Nathan Lee

I have I suppose a bit of a morbid habit of watching motorcycle crash videos in order to avoid the mistakes they show. Some people steer away from watching such things and I see the logic in keeping motorcycling a positive thing. But at the same time if watching and analysing them saves you from an accident, I think it is worth doing.

It’s somewhere between annoying and insulting to hear people start on the age old “oh, be careful they’re dangerous” followed by some enlightened piece of incredibly obvious advice relating to an accident they heard talk of. I’ve actively sought out many bike crash videos over the years with the intent of learning from other people’s mistakes. Just like sports coaches watch other teams play: there’s value to be gained from watching others.

This article (with video) shows the sort of deadly behaviour on a motorbike that result in such a high accident rate amongst motorcyclists.

The video
Here’s the video, it shows the speeding and crash (note: it’s not particularly gory, but you know from the article the outcome):

Sure most people might zip around a little bit, open up the throttle on the freeway a bit, but are by and large, sensible enough to listen to the training they received. This video I think really gives you a bit of an idea of what motorcyclists have to look out for on their own:

On some rides I’ve come across pretty much all of the hazards in that video. The hugely variable part is what other drivers and riders might do. That’s why I watch videos of other motorcyclists getting into trouble to add their situation to my road knowledge. Just to be clear: I’m much happier when I see the rider get up and walk around at the end though, even the twits doing wheelies in singlets and no helmets: because maybe, just maybe they’ve learnt a lesson.

Anyhow: on to this video..

Analysis of this crash – causes

CAMERA or “THE YOUTUBE EFFECT”: I think the camera on was probably one of the first mistakes made in this unfortunate ride.

First time I stuck a camera to the side of my bike in the French alps I began to ride, well, like a moronic show-off. Not pulling wheelies and knee down on corners type moron, but riding faster than I had been minutes earlier and somewhat distracted. As it turned out the included batteries last all of 2 minutes in the cold (why even bother including them??!!) so all my fantastic cornering and exciting riding had been missed, instead showing the rather more tame view up the road while I put my gloves, earplugs and helmet on and cutting out just as I got through the second corner. Served me right. I did get some decent touring footage in the end, but without the urgency and stupidity on the road.

Don’t believe this is a cause: Youtube is littered with video of people showing off for the camera. That’s the prime reason I don’t have any desire to pull wheelies on my bike because the majority of wheelie videos seem to be about crashes.

SPEED: The speeds involved are somewhere beyond ridiculous.

It later emerged Bowden was clocked at a top speed of 156mph, but his speedometer had reached speeds of 170mph, Truro Crown Court heard

That’s around 260 km/hour for the civilised metric world.
In more interesting forms:

• about the landing speed of a 747 jumbo jet
• double any speed limit on a freeway in Europe (Autobahns excepted of course). To look at it in relative terms: were you travelling on the freeway at the speed limit and this guy ran up the back of you: he’d hit with the same impact as if you just veered off the freeway into a brick wall.
• 71 metres per second or 233 feet per second
• A football or soccer field every one and a bit seconds
• fast enough to cross the Sydney harbour bridge in 16 seconds, the Golden Gate bridge in 38 seconds or Tower Bridge in a smidge over 3 seconds (those are including approaches)

In short: a ridiculous speed by any measure. Motorcycles do speed well, but don’t stop or steer so well (we can’t really brake hard and turn at the same time like a car with ABS and four fat tyres can).

LACK OF BUFFER ZONE: People don’t watch out for motorcycles. They can be on their phone, drunk, stupid or just bad drivers. That’s why you need a buffer zone to give you room to make up for their lack of awareness of where you are on the road.

The UK has a long running series of ads about “think bike” while I was there, here’s one that shows why you need a buffer zone:

Hasn’t changed too much really:

Australia does it a different way (we reserve our nasty ads for smoking and HIV/AIDS ads):

PEER PRESSURE: The guy in front probably didn’t want to be the slow guy, the one that crashed overtook and had to continue upping the speed. Thing is that perhaps neither of them wanted to be speeding that day but they might have thought they had to to not be slowing the other one down.

• Front guy: “man this is a bit fast, but he’s still on my tail, better give it a bit more throttle”
• Back guy: “jesus he’s off quick.. Don’t want to lose him, better give it a bit more throttle”
• Front guy: “he’s still there, better go faster..!”

You can see how that just keeps spiralling up until someone comes unstuck.

HIGH TO LOW SPEED PERCEPTION LAG: Best term I can come up with to describe it. So when you go from high to low speeds your brain stays in high speed mode for a while.

The rider that crashed did a bit of a hasty zip around his friend (who had been leading). Maybe he was still in “high speed mode” and misjudged the braking of his friend a bit. I had that happen after a long freeway blast in Europe, took the exit and thought I’d slowed down enough. Got up to the sharp exit corner and a glance at the speedo/gear indicator showed I was still going too fast and in 3rd gear, even though it felt like I had (the human brain is amazingly good at adjusting). Luckily I had a good line, cornering braking/downshifting habits and time to contemplate a safe run off area, but it was a good lesson in not trusting your perception of speed. He probably had a bit of a scare and extra adrenalin probably contributed to the later mistake (high as a kite: gunning it harder).

Analysis of the crash – stuff that usually matters but didn’t here

ROAD SURFACE: As anyone who has ridden in the UK will tell you: those stripey bike overtaking sections of the road are a shitty shitty surface to depend on. For one they’re always littered with rocks, glass, bits of truck tyre. For another: they’re where the two sides of laid tar join (poorly).  That’s without the fact that the painted surface is not great for grip on top of that. But for this case the quality of the road surface made no difference but it should have been another reason to slow down.

GEAR: This guy was wearing decent gear, but at those speeds and in that mess of cars on both sides of the road it wouldn’t matter what you wore.

TARGET FIXATION: This guy was throttle fixated, not target fixated. He probably didn’t even notice the car until the very last minute, so it wasn’t like he had a chance to lay eyes on it long enough to steer towards it. So I don’t think that was the issue.

Analysis of the crash – How the rider could have avoided it

Less speed and ensuring proper buffer zone are where I’d put my money on avoiding this outcome.
Maintaining buffer zones is the primary reason some riders are safe and others are not safe. I keep a buffer zone pushing out ahead and to the sides of me. 3 seconds is the goal (or more if possible or at speed). It’s a habit I continue when I get in a car which is a nice thing.

Easiest way is to have a habit of picking a stationary spot that the vehicle in front passes (e.g. reflector pole, mark on the road etc) and count back until it passes your front wheel. Three thousand, two thousand, one thousand.. check. If you cut yourself off talking then that’s probably the point you’d impact. Roll off the throttle a bit and drop back or else (check blind spots), indicate and change lanes to give yourself more room. If someone’s doing something stupid start braking and/or cover the brakes to reduce your reaction time.

You’ve generally got a bit of time to think on the bike and nothing else to focus on except improving your riding craft, so any boring time: just practice spacing.

The guy in the video had no buffer zone in front or to the side (the downside of filtering through gaps with oncoming vehicles), he’d be lucky if he had 1 second between the car in front doing something stupid (as they do) and hitting it. It takes probably that long to start braking (reaction time). That and 160km/h (100 miles per hour) impact velocity meant with any sort of buffer zone he’d be hard pressed to keep it together while yanking on the brakes.. Accelerating through that sort of congestion coming up is an easily avoidable issue with a bit of scanning up the road and less urgency to get up to top speed ASAP to show off to your mate with the video camera.

Anyhow, my condolences to the family/friends left behind and I hope it makes some people think a bit and focus on good riding habits.