London Bridge Tuesday morning

From that photo I would guess he was attempting to manoeuvre past a stationary bus at the stand in front.

Ivanhoe wrote:

Unless your colleague was carrying a speed gun, is it likely that (s)he could tell whether the bike was speeding or not? People's ability to correctly gauge m/c speeds has been objectively tested, and shown to be very poor.

Judging by the picture and also witness reports, gauging the speed of this mototcyclist should not be a problem. Seems to me the only innocent victim here probably is the cyclist.

Indeed. The police have well-trained EXPERTS who do this very thing.

(Not trying to start an argument: just trying to say that it's very easy for me or you to apportion blame, whereas I think it's a lot more difficult to prove it, and that consequently it's maybe a good approach to hold back judgement, or to express it as a personal opinion rather than as a fact. My personal opinion, if that helps put my remakrs in context, is that in many road "accidents" it's unlikely that anyone is entirely blameless. And FWIW, my interpretation of the picture leads me to a quite different conclusion to the one you've come up with. Not that either of us is necessarily correct. Rather that it's easy for two people to see one picture and come up with opposite readings of it.)

Ivanhoe wrote:

Unless your colleague was carrying a speed gun, is it likely that (s)he could tell whether the bike was speeding or not? People's ability to correctly gauge m/c speeds has been objectively tested, and shown to be very poor.

Just out of curiosity, but what's the purpose of testing people's ability to correctly gauge m/c speeds? What brought that test/experiment on? Also, as an (ex-)motorcyclist I believe that almost anyone who drives a motorised vehicle can tell e.g. from the speed of gear changes or sound of an engine maybe not the speed a vehicle is travelling at but certainly whether it's adhering to the speed limit.

My post refers to the bus, just to clarify which one could argue, but as we agree is by no means conclusive prove of anything, would indicate a slow moving vehicle closing down the road space to it's right. From a personal point of view as a cyclist/ex courier if I saw this happening in front of me I'd calculate the risk and go for the gap. But hey, playing armchair detective is easy.

I am currently trying to teach my son to cycle in trafic. I am guilty of letting him cycle on the pavement occasionally, but it is difficult not to. I thought it would be a good idea to go down Union Street today, the bit between SBR and BHS. On the way to BHS, a motorcyclist started up, rev/gear change, rev/gear change etc, reaching excessive speed within seconds and flashing past us so close, with the engine screaming so loud that my son almost jumped off his bike. As there were cars parked on the left hand side, if my son had panicked and made a wrong move, there would not have been space for the bike to take evasive action, not at that speed. My son loves motorbikes and is not easily scared, but I had to have a chat with him to calm him down. On the way back we were on teh cycle path, when up comes a track, and upon approaching the parked cars, without slowing down, drives up the cycle path with his right hand wheels. At this point my son just looks at me, and I am thinking that him getting used to tricky situations is good, but this is ridiculous. This kind of driving is inexcusable. I've seen plenty of hairy situations on London Bridge before walking to work, and I am not surprised something like this has happened. I sincerely hope these police experts do their job properly, and that the outcome is made public, so that measures can be taken. I wonder how many more accidents it takes before people finally wake up that traffic in London is madness.

PS - I did take the truck's number, not the motorbike's unfortunately.

Tolstoy wrote:

But hey, playing armchair detective is easy.

Quite, and one of the reasons I am losing interest in this forum. What is the point of reproducing external news photos for a touch of voyeurism, and adding speculation re an accident scenario - which few of you know anything about from personal experience?

I loathe this sort of 'debate'. I know, I shouldn't bother looking. I'm off to stitch 'n bitch, it's more challenging...

I would really rather that people didn't indulge in speculation about what may or may not have happened in this sort of incident (and/or try to apportion blame).

Thanks.

It wasn't my intention to speculate merely to offer a perspective as one who has been in this situation many times. I do however appreciate the need to reserve judgement in these matters, so please accept my apologies if I have caused offence.