Slow driver causes accident

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by xdc351

If all your assumptions were correct then you would be also, however your assumtions are not correct.

There was no way the stopping at that location could have been considered safe or even legal (double white lines are there for a reason) especially for a stick. It was not an obstuction, as this implies that the road was blocked or in some way the car was unable to negotioate safely around or over the stick which is absolutely not true. The bike, also, was travelling no-where close to 80kmh. If you were on the bike or even in a car and could not see the way this guy was driving you would have hit him no question about it, it just meant that the combination of a helmet, thick foilage and cliffs lining the road and negotiating his way past me on the previous straight section before the bends that he was unable to see him. It is quite amazing how quickly an object travelling 1/3 your speed will find itself in front of you especially when that object comes to a complete stop in a location they cannot be seen.

Staggering to me how quick people are to judge. I started this thread to point out that driving slow is not nessesarily driving safe, but seriously some of these comments beggar belief.

Sorry, going to have to agree to disagree on this one. With a combination of the motorcyclist being alert and scanning ahead, driving at an appropriate speed for the corner and keep a safe following distance, the incident would not have happened. As for the helmet being a restriction to vision, no way. Helmets are designed to allow more than adequate vision for the safe operation of a motorcycle. It is only the edge of peripheral vision that is restricted but considering he hit a car that was in front of him, this is not an issue. If he was hit by a car coming out of a side street this would be an issue.

By the way, I do have a motorcycle license and have many years experience riding road bikes, my primary transport used to be a bike so I know the vision field of a full face helmet very well.

I have never said it was a great place to stop, I have just said it is still the motorcyclists fault and the car driver could under the law defend his actions. I know who will be coughing up from a damage repair point of view, not the car driver.

Am pretty sure 20km/h or more under the speed limit is dangerous driving isn't it???????

I am very sure you are wrong, read the legislation

Unreasonably obstructing drivers or pedestrians
(1) A driver must not unreasonably obstruct the path of another
driver or a pedestrian.
Offence provision.
Note Driver includes a person in control of a vehicle — see the
definition of drive in the dictionary.
(2) For this rule, a driver does not unreasonably obstruct the
path of another driver or a pedestrian only because:
(a) the driver is stopped in traffic; or
(b) the driver is driving more slowly than other vehicles
(unless the driver is driving abnormally slowly in the
circumstances).
Example of a driver driving abnormally slowly
A driver driving at a speed of 20 kilometres per hour on a length of road
to which a speed-limit of 80 kilometres per hour applies when there is
no reason for the driver to drive at that speed on the length of road.

I will leave it that, thanks for the discussion.