IndyCar Flips

[toomanymikes]

Man... I love bikes but stuff like that constantly plays on your mind when your riding - wet leaves, wet road markings, mud, loose stones / roadsurface, cars on the wrong side of the road or just not looking, animals wandering out of fields - it all has pretty disasterous consequences. I suppose thats why we dress up like were off to war in the middle ages tho!

[FOL]

Man... I love bikes but stuff like that constantly plays on your mind when your riding - wet leaves, wet road markings, mud, loose stones / roadsurface, cars on the wrong side of the road or just not looking, animals wandering out of fields - it all has pretty disasterous consequences. I suppose thats why we dress up like were off to war in the middle ages tho!

2 years ago, my brother phoned me christmas morning, to say the usual and that he was going to the inlaws for dinner. Anyways, he was riding his new bike to their house (they live in the gower). The plonker went to fast round a corner, hit black ice and bang straight into a lmp post. Nice christmas present that was, he was in hospital for christmas day with a broken leg.

[Harrison]

Could have been worse. At least a broken leg normally heals fine. And being Christmas he probably got a half decent meal in the hospital!

I think one thing that put me off from ever riding a bike was the dangerous aspect of it on public roads. It's not your own driving ability, its the others you have to constantly be on the look out for. It's bad enough driving a car these days with the number of idiots around you on the road. The number of people that cannot use a roundabout correctly is mad. Everyday I get people moving right across lanes without indicating and then drifting back out into the other lane again, with no obvious indication that they noticed you there. Same happens on the motorways all the time too. That and people not leaving enough distance and having to constantly use their brakes.

[FOL]

OMG, you sound exactly like me.

Everything you just said is how i feel about bikes and round-abouts,

[toomanymikes]

I know a guy who has never had an accident on the bike - he says that if you have an accident its your fault, even if a car pulls out in front of you, as you should have been thinking about 'what if' - i try to follow his example and so far it has worked. Other drivers are the most scary part tho - the best way is to try to make eye contact as you approach as your sure they have seen you then - if not get ready to stop - bikes can stop on a penny when they need to. I suppose its just the same for every other road user - only on a bike your far less protected so you have to be far more aware.

[AlexJ]

I love the way the government are making the bike test harder to reduce the number of accidents. When I heard that on the radio, I thought hang on it's the car that didn't look that causes the most bike accidents - surely motorcycle observation should be included in the car test if we want to reduce accidents. Bit like speed cameras (oh no, here we go again) - most accidents are caused by careless driving, yet provided you drive stupidly within the speed limit you are highly unlikely to be caught. The driver doing 80MPH past a camera on a motorway at night with noone around will be caught however.

[Harrison]

Totally! Most drivers who speed are probably much safer than those that drive too slowly.

Tonight I had a very near miss, and again it was on a roundabout! I was in the outside lane, following a van, going around a roundabout, indicating right as I needed the third exit. When a car going really fast suddenly shot straight out of the first exit between the van and my car into the outside lane of the roundabout. He must have squeezed between us with inches to spare. Mad! He got a blast from my horn and a flashing headlights in his rear view mirror but I doubt that did much.