If you thought sentencing for drivers who harm cyclists was uniquely bad…

A biker friend of mine posted

A biker friend of mine posted it on his FB page and I followed the link to the BBC to find, not the police slamming the idiot driver but no, they’re reminding all bikers to wear expensive crash gear (those airbag safety suits arent cheap!)

Basically victim blaming. That could have been a family out for a walk, a horse ride, a cyclist… They’d have stood no chance. A motorcyclist wearing full crash gear only barely survived (with very serious injuries) – someone wearing lycra or jodhpurs would have been killed instantly.

Simple crap driving – speed and hence risk was a factor, but from the video, the real shock is the lack of avoiding effort once the danger is clear. Multiple possible reasons for that.

He’s already out of control. Taken the corner far too fast to follow the line of the road, no time or ability to take avoiding action.

That road by the way is “The Strines”, that ludicrously up/down/twisty-turny road that Cycling Weekly declared to be the hardest section of road in the UK. Used to be a favourite training ground of Russ Downing. Super tough to ride, it’s got some really punchy gradients on it. Which makes it quite popular for motorbikers.

It’s [url=https://www.google.com/maps/@53.3939435,-1.6653363,3a,75y,166.64h,69.41t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sGrmTcNYlYBPngpdyft-taQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656]this bend right here[/url]. Guessing the increased openness of the road made the driver feel he could floor it for the last bit. 70 is far far too fast for that road – in fact I’m sure it’s got a 50mph on it the whole way along (and even 50 is too fast for much of it, there are some bends along there you can’t do at more than about 20mph…)