As i was driving to football today...

[jackw72]

i started wondering i hear all these stories about how foreigners pull out infront of you on your bike and how lorries crush your bike.

I start to think is it only because there are much less bikers on the road than there is cars that such a big issue is made out of the incident?

im sure there have been billions of times when car drivers have pulled out on car drivers but what makes us so different from them just the amount of wheels OR the number of us?

i could be talking aload of bullocks here but hey

[palmer]

if your in a car, and a car pulls out infront of you, your face lands in a soft cusion of air. usually resulting in little/no injury.

if you on a bike and someone pulls out on you, your pretty much in for some pain of some kind.

[Sephiroth]

[MarkJ]

Apparently car drivers are more likely to pull out on a bike than a car due to a) There aren't as many bikes on the road as cars so car drivers tend to forget about us and rather than looking for vehicles they just end up looking for cars (and lorries/buses, but they're so big you'd have to be blind to miss them). b) Bikes are roughly 1/3 the size of a car so harder to spot, and due to them being narrower they're harder to judge the speed of (apparently).

[Barker-CBR 600]

Theres a bit of blurb somewhere on here about the whole motion-invisibility thing, where your relative movement to the car means you appear stationary and brains dont register that your not a part of the scenery, i know ride did an article on it once.
I think its worse for a bike than a car as your smaller so even easier to miss.

Plus maybe on a car forum, they are always bi*chin bout it just as much, we just not on there to find out!
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Previous - Gilera DNA50 / XVS125 Dragstar/Honda CBR 600F/GSF 650 Bandit
Current - 2013 Suzuki VZ800 Intruder
'Is this a rhetorical question?'

[_Will_]

It is now a fact your averge car driver can't properly judge the speed of a bike like they can cars and such.
Another point is the mirrors - coach and lorry mirrors are crap for seeing bikes, this is changing as more bike safe mirrors are being used in the newer vehicles.

My stepdad was stationary at a stop junction when a lorry turned and didnt see him - resulting in him & bike crushed, almost every bone you can name 6 months in intensive care and metal plates to the face and knee. ouch
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Past -Honda qr50 | 2004 Peugeot Tkr s 50| | 1996 Yamaha XJ600s Diversion|

[Sephiroth]

[Dan 4RR]

Hi. IIRC I once read that bikes make up just a measly 1% of British road users, yet are involved in 21% of all road traffic accidents.
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Humans....the largest form of cancer the world has ever seen!
Speed Cameras - Putting goverment revenue before public safety!

[Louise]

Car & Bikes just dont mix. had it rammed into my head for ages.
What I dont get is, when I have been driving I have noticed bikes right away. Maybe this is because I have a passion for biking but still, how can you miss them
Maybe im being naive I dont know but ive always noticed them

[MarkJ]

I've always noticed bikes more than cars. They're a different shape and always seem to catch my eye more than a car even if I'm not looking directly at them. However I'm sure it's just bikers who do this as they have an interest in them and actively look out for them, unlike car-only drivers.

[olionel]

Yeh, apparently car drives brains gets used to seeing rectangular objects in their mirrors. When they do a quick glance they expect to see some shape that resembles front of a car, or a bigger object like a lorry etc, and the brain doesnt register it when they see (well dont see) the shape of the bike, bycyle etc.. ah well
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1989 CG125 - Childhood Sweetheart (she got kidnapped by baddies)
1998 ZXR400 - Teenage Love (lasted three years, then she turned lesbian and left me)
2001 XRV750 - Wife Material (still getting to know her but head over heels in love)