Reading another thread on accidents got me thinking about one I had shortly after I got my first big bike.
In heavy traffic in Leeds I was riding down the outside of a queue of traffic with nothing coming the other way when somebody waved a car out of a side road straight into my path. I T-boned him and flew over the bonnet, apart from two very bruised legs where I caught the handlebars I was uninjured but my GPz 500 was a write off.
When it came to the insurance claim I was advised by my solicitors to accept 50/50 blame. The guy who waved the car out in front of me had said in his statement that I was going too fast. I was furious, how could he know how fast I was going? I was coming up behind him and if he had seen me coming at all then why did he wave a car out in front of me? I was full of righteous indignation but had to take the 50/50 blame.
The thing is this, I now think he was right.
With 25 years or so more riding experience I can look back and realise that I had got it all wrong. At the time I had stayed close to the cars in the row of stationary traffic even though nothing was coming in the other direction - now I would be way over in the middle of the other lane where I could make myself visible and improve my chances of reacting to the situation. The fact that I hit the car does suggest that I was going too fast to react in time or was failing to perceive all the hazards.
I still think the guy was a Twonk for waving a car out into my path but I just don't think it's an accident I would have today with my increased experience.
So have you ever been righteously indignant only to realise later that you were wrong? ( or at least partially so )
Probably more than a few times! Happily none resulted in anything quite like your tale, but then that's more down to luck than good judgement at the time!
Not me, but another biker confessed that he thought he knew it all, that he was untouchable. He went to overtake a line of traffic, dropped a few gears and went for it big time. He never thought that the car stuck right behind the slow vehicle at the front would pull out for an overtake, but it did....
His bike was written off, and he had more than one broken bone.
I met him an an IAM social ride out - It took that accident to make him wonder if maybe, just maybe, his riding wasn't actually as good as he thought it was, and maybe he could learn to ride a bit safer....
A philisopher once said that humans are the only animals on earth capable of learning from others mistakes, yet are curiously unwilling to do so.
Biggest difference for me now vs my 20's - despite another couple of decades experience on the roads, I finally accepted that I probably could do to learn a few things, and then I realised that I'd NEVER stop learning
Electric badger if you had said to your ins if the driver had seen me and still called the car out he is liable for the accident and even if he belived you were traveling to fast he would have know you would be unable to stop in time so again he is liable .
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