Colyn
Race Dog
Around ten days ago my son was involved in a serious bike accident. Apart from the trauma of the crash I also suffered from some serious mental anxiety ... HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!
A few days after the crash I went and retraced his steps. Now let me make this very clear, I retraced the route doing exactly 80 km/h which is the legal speed limit on that stretch of road. To bring things more into perspective it is necessary to note that the road climbs up towards the bend that is on the ridge and most people do exceed the limit in this area. This road is also well built and the bend can accommodate high speeds quite easily. This road is also a main route out of town and there are no legal access roads or paths into it for about 2 kilometers.
As you can see the view is good and the road surface is good. The presence of a solid center line is also an indication that you should be safe if all road users obey the law.
The next series of shots will take you through the bend up to the moment when it would have been possible for Wiehann to see that things are not safe for him any longer.
As far as I can imagine it, we are now very close to the moment that it first became clear to Wiehann that the truck was going to obstruct his line travel. This leaves him with less than two seconds in which t evade the accident.
At this point he had no more time to evade the truck and he hit it on right hand back corner.
In this shot it is clear where the pieces of the bike is on the dirt and where he ended up. The contractors that made this access did not think about the danger that they are putting road users in and the local Traffic Department chose to ignore the illegal access.
The bike's front wheel did not impact and that is an indication that Wiehann was in the process of evading the impact. Six inches more to the right and he would have missed the truck ... six inches to the left and ... I don't want to think about it.
If you think about it and look at the images it is clear that we all take a lot of chances when entering a bend and imagine the speed 50% higher than 80 and you can see that there is not much time to react if things go wrong.
Maybe we should all think for a few moments how much road do we cover on pure luck and on the assumption that things are clear.
A few days after the crash I went and retraced his steps. Now let me make this very clear, I retraced the route doing exactly 80 km/h which is the legal speed limit on that stretch of road. To bring things more into perspective it is necessary to note that the road climbs up towards the bend that is on the ridge and most people do exceed the limit in this area. This road is also well built and the bend can accommodate high speeds quite easily. This road is also a main route out of town and there are no legal access roads or paths into it for about 2 kilometers.
As you can see the view is good and the road surface is good. The presence of a solid center line is also an indication that you should be safe if all road users obey the law.
The next series of shots will take you through the bend up to the moment when it would have been possible for Wiehann to see that things are not safe for him any longer.
As far as I can imagine it, we are now very close to the moment that it first became clear to Wiehann that the truck was going to obstruct his line travel. This leaves him with less than two seconds in which t evade the accident.
At this point he had no more time to evade the truck and he hit it on right hand back corner.
In this shot it is clear where the pieces of the bike is on the dirt and where he ended up. The contractors that made this access did not think about the danger that they are putting road users in and the local Traffic Department chose to ignore the illegal access.
The bike's front wheel did not impact and that is an indication that Wiehann was in the process of evading the impact. Six inches more to the right and he would have missed the truck ... six inches to the left and ... I don't want to think about it.
If you think about it and look at the images it is clear that we all take a lot of chances when entering a bend and imagine the speed 50% higher than 80 and you can see that there is not much time to react if things go wrong.
Maybe we should all think for a few moments how much road do we cover on pure luck and on the assumption that things are clear.
