[branski]

is it just me or does it seem like the rider never even hit the brakes? given the distances and speeds involved, with an attentive rider the bike should have been able to come to almost a complete stop before contacting the car.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0eootaHR0Q&NR=1

 

[gc8Andy]

that is an old video, there is a huge thread on one of the forums that the girl is a member on. She is a hard core road racer or something read about it a long time ago

 

[kamicosmos]

easy to armchair commando this one. But, if you watch the rider's shadow, it looks to me like they are braking, fairly heavy, and body is leaning forward on the bike. The bike also doesn't seem to be sliding, so either the rider is braking smooth and properly, or yeah....no braking at all, it's hard to tell.

You have to admit, if a car just suddenly, with no reason due to the traffic, suddenly starts doing a 180 in front of you...well....shock and surprise is going to eat up a couple seconds, and then reaction time to get on the brakes and clutch another couple of seconds...boom, you're bouncing across the hood of the car...

 

[Guest]

Seen that before, but it goes to show that anything can happen at at time -- with little or no warning. Scary stuff.

 

[branski]

you would definitely have to be mega alert with good reflexes to avoid this one. covering the brake would help. hard to tell how fast she was going.... my guess is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 mph.

if i was in those shoes, im not sure where i would have swerved, if at all. tough to say.

i do wish there were more helmet cam videos we can try and learn from. (not more accidents, but more videos of the accidents tha do occur) just to see how differnt scenarios play out. see what critical mistakes the rider made, etc.

 

[SDRider]

Honestly, I think she did about as well as could be expected given how quickly it unfolded and how little time she had to react. It seemed like she was trying to move over as far as possible without losing control and/or getting caught in between the idiot who skidded in front of her and the car in the lane to the right.

 

[99Sv650N]

Old video, It does apear that she wasnt breaking near as much as she could have though.

 

[saabsaviur]

looks like a good scenerio, maybe something happened to the car caliper lock up, maybe a part broke and lodged its self in the wheel? I wrecked/flipped several times on the freeway going 70-80mph once by having the front right ball joint on 1971 mercedes 250 snapped clean off. i think she did what i would have done, given the scenrio. who will ever know.

 

[gwarusee]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xZtetIzIW4
she seems pretty darn capable. from this video.

 

[zabrow187]

should've swerved the other way.

 

[99Sv650N]

Yea she should have swerved left with brakes and she wouldnt have hit the car at all.

 

[sdobbs20]

should've swerved the other way.

tough to tell. it may have worked out. but considering how bad it looked like it was going to be, i thought the rider did a **** good job of everything they did. obviously they were alert and tried to brake and get into the right lane but that didn't work out so well.

 

[pne]

Yea she should have swerved left with brakes and she wouldnt have hit the car at all.

that would mean some serious training and surpressing your natural instinct. If something is cutting you off or approaching you from one side, it is very very difficult to swerve towards it rather than away.

 

[jtsailjt]

is it just me or does it seem like the rider never even hit the brakes? given the distances and speeds involved, with an attentive rider the bike should have been able to come to almost a complete stop before contacting the car.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0eootaHR0Q&NR=1

It's just you. As others have mentioned, it happened very unexpectedly and very quickly. When you see a car start to swerve into your lane, you generally don't expect it to come ALL the way into your lane, cutting off any chance of escape to the right, and also do almost a 180. Even with 20/20 hindsight, if you knew at the moment that the car started making the slightest deviation, exactly what it was going to ultimately do, and started hard braking right then, I still don't think you would get stopped in the short amount of time available. Just one of those accidents that can happen to anyone and there's not much to be done to avoid them if your number gets called.

 

[andyauger]

I had seen this before but never looked at it carefully. It looks like she was travelling less than 35 MPH. This is based on standard striping and timing of the video. There is a problem in that a couple of the stripes aren't laid out correctly. A couple of the series are improperly spaced, so 35 MPH is a high estimate, but close.

Based on the video timing she didn't brake until the car was swerving well into her lane, and then wasn't braking all that hard. Assuming she was traveling 35 MPH a reasonable stopping distance would be around 50 feet (really good braking would give a stopping distance around 35 feet. You have to add reaction time, of course). She actually traveled about 50 feet (again relying on the road striping). She was traveling quite slowly at impact. In theory she should have been able to stop, but in the real world she didn't do badly at all.

And yes, she should have gone left, but who knows what she was doing? She may have been checking her mirrors for an oncoming vehicle. She may have hesitated with that concern, when hundredths of a second are critical. S**t happens, even to the most skilled.

 

[dream36realms]

she was traveling at 45-55 mph. speed looks slower as you bring the camera up off the ground. besides that a 2d video doesnt have the ability to show distance well. she did all she could do because sh was hard on the brake. the car only spun that bad because of the speed look at the front tires smoking if it was a rear lockup at low speed it would not have s,oked that bad on the front. just seen many cars doing stupid things here so I can sa they werent just moving slow