A few years ago a mate of mine got convicted of dangerous driving after skidding into a crash barrier with no injuries and no damage other than to his car and the barrier.

The police have targets to meet....

Lol.

Not sure about all this commentary, its easy to pass judgement, but anyone that thinks he would have slowed down to sub 20mph in that situation is lying to himself - you would be taken out by everyone behind you too. Do this in London and you going to be parked all day.

To be honest, that is exactly what would have happened to me. Right up until the last second, it seemed the truck was waiting for him. I'd have slowed down coming round the bend, and would have been satisfied everyone saw me in that circumstance, and dare I say I may even have got on the throttle a little. Just being honest. But this video serves as a warning for me, to not take this for granted.

I'd have slowed right down the instant I saw that situation (as someone said earlier - spidey senses tingling at maximum - the instant I saw that in the vid, I felt my internal biker danger warning flashed heavily). The red truck on the left by itself would have slowed me down, moved out to the middle and covered my front brake. The black truck on the right had clearly stopped prior to seeing me - I wait until I can see the driver make eye contact with me before assuming it's safe in a situation like that. Throw in two massive vehicles restricting my options on where I can go on the road, with both of them potentially about to pull out in front of me and I'm going to practically crawl past them both.

If the guy was commentating then he wasn't paying full attention - I rode around with my headphones on once, and will never do it again. Totally distracting, and after 20+ years of bike riding, I know I need to be totally focused all the time, and to assume that everyone is a blind idiot wanting to kill me. As much as I enjoy the Baron Von Grumble videos, riding like he does through heavy traffic in central London while delivering a constant stream of amusing commentary does not bode well for his longevity, IMO.

Seeing 2 lorries like that would have made me slow down to a snail’s pace! Although my attention would have been more on the red lorry on the left pulling straight out in front of me. The guy in the video didn’t look to alter his speed at all. I don’t have any sound on here but he didn’t look to brake hard or anything? It was totally the lorries fault but when there is an inherent danger like that in front if you with plenty of time to spot what is going on, although I may not have evaded an accident there, I certainly wouldn’t have been hitting that section at those speeds (I’m guessing he was doing about 45mph). The wet patches in the road would have made me slow too.

Wow

That seemed to happen so fast. He would have barely had the time to react at his current speed and the distance he was away before the lorry made its move.

As others have stated the obvious, he could have gone into the situation much slower. Hindsight is great but every time you see a lorry or any vehicle at a junction for that matter, should you slow down to a complete crawl just in case. Yes, you reduce your speed, I certainly do and treat every situation as a possible accident waitign to happen. As others have said, I look to make contact with their eyes to see if they have 'clocked me'.

However, at what point do you draw the line as to how slow you approach this situation. Even if he had gone even slower, say about 20 MPH as some have said, would he still have been able to avoid the situation still? Maybe, maybe not.

the black truck, clearly, is in the wrong there but the guy on camera is yacking away about some nonsense (mind not 100% on the task in hand) and seemingly not covering his brakes in anticipation of this exact event happening.

The road junction with 2 x hgvs potentially about to travel in 2 x different directions across me would certainly make me slow down A LOT more A LOT earlier just in case...

The video auto-pausing to read the text boxes, and his waffling on about how he had seen this and anticipated that and had been on xyz rider courses just seems to whiff of someone potesting too much about their innocence.

Either that or the guy is just an inexperienced rider when it comes to dealing with heavy traffic situations - a good example of how most accidents are a culmination of events from a number of factors which if more care was taken BY EVERYONE could possibly have been avoided

I would liken it to holding a conversation on a hands free mobile phone.

Your hands are free but your mind is dealing with speaking AS WELL as doing the constant risk assesment that is proper motorcycle riding.

It doesnt take a genius to realise that NOT TALKING allows you to concentrate harder on the task in hand.


You only have so much "processor" power in your brain, the more tasks you give it, the slower it works or the more tasks its stops doing.

Yes, however, in this situation at what point would concentrating more have helped? The truck pulled out when he was at most 10 meters away. From the looks of it, he was travelling at about 30mph, if not faster (well under the legal limit there). At 30mph, it takes about 23 meters to stop, or 6 car lengths. I guess one could argue he could have turned, although I'm not 100% sure he could of and he would have likely have hit the red truck then anyway. His reactions on the brakes seems to be pretty quick.

Like I said, easy to criticize. Personally, I don't think in this case chatting to the camera had any bearing on the outcome of this. Its still not wise, as you may not be aware of other things around you.

I think he first saw it waiting to turn right when he rounded the corner, the red truck through the trees. It seemed to wait for a decent amount of time before setting off.

Pointless argument really. It happened, although I don't think a 5-10% increase in reaction would have changed the outcome, and was certainly not the cause of the accident.