the clip a surprising number of people didn't "see" the gorilla.
Because they were concentrating on somethig else, and so while the
gorilla was in their field of vision it wasn't "important".

All dayglo and lights do is try and make the viewer think "what's
that? I had better process it". The more and more dayglo and lights
around on unimportant things (like trucks and signs) and even on
things not immediately important (like peds and cyclists way over
there) the more incentive to set the processor to ignore all dayglo
and lights.

the key is not to add more whizbang in the hope of triggering the
exception processor. The key is to get "motorcycle" (and "bicycle")
into the "pay attention to this" processor. To stop the brain
discarding that information.

A long time ago, I used to take a shortcut through the suburb I lived
in to get to the main road. Very quiet sleepy place, almost no
traffic. I would cross a road at a give way sign every day and not see a
vehicle of any kind.

One day I realised my bike had stopped!

Immediately after that realisation, I saw a car to my right. What had
happened was that I turned my head and "looked" but because I didn't
expect to see anything, I didn't see anything. There was a perfectly
good car there of the "white stationwagon" persuasion but I didn't
"see" it consciously.

Luckily for me, the subconscious is into self preservation. So the
conscious mind saw "nothing", the subconscious hit the brakes. I
expect that had I been driving a car and the vehicle coming on my
right had been a two wheeler that the self preservation might not have
kicked in. That I might well have pulled out in front of that bike
and been quite clear and sure that I didn't "see" the bike.

About a year later I was a passenger in a car driven by my housemate.
And on the exact same damn intersection he "looked" and did not "see"
a yellow panelvan. I saw it, it even had its lights on!.. The
panelvan braked and swerved, I yelped, and my housemate - dead
shocked - said "where did he come from?" "he was there all the time"
I said. But because he did not expect to see anything, he did not see
anything.

Bright yellow, headlights on (it was an RAA van, they tended to have
lights on in daylight) and utterly "invisible" because the driver of
the car I was in did not expect to see it and so although he turned
his head and "looked" he didn't "see" it. It was there, the light
bounced off it and hit his retinas, but he didn't "see" it.

That's what has to be dealt with. expectations. dayglo and lights
and such are just hoping to hit the exception processor, hoping to
beat that expectation thing, and they are on a hiding to nothing.

When drivers *expect* to see bikes they will. Until then, they'll
still not 'see' bikes.

"Headlights on? You can have your headlights on, be bright red, 17
tons and be screaming like a banshee and they still won't see you"
- Dave Cox on driving a firetruck.

Zebee

 

Dave's not here man.....

 

"Curses, I'm spotted!..."

 

Mate, I find myself picking out unmarked cop cars as easily as marked
ones...Threat level and all that...

Some say that I can smell them...

 

I think you are, perhaps intentionally, missing my point.

The pre-learners two half-days is only intended, and expected, even, to
give the learner a reasonable sporting chance to survive as they learn.

The police course has a completely different aim.

I am old enough to have got my motorcycle licence back in the days when
I admit, I got lucky, and survived.

I suspect you, too, would be in this category.

Some of them certainly don't show it when dealing with the public, just
the opposite, some seem to think they _invented_ the motorcycle. ;-)

Out of curiousity, what was considered the hardest?

They might not fall off the car, 4-WD or whatever, but they still seem
to manage to kill themselves, and some others, quite well. :-|

So, should we not be comparing the length of time for training an HP
driver (total) and a cop bike rider, with training for "normal" drivers
and riders?

Rano Altonnen's courses were before your time then?

I'd agree with Mr. Grice.

Quite a few of them don't.

There is about a 50 percent drop from numbers doing pre-learners, to
those doing the P-plate course/test.

Some also try and organise assistance or intruction from other more
experienced riders.

Even after your months course for cop riders, some of them crash, too!

We can agree on something then.

Ah, Amaroo! <sigh> Great wee track.

The track at St.Ives is OK, but it doesn't provide the area for high
speed, and safe run-off that you find at EC.

Stay Upright provide, in small chunks, the kind of thing I mean, but you
can't do all the bits in a five day course.

I think that there is a lot of hidden value in the concentration of a
course... sortof immersion in the subject, that a week spent doing
nothing but riding or thinking about riding, can provide.

The government probably shouldn't be paying for it, but, if they allowed
the insurance companies a more sensible position than is forced by green
slip rules, the insurance companies would, effectively, finance the
training.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Quick. Someone check if Mulder and Scully are still in business. There
appears to be an ex-highway patrolman with a sarcasm bypass in the house...

Instead of dodging questions asked of you by posing questions intended
to contort the discussion into what a victim you are, how about you have
a go at answering one once in a while?

Yes, Shane, that's *exactly* why he said it. As usual, it's you versus
the world.

Most of it gathered by people who barely know one end of a motorcycle
from another.

I stated my opinion, you thick twat. An opinion which agrees with that
of many others and which you've never even attempted to counter with
anything other than "The literature I read says... blahblahblah...
tangent-tangent-tangent..."

In a word?

Insurance.

Yes. It tends to get mentioned in a different chapter of the textbook
than "false sense of security".

Had what on, you uncomprehending moron?

Pertinent section of my original post cited below. Do you want to have
another go at ignoring it?

By remembering that roadside workers weren't dying at a rate of
thousands per day before the introduction of compulsory high-vis
clothing, for starters.

High-vis clothing was accompanied by a range of other workplace safety
measures, not least more intensive OH&S briefings for new staff. The
dayglo can't, realistically, claim credit for any reductions in the rate
of workplace accidents that may or may not have occurred since their
introduction.

There's no parallel there. The suit on board the Space Shuttle starts
doing its job, one thing needs to happen; loss of cabin pressure.

For a dayglo vest to work, a confluence of events has to take place;
first, someone in a position to harm the vest's wearer has to see it.
Then, having seen it, they have to interpret its significance. Following
that, they then have to act in a manner which alleviates that
aforementioned potential harm.

This is Zebee's "they have to see you, notice you, then give a ****".
It's a triple coincidence, which is what, on average, brings down
airliners, and we see how often they drop out of the sky.

The only thing a high-vis vest has in common with a space suit worn by
Shuttle crew is the colour. In terms of function, one is a wise
precaution, the other is a rabbit's foot.

Yes, in the same way as a semi-trailer is much more difficult to see
than a car.

Again for the umpteenth time, over the sorts of ranges at which the risk
of a collision becomes significant, there is no difference. If someone
can't see a typical bike as easily as a typical car from 30, 40, or 50m
away, a dayglo vest or a lit headlight aren't going to help them.

No, just harrying you in your attempt to bignote yourself with bad advice.

Ah-huh. Somewhere around the start of the thread, you claimed that you
only ride offroad now.

Why the present tense?

Hrm... in almost 30,000km over the past 12 months, half of them racked
up in metro Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne, I've had *three* close
calls, and I'm on a bike half the size of a police BMW.

Where, exactly, does someone with your apparent crap sense of
anticipation in traffic get off telling the rest of us how to be safe
when out on the bike?

A 4-foot-tall trophy and a family-size box of tissues are in the post.