Too young.

Just a warning before you read on that this is bad news.

Had news tonight that a young lad (19) that i know had a car pull out on him last Monday at 10pm while on his bike I am told that there was not much left of his bike. It was a small bike as he did not have a full license.

Even worse I am told that he has lot 3/4 of one of his legs.

He is remaining Possitive and it will be a month before he leaves hospital.

I hope to get down London next weekend to go visit him.

It has quite shook me up and I still have to break the news to my daughter when I see her tomorrow.

Yet another biker hurt through no fault of their own and in this case do young.

A bit of a possitive, a police car witnessed the accident.

Crikey when are these bloomin car drivers going to learn to look out for us bikers!!! It's awful when it's someone you know!!!

Hope he gets well soon and keeps his spirits up at least it was only a limb he lost and not his life - that he has to be grateful for

That's really horrible news.

Hope he heals well and quickly. His problem may not just be the physical injury, but also the coming to terms mentaly with the loss of a limb.
It's sad to say, but he has at least youth on his side in that respect.

Perhaps . . NABD . . may be able to offer some assistance

Thank god he is alive! With medical miracles these days he will be able to ride again... although I wouldn't blame him for not wanting to. I think drivers need to be educated a lot more, there are too many ignorant people on the road who think only of themselves.

I hope he recovers quickly

Sorry to hear that news John.
Hope he mends as well as possible and gets suitable compensation to make things a bit easier.

Shocking, terrible news!
I do hope he gets the best treatment, but how do you recover from that?

I'm afraid I have a strong opinion about what needs to be done to reduce accidents. They've made the MOT cast iron to reduce accidents due to poorly maintained vehicles; they've spent a lot on engineering measures to make roads safer; they've made getting your licence much more onerous. They must now consider compulsory re-testing at 5 or 10 yr intervals to improve the human element. The price of an error of judgement on the road can be costly.

I think re-testing is a bit strong or perhaps the wrong choice of phrase.
An Assessment drive by DSA (IAM, ROSPA etc. etc.), I agree at 5 year intervals from test pass. If not up to scratch, a re-training course (compusory) to be brought back up to speed.
Cycling proficiency tests (compulsory) for all cyclists and insurance for the buggers. At the very least teach the buggers that traffic lights are for them too.
And perhaps an annual "tick" test on the Highway Code. Be honest folks, when was the last time you looked in that wee publication ?
I'll warrant, unless you have recently passed a driving test (in any category) or undertaken advanced trg of any sort or are a professional driver, it'll ave been a while.

So so sad. Not much any of us can say to make this or any other incident better.

Please all lets keep ourselves safe out there.

Billy

Not good news, My thoughts are with him & his family.

My god.... I hope that he recovers physically and mentally. My thoughts to him and his family. It just goes to show another numpty in four wheels who doesn't take time to have one last look.

Hi guys,
Managed to get some sleep with everything that's going through my mind.

Thanks for all your best wishes I will pass them on when I see him.

Greencat & Oldcat, I appreciate where both of you are coming from. Knowing Jake as I do and him being so young, he is a lovely lad and has his head screwed on so I can't help coming full circle back to the CBT being the issue.

The CBT allows our young to be able to go on the roads on a 50cc bike with very little training. The young think there invincible, bow to peer pressure and done have money for anything more than the bike and helmet.

I can't help wondering that with more comprehensive training (better obs.) and proper clothing he would have faired better.

I feel better now (than at the time) when I last saw him I was the moany old bugger that banded on about getting his full license so he would be better able to protect himself, again it all falls down to money, the full test is beyond most kids means and they live of the CBT which is woefully inadequate.

I am open to your comments on this.

My rant over for this morning, going down Gymn to work off some anger now.

John.

Hi John,

My (and I'll Speak for Chris here), comments we not aimed at the young lad. I apologise if it came over that way.

The type of re-assessment and continuation training we're on about here is aimed mostly at car drivers, but would not be waisted on drivers-riders across the board.

I know exactly where you're coming from on the young riders, CBT and costs of protective equipment and testing charges.

Sounding like my username fits like a glove - in my day it was no better, infact worse. No formal training required at all. At 16 an unrestricted 50cc moped (FS1E, AP50, SS50 et al). Safety clothing was a barbour jacket & trousers and helmets were nowhere near as good as todays are. At 17, again with no training you could go straight onto an unrestricted 250cc (RD250, X7, KE250 et al), only needing to take a test to go on up to anything larger than 250. Again no training required. You booked it, paid for it, took it and either passed or failed.
Knowledge of what was req'd for the bike test being passed via chineese whispers from full licence holders.
I'll not go into what the test was here, but if you get the chance to ask someone who passed their bike test in the 70's sit and listen, it's jaw droppingly amazing.

My thoughts are with the young fella and his family. I truely wish him well and all the best

Hi Oldcat,

No I wasn't thinking it was directed at Jake, so no worries.

My weekend gets worse. Went down the gym as I said and got more bad news. A friend down the gym had a work accident and is in hospital. He managed to cut a finger off with a band saw!!

You couldn't make it up!

I have to agree with you on the CBT there John. It was only 2 years ago I did mine and I think some places just want the easy money! ...well where I took mine did anyway. Safety isn't really drilled in on these and you cant fail (unless you need stabilisers). I have to admit, I, like most youngsters was only interested in going faster and looking good so the quality of protective gear and visibility was not a priority, but after a few near misses I decided it was better to look like the michelin man and live a bit longer.
I think the government should be doing more to reach out to youngsters who ride and perhaps give out some free visibility stuff!

On the other hand this will only help so much as like with the young lad here whom you say was switched on he was still very unfortunate due the ignorance of the car driver. I strongly believe something drastic needs to be done like re-testing for all kinds of vehicles as people pick up bad habits along the way.

