hit an object in the road
Discussion
A few years ago I drove over a McDonald’s bag in the middle of the road which some 
had put there with a large stone coping off a dry stone wall inside it. It punched a hole in my alloy sump dumping the oil on the road and battered hell out of the underside of the car and e haunt and cats. Luckily I stopped quickly and turned of the engine immediately as the “stop engine now” warning flashed on the dashboard.
Caused about 2 grands worth of damage.
had put there with a large stone coping off a dry stone wall inside it. It punched a hole in my alloy sump dumping the oil on the road and battered hell out of the underside of the car and e haunt and cats. Luckily I stopped quickly and turned of the engine immediately as the “stop engine now” warning flashed on the dashboard. Caused about 2 grands worth of damage.
I was riding my cbr 600 along the exact same section of the Wye Valley road where monkey Harris knackered his Porsche, rounded a corner and there was a piece of sandstone rubble, the same size as my front wheel lying in the middle of the carriageway. Luckily I was riding quite slowly (it was pissing down).
Nickyboy said:
I came over the brow of a hill about 10 years ago to find about 30 railway sleepers in the road. I had passed a truck about 2 miles before trailing a retaining strap behind him, didn't really think much of it at the time. Thankfully most were on the opposite side of the road so managed to avoid them
And you didn't move them?Glad everybody's safe after their incidents. As much as we love our cars, they're replaceable or repairable - it's still a little tricky to bolt on a new leg to a human.
My only experience of this was driving home and coming across a ladder on the road. I was doing about 40mph (in a NSL, had just turned a corner) and my first thought was not to brake as I didn't want my takeaway curry spilling all over the inside of my 911! Luckily I managed to steer around the ladder, and by the time I'd spun the car round (edit: turned around at a junction, not literally span the car) to get it out of the road, someone had stopped and was about to move it as well. Between us we had blocked both lanes and safely moved the ladder.
Another time I was driving through a town and came across a large wooden board on the road, complete with nails sticking out of it. I pulled onto the side of the road so I could clear the debris, but not before the Uber driver behind me honked and drove around me - straight over the nails with two distinct piercing and hissing noises. The driver now behind me shared a pertubed look that the Uber was still storming off into the distance with both offside tyres rapidly deflating.
My only experience of this was driving home and coming across a ladder on the road. I was doing about 40mph (in a NSL, had just turned a corner) and my first thought was not to brake as I didn't want my takeaway curry spilling all over the inside of my 911! Luckily I managed to steer around the ladder, and by the time I'd spun the car round (edit: turned around at a junction, not literally span the car) to get it out of the road, someone had stopped and was about to move it as well. Between us we had blocked both lanes and safely moved the ladder.
Another time I was driving through a town and came across a large wooden board on the road, complete with nails sticking out of it. I pulled onto the side of the road so I could clear the debris, but not before the Uber driver behind me honked and drove around me - straight over the nails with two distinct piercing and hissing noises. The driver now behind me shared a pertubed look that the Uber was still storming off into the distance with both offside tyres rapidly deflating.
yonex said:
vonhosen said:
There's a difference between things that suddenly move into your path without any warning & stationary objects though.
It must be awesome being able to anticipate everything, all the time 
When something crosses onto your path its a sudden change of circumstances within that safety margin. You can't easlily anticipate it and in some cases would be totally unavoidable regardless of your speed.
Personally I don't drive faster than the distance I can brake in. I'm expecting that at some point I will round a corner to find stationary traffic. That doesn't mean driving like a learner, it just means backing off at the appropriate time.
Driving to the distance you can see is a good policy, however I used to live in North Devon, and that would have meant walking a lot or lots of first gear work round the lanes. My incident involved a cattle lorry parked across the road at the exit of a bend, at the end of probably the only decent straight around alongside a reservoir. Early Friday evening, on the way home from work in a hurry to go to the pub, suddenly have a road full of lorry. I hit it hard enough to push the engine back to the bulkhead and bend the A pillar and ripple the roof (Fiesta XR2 Mk 2). When he drove his lorry off my car, there was a slight dent in his fuel tank which I had hit.
Luckily, the magic words "I reclaimed my excess" helped for later insurance.
20 odd years later, I'm still cautious driving round that bend when visiting the area!
Luckily, the magic words "I reclaimed my excess" helped for later insurance.
20 odd years later, I'm still cautious driving round that bend when visiting the area!
Essel said:
Driving to the distance you can see is a good policy, however I used to live in North Devon, and that would have meant walking a lot or lots of first gear work round the lanes. My incident involved a cattle lorry parked across the road at the exit of a bend, at the end of probably the only decent straight around alongside a reservoir. Early Friday evening, on the way home from work in a hurry to go to the pub, suddenly have a road full of lorry. I hit it hard enough to push the engine back to the bulkhead and bend the A pillar and ripple the roof (Fiesta XR2 Mk 2). When he drove his lorry off my car, there was a slight dent in his fuel tank which I had hit.
Luckily, the magic words "I reclaimed my excess" helped for later insurance.
20 odd years later, I'm still cautious driving round that bend when visiting the area!
Under half the distance you can see to be clear & reasonably expect to remain so for narrow lanes (ie to allow for where there would be problems, due to lack of available road space, to safely pass vehicles travelling towards you at speed).Luckily, the magic words "I reclaimed my excess" helped for later insurance.
20 odd years later, I'm still cautious driving round that bend when visiting the area!
