quote:
In April this year, Benjamin Austin, the driver of the Renault car that struck Mr Holmes, pleaded guilty to causing a death by careless driving.

He was subsequently ordered to perform 130 hours of unpaid work. His driving licence was also suspended for 18 months.

The court heard Austin admitted he had not seen Mr Holmes before making the turn.

In passing sentence, Judge Veits said no one had suggested Austin had been driving dangerously, but he had made a mistake that 'sadly' too many other drivers also make, of 'simply' not seeing the motorcycle.

Seems a bit excessive considering the speed of the bike and even the judge admitting that it was an accident and not dangerous driving.

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Posted by member12

Bob's Country Bunker

Member since May 2008

32145 posts

Posted on 9/8/14 at 2:31 pm to LSUBoo

The speed of the bike has almost certainly impacted the driver's ability to judge how much time he has to make the turn even if he saw him approaching rapidly.

Even if the car driver is at fault for carelessly being in that lane, the biker causes that accident by driving at wreckless speeds. You see a motorcycle in the distance and expect him to close that gap in 10 seconds like most of the cars you see every day, but he's moving so rapidly that he'll be there in 5 seconds. In that scenario, the cyclist is as much at fault as the automobile driver IMO.

I wonder how many collisions motorcycles have had with cars whose drivers did not see then were causes by stupid motorcyclists rapidly changing lanes, shooting gaps, at closing distances at 40 and 50 mph over the posted limit. The amount of wreckless driving I've seen on motorcycles on a daily basis is astounding.

This post was edited on 9/8/14 at 2:44 pm

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