BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

Truck driver on cell phone, and a inexperienced and extremely
lucky biker. Hard to believe that man walked away from this!

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/shocking- ... -1.3910536

There for the grace of god .....

Unfortunately phone usage including texting whilst driving has become a fact of life. Every time, and I mean EVERY time I am on the road I see some moron on the phone. The penalties for such selfish and arrogant actions are pathetic. Many years ago I myself and a couple of mates where playing on waste ground with an Air Pistol when a copper appeared out of nowhere. After a lengthy dressing down the Pistol was confiscated and was never seen again. That’s the “first” thing that should happen with driver’s phones.
Motorcycle Journalist the late Kevin Ash wrote a brilliant piece about phone usage whilst driving a few years ago, the crux of which was that phone usage in cars, hands free or not is a recipe for disaster death and misery and should have never been sanctioned in the first place.

Ah, but as we know, only speed kills and increasingly motorcycles seem to be targeted. People lane hogging/on the phone etc seem to carry on with impunity.

One lucky rider. I wish here in the UK there was a motoring program that aimed at improving driving and riding skills. If done correctly could actually be quite interesting. Maybe evaluating a death caused by poor driving might bring the message home. I'm no expert but speed is constantly rammed down our throats as the cause of accidents but in the majority of cases its poor skill and lack of awareness that causes these accidents. Speed just effects the result not necessarily the cause. Lack of awareness or switching off comes from more than just mobile phone usage. Good help us when the texting generation drive a media connected car. Every day when Im out on the bike I see people who are in a world of there own. Middle lane man, 40 Mph every where man, listen to music with headphones on man .... the list goes on.


All we can do is avoid them. Be save.

In UK Cities more and more drivers are running red lights.  Usually because they are tailgating the vehicle in front  only focused on that vehicles brake lights, though some just dont care  and rive through anyway.  This is one of the reasons I am cautious about filtering to the front of a traffic queue, I often pause one or two vehicle back from the stop line so Im not in a Grand Prix start on green ( or even red and amber).

Blimey, he was lucky.  I like the idea about taking the phone away there and then, plus points on the licence.  When I had the K1300GT with the HID light it would show up as a blue flash sometimes when I was coming up behind people.  If I was wearing hi-vis too, sometimes it would frighten the bejasus out of these idiots and you'd see a lot of frantic activity going on inside the car.  Oh what fun.

exportman wrote: In UK Cities more and more drivers are running red lights.  Usually because they are tailgating the vehicle in front  only focused on that vehicles brake lights, though some just dont care  and rive through anyway.  This is one of the reasons I am cautious about filtering to the front of a traffic queue, I often pause one or two vehicle back from the stop line so Im not in a Grand Prix start on green ( or even red and amber).

There is a huge misunderstanding of what the amber light means! Many drivers consider amber to be a late green,
and early red as amber! It may be the case of this truck driver. Such intersections also should have a delayed green,
giving time for the trucks that just can't stop!

Trucks can stop as can all other vehicles  if paying attention to whats happening ahead there is no excuse. 


Look at the video again and see how quickly the semi trailer pulls up once he has realised whats going on.


In some UK cities  the red phase is extended sometimes for pedestrians others because of a spate of accidents  but what then happens is drivers start to recognise that there is an extended period between their red and the crossing traffics green so just drive through the red light to save them selves a minute or two.