Regards

Paul

hold the phone guys ok CBT restricted hp safety clothes retests all on bike,s
how about a 17 years old who just passed his CAR test go,s buys a high powered car on daddy,s insurance & can do what ever he she likes err no restricted hp nothing & kills some of his her m8,s & possibly some one else including us biker,s
speed camera,s don,t catch bad driver,s ive seem some people who could not drive a car if there life depended on it but some how they have a licence you retire you should be re acessed

John - this won't be of much use or comfort to the lad or his parents right now, however when I was doing my mod 1 there was a young lad from Gretna who had lost most of his left leg in similar fashion with a 125 and a lorry.
Yet here he was less than two years later taking his mod 1 on a specially modified bike.
Billy

cards wrote:hold the phone guys ok CBT restricted hp safety clothes retests all on bike,s
how about a 17 years old who just passed his CAR test go,s buys a high powered car on daddy,s insurance & can do what ever he she likes err no restricted hp nothing & kills some of his her m8,s & possibly some one else including us biker,s
speed camera,s don,t catch bad driver,s Ive seem some people who could not drive a car if there life depended on it but some how they have a licence you retire you should be re acessed

I agree with above but I do not agree with taking a re-test.
you know as well as I do...
taking a re-test you do you best to pass and when its all over,you go back to where you started.
the trouble is that drivers don't look for bikes or cyclist only bigger object cars ,lorries etc.
there for smaller object becomes oblivious to a car driver .
I read some where that drivers who also ride bikes rarely course this type of accident.
so what I think is needed is that the driver should be made aware of bikes etc
or drilled into them.
how many times I've seen car drivers pull out in front of either me or other bikers ,I've lost count.
and don't mention mobile phones.this really piss me off.
there's no excuse .they know they are breaking the law.
there for its deliberate offence and should warrant an immediate banned for at least a year.
you commit a crime you do time!!

Sorry to hear about this lad being hurt in an accident, hope he is able to get on with life soon.

I did my direct access 18 months ago and was surprised how much i learnt that was also relevant to driving a car. Made me realise i had become complacent as a driver. Some sort re-assessment would be a good idea. A proper eye test would be a good start.

Just caught up on all the comments. Good to read, and hear different views.

My comments were certainly not aimed at Jake. I do hope he keeps his youthful exhuberance and zest for life. I also hope he can contemplate riding again if he wants to. My advanced riding instructor has only one leg. It was a bit embarassing asking him why he was limping! But he has the riding bug and it hasn't stopped him mastering just about every test they've devised.

I'm interested to hear what folk think contributes to accidents and what you think can be done about it. Yes, a test only means you reached a certain standard that day and yes, you have to be receptive to advice if you want to learn. So how can things improve? There's certainly plenty of ways of getting more training, and you can pay a lot or a little. But why don't more take it up? It would be interesting to know why folk decide to do more training. Paul's comment (mrfrance) about deciding he wanted 'to live a bit longer' is relevant? But there must be a range of reasons.

John - you're having a bad weekend! Things come in threes they say. Can't wait for your next post. Gulp!
Hope you manage to pay Jake a visit.

Chris

Before starting my rant I must add my commiserations to Jake and hope that he recovers both physically and mentally soon.

I only went out for a short ride yesterday, about 25 miles each way, but I lost count of the number of impatient drivers either tailgating or overtaking me in 30 limits - and not so they could go just a little bit faster, either, but to get up to 45-50. And this is on roads that go past schools with kids going across to the playing fields, or narrow twisty residential roads with poor visibilty ahead - and being the weekend plenty of cyclists and a few horses about too.

In principle I don't like speed traps, and have some sympathy for people who get nicked for doing 35 in a 30 which really ought to be a 40 anyway - for obvious reasons the traps get set up in places where they will catch the most people, not where it's actually dangerous to exceed the limit. But if they are the only way of getting the message across to thoughtless drivers like the above, then I'll have to grudgingly accept them. And while they're at it, if they also nick a few phone users and tailgaters then so much the better.

Nasty...hope the lad makes a good recovery

I managed to speak to a friend down London.

Jake is still very Possitive and is in a ward with other people with similar medical condition, this is helping. However he is refusing to take visitors except immediate family.

This what I have been told happened.

Jake turned right on to a main road with his friend in front. A 4x4 which had stopped in a layby to go into the shops. He came out the shop, jumped in his vehicle, saw the first bike then did a Uey (hadn't even turned his lights on). Jake ran into him and the the two vehicles turned together. The result was Jakes foot and leg when between the wheel and wheel arch and this is why his leg had to be removed (he was only wearing trainers).

But as I say he is in good spirits and very Possitive.

John.

Thats terrible news, hope he makes a good recovery.

It is a sad fact that even although riders can have right of way and be minding their own business it can still cost them dearly as it has in Jake's case.

Having right of way or not having right of way won't make the pain of it going wrong any less.

When riding a bike you need to try as much as possible to anticipate the worst an idiot can do near you or to you. Your observation skills need to be at their best all the time. Your choice of speed, gear, road positioning need to change in relation to what you observe.

With the beauty of hindsight road-positioning, speed, clothing , footwear might have changed things - probably only Jake will know.

Having said that if it is a perfect storm you're probably ****'ed and there will be little any rider of any ability could do.
A perfect storm at X mph will probably hurt a lot more than at (X / 2) mph.

Be careful out there people and avoid those storms.

Sincerely hope Jake makes as good a recovery as possible and hope he gets good compensation to try as much as possible to make things right.

Ross

Darn glad i didnt loose anything guess i cam off lucky, hope he gets better and gets back to health soon

i think we should all have flashing blue lights fitted to the front of the bike what you reckon? they might actually see us then