Who would have been to blame here?

The Speakeasy
1

Yesterday I was riding through a town, long straight road and a 30mph limit. Up ahead I could see temporary traffic lights for some roadworks and a queue of four cars waiting. In my mirrors I could see there was a Harley behind me. As I reached the back of the waiting cars, I just came to a halt behind it. The Harley decided to carry on but before he’d even reached the car in front of me the lights changed to green. He reached the lead car just as it turned out to go around the roadworks. There was definitely no room for both car and bike on that bit of road and for a horrible moment I thought they were going to collide, but at the last second the car saw him and jammed on its brakes narrowly avoiding a collision, the driver sounded his horn and Harley guy responded by giving him the finger as he continued on his way.

If they had collided, who would have been to blame? The car driver for failing to see the bike, or the biker for making an unsafe overtake? The bike could well have been in the drivers blind spot until the last moment, and I thought the driver did well to avoid the collision.

Regardless of who might have been to blame, if bikers put themselves in harms way then we are just asking for trouble, at some point your luck is going to run out.

Now I’m all in favour of filtering, I do it myself - it’s one of the great advantages of travelling by bike and if there had been a huge queue of traffic at these roadworks then I would probably of started filtering myself, but filtering is always a judgement call about whether it’s a safe and sensible thing to do in any given spot - or even worth the risk if there’s little to gain from it.

That’s the end of my preaching :slight_smile:

Ride safe folks.

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I reckon the biker would be held responsible if they had come together. But more importantly for me it is his behaviour that get us riders a bad name.

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Harleys fault, no question. Though I do the same thing if its safe to do so

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Couple of +marks for the driver, alot wouldn’t have been checking their mirrors at a single lane traffic lights so well done him, unless loud pipes really DO save lives :wink:

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When I’m in that situation and looking to make it to the front of a queue I always make sure there’s a place ahead of me where I can slot back in to the queue, so I’m not travelling alongside a moving car when the lights change.

In the circumstances you’ve described, I would not be racing to the front of the queue when the lights went green. That’s asking for trouble, and he nearly got it. A good driver will always check their mirror and blind spot before pulling out but I’m not sure many do in that particular situation, including me.

The rider is the vulnerable one. They should be aware of the risk, riding defensively and planning ahead. As the old adage goes, having the moral high ground means little when you’re lying in a hospital bed.

So I’d say there’s a bit of blame on both sides but the rider takes most of the responsibility.

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I bet the Harley rider usually drives an Audi.

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Definitely the Harley riders fault.
It’s always the Harley riders fault :rofl: