Hello!
Just taking a break from supporting Paul in another forum . . . so thought I'd have a stroll around here
Grumpy Old Biker wrote:
Motorcycle Roadcraft lists 3 things that make a motorcycle more vulnerable than a car:
Not stable – bikes will fall over
No protection provided by a steel cage
Not easily visible
Which just goes to show you can't believe everything you read . . .
A
stationary bike, will
usually fall over.
A bike relies on its wheels for stability, they act as gyroscopes and keep it upright. A bike is actually incredibly stable as long as a rider doesn't do anything to upset it. You only have to watch stunt riders, or the racing gods driving hard out of a bend with the rear wheel spinning and the front wheel off the road . . .
No protection? Can't argue with that. Apart from keeping abrasion injuries to a minimum, and keeping wounds clean, motorcycle gear doesn't do too much to protect riders against major trauma.
Not easily visible. That's a good one. I can see bikes about two miles away. I know this because I can - just - see moving bikes on a major road, and I measured on Google Maps how far it is from my house
Now, even at 60mph that's a couple of minutes 'warning'
But the real 'danger zone' for someone clobbering a bike is just 3 -4 seconds from impact; longer than that there's plenty of time for the rider to react.
So that leaves two aspects:
1. Who can't see a bike 3 seconds away (if they look)?
2. Is the rider commiting themself to a situation where they are totally reliant upon the other driver seeing them?
bottyburp wrote:
Yeah, courtesy of bloody car drivers...
Sadly, not the case. Most bike fatals are self-inflicted. I'll post up an article separately.
Grumpy Old Biker wrote:
Anything that significantly addresses the first two (and possibly the third) would be a compromise, and the result would probably exhibit all the disadvantages of both bikes and cars and lose the advantages of each.
I'll grant you the C1 wasn't 'ideal', but I was able to filter through traffic on/in one
There are bikes built with survivability in mind, from shaped fairing inners (like some BMWs) to the more unusual machines like the Voyager
http://www.voyager03.co.uk/
http://www.hightech.clara.net/pearly.htm#early
In 1988 however a Fiat 132 driver didn't see us coming and the wreckage was parked in a corner while the production project proceeded. This picture was taken by me at the accident site, it's been digitally enhanced to show details more clearly. This was a high-speed accident, on an open road, which I didn't expect to walk away from. It provided a spectaculer demonstration of the safety advantages of this layout. It was rebuilt as the yellow 002, seen in the later years below.
Here's 002 after recovery from the crash site. You can see how the front structure has crumpled very progressively and the foot plate has come back while still providing foot protection. More interestingly the 'conning tower' front mount, innediately below the indicator lens, has just started to collapse under the ompact of my body hitting the steering control. You can see also how the engine cover, a foam/GRP structure has been driven into the back of the conning tower by my body.
From the other side the most interesting feature is the hand control, folded up almost 90 degrees by the rider impact, the foam pad can clearly be seen in it's 'protective' position. The seat back has been bent forward by the impact from the content of the boot, chiefly a full pretrol can and a skateboard, this gives a good idea of the impact energy.
The bent lower fork is also clearly visible. This arm was folded right down under the vehucle in the crash, cutting through the 14 guage (2mm) steel sheet in the way and ripping the suspension struts apart. This feature is an essential component in this exceptional crash performance. Apart from transferring a huge amount of energy into the rear axle of the car, buckling it and tearing it out of it's mountings, it also levered the front of the bike upwards, placing the crash padding on the hand control and engine cover in front of the riders body. This was intentional. More unexpected however was that this upward movement of the front of 002 occurred when it's nose was buried in the rear wing of the car, the rear of which was also levered upwards and the entire car rotated about its front wheels out of the way of 002.
What it doesn't say there is that the rider walked away, but IIRC the car driver was hospitalised, and the car was written off but the bike rebuilt!