Practising collision avoidance

[Rocket.]

Recently back into biking. I'll be honest I have had a couple of near misses but yesterday it happened, blind left hand bend, speed a little high (I've been round there quicker in my car for sure but no 'slow' markings or danger signs prior to the bend) half way round the corner came upon a car performing a u turn, would be easy to blame them as it was a dangerous and stupid place to do it but old adage if you can't stop or change direction quick enough then you going to fast. I am fairly sure I froze jumped on the brake and stood the bike up but couldn't wipe off all the speed and hit the car by it's rear wheel at about 10 mph I am guessing. Quick somersault by me and I am sitting on the road shaken but basically ok, bike (ktm950) is suprisingly fine bar a few scratches.

So question is apart from slowing down being more careful and assuming round ever blind bend there is an idiot, is collision avoidance something you can actually practice on the road? I feel I could have reacted better and avoided the accident. I don't want to stop riding but I need to get safer.

Edited by Rocket. on Sunday 18th August 22:27

[Rocket.]

Thanks for comments and suggestions. I ride a 125 cc scooter 4 miles cross country each way to the station every day without issue and have been for 9 years, the difference is the speed and my braking technique for sure which I am going to work on, my road positioning in this accident was not perfect but ok from what I can recall though thinking back I am not convinced I had my front brake covered so probably lost vital seconds, without doubt ‘target fixation’ was evident, my first thought was stop as opposed to find a way round, I nearly did but not quite.

The i2i course looks good, as does IAM, and I think I will give one of them a go, I want to try to retrain my brain to react the ‘right’ way when situations present themselves as even most defensive riding won’t always be enough and riding around constantly thinking I am going to be knocked off means I’d sooner not bother really.

After I had checked the bike over and calmed my nerves I actually carried on for an hour or so just to try and really get to grips with my technique and some harder but progressive emergency braking to find where the limits are.

One thing on road positioning, I know approaching a left hand bend you should be more over to the center of the road to increase your visible line through the corner, my only issue with this is the amount of cars who are often really too close to it coming the other way or people who cut corners, am I alone in sensing / fearing this?