98elise said:
yonex said:
vonhosen said:
There's a difference between things that suddenly move into your path without any warning & stationary objects though.
It must be awesome being able to anticipate everything, all the time When something crosses onto your path its a sudden change of circumstances within that safety margin. You can't easlily anticipate it and in some cases would be totally unavoidable regardless of your speed.
Personally I don't drive faster than the distance I can brake in. I'm expecting that at some point I will round a corner to find stationary traffic. That doesn't mean driving like a learner, it just means backing off at the appropriate time.
We drive round corners expecting to find an object but with corners all objects are equal. If you are adjusting your pace to compensate for the risk of a pedestrian, horse, vehicle etc then by default you are also reducing the risk of hitting a stone or similar very low object.
Now consider the OPs scenario. It’s not a corner but a brownof a hill. You make the exact same risk assessment as for the corner but the risks are not the same. Not all objects are equal, suddenly the height of that object is extremely relevant as a risk factor As is the height of the driver. But people don’t adjust for that. And you would not be fitting the human norm if you honestly did. The norm is calculating risk based on taller objects from say child height upwards. If people approached brows at the correct pace to account for the risk of a low, solid object and factoring in the statistical probability of being able to navigate around it etc then you would be driving at a fraction of the speed that you do. If you consider a car like a Lotus it would have to drive much slower than an SUV due to the loss of visibility as it approached a brow and it would also have many more brows to traverse than that SUV etc.
Hence why it can be a genuine accident.
DonkeyApple said:
98elise said:
yonex said:
vonhosen said:
There's a difference between things that suddenly move into your path without any warning & stationary objects though.
It must be awesome being able to anticipate everything, all the time When something crosses onto your path its a sudden change of circumstances within that safety margin. You can't easlily anticipate it and in some cases would be totally unavoidable regardless of your speed.
Personally I don't drive faster than the distance I can brake in. I'm expecting that at some point I will round a corner to find stationary traffic. That doesn't mean driving like a learner, it just means backing off at the appropriate time.
We drive round corners expecting to find an object but with corners all objects are equal. If you are adjusting your pace to compensate for the risk of a pedestrian, horse, vehicle etc then by default you are also reducing the risk of hitting a stone or similar very low object.
Now consider the OPs scenario. It’s not a corner but a brownof a hill. You make the exact same risk assessment as for the corner but the risks are not the same. Not all objects are equal, suddenly the height of that object is extremely relevant as a risk factor As is the height of the driver. But people don’t adjust for that. And you would not be fitting the human norm if you honestly did. The norm is calculating risk based on taller objects from say child height upwards. If people approached brows at the correct pace to account for the risk of a low, solid object and factoring in the statistical probability of being able to navigate around it etc then you would be driving at a fraction of the speed that you do. If you consider a car like a Lotus it would have to drive much slower than an SUV due to the loss of visibility as it approached a brow and it would also have many more brows to traverse than that SUV etc.
Hence why it can be a genuine accident.
As a biker the road surface itself & even below the normal level of surface (ie potholes) mean that it's something I am looking at/for & even in larger four wheeled vehicles for things such as standing water that can hide big holes. If there's on coming traffic & I can't go around, I want to be able to slow (to allow space to pass in the clear) or ultimately stop rather than go through at speed.
That's not to say that we don't all make mistakes, just we shouldn't be under any illusion to the part we are playing in our mistakes with the choices we make.
vonhosen said:
I'd argue (some) people do attempt to adjust for it.
As a biker the road surface itself & even below the normal level of surface (ie potholes) mean that it's something I am looking at/for & even in larger four wheeled vehicles for things such as standing water that can hide big holes. If there's on coming traffic & I can't go around, I want to be able to slow (to allow space to pass in the clear) or ultimately stop rather than go through at speed.
That's not to say that we don't all make mistakes, just we shouldn't be under any illusion to the part we are playing in our mistakes with the choices we make.
I agree entirely, I think most people drive with it being a consideration but rather that it is one that carries less weight than others so has less adjustment. Ie people carry a bit more risk. As a biker the road surface itself & even below the normal level of surface (ie potholes) mean that it's something I am looking at/for & even in larger four wheeled vehicles for things such as standing water that can hide big holes. If there's on coming traffic & I can't go around, I want to be able to slow (to allow space to pass in the clear) or ultimately stop rather than go through at speed.
That's not to say that we don't all make mistakes, just we shouldn't be under any illusion to the part we are playing in our mistakes with the choices we make.
We have a lot of pheasants on the roads around here and despite being a keen game shot I have no desire to run one over unnecessarily and as such it tempers my approach to hidden dips and brows etc. Conversely, on the three lane Hendon Way in London I had no choice once but to drive over a large brick. It offered no risk to normal cars and by the time it appeared from underneath the van in front I was in a position where I could not change lane but although I could easily have stopped the car 2 feet behind me would never have managed to do so and I had no choice to go over it and have it rip the rear exhaust mount out. It was just one of those things.
This sort of thing is why I'm not a particularly fast rider, that and in 50,000 miles on two wheels I have encountered a few fairly unusual hazards, such as the previously mentioned rock in road and also washed out mud or gravel from field entrances, people stopped on a blind bend, people suddenly braking or turning without any indication, grain on the road etc etc.
This is obviously one way in which four wheels are preferable, you can switch direction and brake and you don't end up catapulted into the scenery.
This is obviously one way in which four wheels are preferable, you can switch direction and brake and you don't end up catapulted into the scenery.
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