Overtaking on 'Biker roads' ?
Discussion
I was driving back from pickering after going camping and was in a two car convoy with another friend heading back toward Hull.
These roads are full of bikers on a good day, but most of them are patient with people driving low powered vauxhalls
Any who, I was following my friend who was making some awful overtakes (blind bends approaching/traffic coming ahead) one of which the truck he overtook had to brake to allow him past before a bend, needless to say, i was was quite worried for a few seconds!
So the truck turned off 2 miles up the road only to reveal a caravan.
MY QUESTION
I came across a straight piece of road with no visible junctions and a downhill corner a mile away, I started to overtake and was half way past when a bike going waaay over the speed limit came around the distant (not so by now) corner so at this point it was too late to abort the overtake (how do i know there is still a gap behind the caravan? ) so I carried on going (low powered astra) and so did he. Just as i pulled back infront he shot past.
It got me thinking wether I was in the wrong and should have just stayed behind the caravan.
Sooo, what should I have done, and was I the stupid one, or are bikers just driving too fast on congested roads?
These roads are full of bikers on a good day, but most of them are patient with people driving low powered vauxhalls
Any who, I was following my friend who was making some awful overtakes (blind bends approaching/traffic coming ahead) one of which the truck he overtook had to brake to allow him past before a bend, needless to say, i was was quite worried for a few seconds!
So the truck turned off 2 miles up the road only to reveal a caravan.
MY QUESTION
I came across a straight piece of road with no visible junctions and a downhill corner a mile away, I started to overtake and was half way past when a bike going waaay over the speed limit came around the distant (not so by now) corner so at this point it was too late to abort the overtake (how do i know there is still a gap behind the caravan? ) so I carried on going (low powered astra) and so did he. Just as i pulled back infront he shot past.
It got me thinking wether I was in the wrong and should have just stayed behind the caravan.
Sooo, what should I have done, and was I the stupid one, or are bikers just driving too fast on congested roads?
OllieM3 said:
My view is that its going to hurt him (the biker) a lot more than its going to hurt you.... so keep going! He'll soon get out your way....
That would hurt us both equally, a small and very dense bike hitting a large and not so dense car is going to end in annihilation of us both!upsidedownmark said:
I'd agree with *some* (well, quite a bit) of that, there are *some* complete loons out there.. though frankly some of it smells a bit of 'I have priority'...
The problem is that bikes (and to a lesser extent the pedalled variety) present the capability of doing a lot of things which are probably ill advised. Cars less so simply because they need more room. I think the main thing bikers miss is that they can appear 'from nowhere' from a car perspective - you do have much better vision on a bike.
There are people in all walks of life that lack judgement, and the human animal is intrinsically very bad a judging risk - What scares us the first time does so less the second, and by the time we've done it 20 times, it's no longer 'risky', no matter what the actuality.
Motorbike education - the much lamented new test etc - is actually pretty good in my experience (biker of 2 years). There's a decent amount of attention to roadcraft and suchlike. Lane splitting can be done perfectly safely, and legally. It can also be done aggressively and dangerously. I could write quite a lot on it - but you've identified the key point - it's not just about what you can do, it's about giving other people the time and opportunity to see you, e.g. not filtering at daft speeds.
I also think there's a demographic thing at play where if you like, the 'cost of entry' in terms of comfort, convenience, risk and so on will concentrate the more risk-taking types towards bikes; I certainly find myself shaking my head at bikes more often than cars.
That said, if you're 'preparing' for an overtake and the person behind is more awake, too bad! I'd also suggest that limiting power is a futile path - you've already sunk that argument by lumping in cyclists; not the most overpowered bunch in the world are they
Equally every motorcyclist I've ever met thinks that cars can, and do flatten them at will, mouth the inevitable 'SMIDSY', and get off scott free..
Lastly, I'd note that we have no proof the oncoming bike *was* really doing unfeasibly large numbers of leptons. Easy enough to feel like that when they're coming at you, and you're mid-overtake, but there's no way of objectively measuring it is there? Could equally have been doing the speed limit. Or been a car, or whatever..
I've got a few biker friends and they mostly seem quite well behaved, and the only accidents involve a car hitting them and getting 100% blame. They do have the mentality that all cars should move out of the way in traffic though.The problem is that bikes (and to a lesser extent the pedalled variety) present the capability of doing a lot of things which are probably ill advised. Cars less so simply because they need more room. I think the main thing bikers miss is that they can appear 'from nowhere' from a car perspective - you do have much better vision on a bike.
There are people in all walks of life that lack judgement, and the human animal is intrinsically very bad a judging risk - What scares us the first time does so less the second, and by the time we've done it 20 times, it's no longer 'risky', no matter what the actuality.
Motorbike education - the much lamented new test etc - is actually pretty good in my experience (biker of 2 years). There's a decent amount of attention to roadcraft and suchlike. Lane splitting can be done perfectly safely, and legally. It can also be done aggressively and dangerously. I could write quite a lot on it - but you've identified the key point - it's not just about what you can do, it's about giving other people the time and opportunity to see you, e.g. not filtering at daft speeds.
I also think there's a demographic thing at play where if you like, the 'cost of entry' in terms of comfort, convenience, risk and so on will concentrate the more risk-taking types towards bikes; I certainly find myself shaking my head at bikes more often than cars.
That said, if you're 'preparing' for an overtake and the person behind is more awake, too bad! I'd also suggest that limiting power is a futile path - you've already sunk that argument by lumping in cyclists; not the most overpowered bunch in the world are they
Equally every motorcyclist I've ever met thinks that cars can, and do flatten them at will, mouth the inevitable 'SMIDSY', and get off scott free..
Lastly, I'd note that we have no proof the oncoming bike *was* really doing unfeasibly large numbers of leptons. Easy enough to feel like that when they're coming at you, and you're mid-overtake, but there's no way of objectively measuring it is there? Could equally have been doing the speed limit. Or been a car, or whatever..
A bike got very angry at me because he was trying to undertake on a single carriage way in traffic, my car was too far over for him to do it, I decided that as there was a roundabout not too far away, it would be stupid of him to carry on because he would have been invisible pulling out onto it.
He/She was definitely going faster than anything i'd seen that day!
I fully admit that I should have thought about it more as I underestimated the effect of adding 300kg to the car
(disclaimer : most bikers are quite considerate, this isn't meant to be a dig at them or anything)
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