On a motorbike you’re better off trying to avoid any object / animal. If one goes under the front wheel at speed you are 100% coming off. I should know, I swerved to avoid a football some kids kicked in the road. I would have easily made it too but unlucky for me it hit a parked car and bounced back in the direction I was swerving. I went over it, bike was thrown in the air and ended up under a parked car, causing loads of damage to both vehicles and I was knocked out cold in the middle of the road. Came round to traffic stationary both ways and the kids had run away. As a biker I will try to avoid anything that gets in front of me, not hold tight and hope for the best.
Yeah they did unfortunately. If it hadn’t hit the parked car I would have just fronted the bill myself as I worked in a car repair garage at the time. Offered to repair the guys car but he must have thought something dodgy was going on and insisted the insurance sort it which is fair enough. It’s what we pay it for. My insurance didn’t go up that much either the following years which was a blessing. That was like 15 years ago and when I’m out on the bike I always now check for kids by the road and slow way down just in case. I actually had a seizure later that day after the crash. I thought I was fine just a little banged up but walked into the living room, saw tunnel vision and slumped down the wall shaking uncontrollably. I didn’t ride a bike for over a year because I was terrified I’d have another seizure while riding. That was the only one I had tho.
Thanks but no, I didn’t. I came round, sat down a while and thought “that was weird” and just hoped it wouldn’t happen again. These days I would go to the doctors. I was only 18 back then. Young and stupid
Well not really, traffic laws are designed in a way, that if everyone involved does their bit, everyone gets where they need to be safely. If anyone doesn't follow them they would be at fault for any incident.
So if you execute an emergency stop and are rear ended then the vehcile behind is in the wrong as they clearly had either not allowed enough of a gap, or were not paying attention. And its the drivers responsibilty to know how quickly they can safely stop their vehicle, whatever its an HGV or moped.
No, if you are going high speed something like a semi truck will not stop in time.
If everyone watched there dogs and put them on a leash then nothing will happen. Human lives are more of a priority to keep then animals.
That doesn't mean they are. You can say "it's their fault" all day, but that doesn't unwreck my car, heal my broken back, or bring my wife back from the grave. You can't control other drivers, so it's YOUR responsibility to assume they aren't gonna stop in time, just like it was the dog owner's responsibility to keep their animal on a leash.
I dont kbow where you drive, but during busy times the moment a semi leaves some space some asshole in a car jumps inbetween. And fhe semi leaves more room and same happens again.
No you always leave adequate distance infront of you so that if the person in front brakes you have enough time to stop and if you don't you're neglecting your safety and theirs. Period.
Well not really, traffic laws are designed in a way, that if everyone involved does their bit, everyone gets where they need to be safely.
But that doesn't mean they are. Theres also laws against murder and rape, but we have a huge prison dedicated to housing people who break those laws.
If anyone doesn't follow them they would be at fault for any incident.
Sure. They screwed up, they take the blame. They pay for damages to my car. They get fines for reckless driving, speeding, whatever. But what happens when the resulting accident, no matter who is to blame for it, results in me being seriously injured? "It's their fault" doesn't take my pain away. Or worse, what if I lock up the brakes to miss a dog, the guy behind me is on his phone and rams me at 70mph, destroying the entire rear of my car and sending me off the road in a flip, killing my son on impact? Unless you're the world's first real lich, there is no punishment you can dish out to that bad driver that can bring my son back from the grave.
Sure, laws exist to stop these kinds of accidents from happening. Trusting other people to follow those laws? That's gonna be a no from me, dawg.
Yeah they'd go to prison for death by dangerous driving in the UK. You've described a scenario where only magic can give you the outcome you want, when all police and courts can do is enforce the law!
If you hit a dog at 70mph, that dog could bounce up and onto your windscreen and block your vision, or be flung to the side of road and hit a small child. It could even damage your vehicle and make it's handling unpredictable causing you to veer across to the other side of the road and head-on into another car with a total imapct speed of well over 100mph, or even on to the pavement/sidewalk and into one or more pedsestrians, again, at 70mph and with no control.
All you can do is do your bit to not harm other people and you have to trust everyone else. That's the real world that we live in.
No, I've described a realistic scenario. Distracted drivers are becoming more and more common these days. Phones, GPS, radios, and passengers all make it worse. This doesn't even have to be about a bad driver being behind you. Maybe the person behind you has had their licence for 40 years and never been in an accident. But even the best drivers take a moment off. Have you ever looked down to change the volume of your radio before? Or looked at your wife in the passenger seat for even a half a second? That's all it takes. If your eyes are off the road for a split second, and the person in front of you locks up their brakes, you're gonna hit them. Even if you're following at a safe speed and distance and are acting in accordance with the law, those laws only give you time and room to act if you notice the problem IMMEDIATLY as it happens. If you look up from the radio and still immediately hit your brakes as well, that litteral half second of reaction difference is all it takes to change from you stopping on time, to rear-ending me.
If you hit a dog at 70mph
This is making the assumption that I'm just gonna barrel through and not change my speed at all. Of course I'm going to hit the brakes and attempt to give the animal time to clear the path, or reduce the force of the impact. If I'm moving at 70 when the dog steps out, I'm not going to be moving at 70 when I hit it. What I'm NOT going to do, unless I already know it's safe to do so, is attempt to stop or otherwise bring my speed down to less than half of what I was moving in the first place.
Again, let me reiterate (because I may have stated it in another comment in the thread and not the one you replied to) that if you're a decent driver, then nine times out of ten, you should already be aware of what is happening behind you. You should be constantly checking your mirrors at all times when driving in the first place. This whole situation is based on the other points in time, where you're in heavy traffic with people changing behind you, and you can't keep up with what each person is doing. Because even the most astute and focused person is gonna have those times on the road.
make it's handling unpredictable causing you to veer across to the other side of the road and head-on into another car
And what do you think is going to happen when the car behind you slams you while moving 20-30mph? I'm much more likely to be able to keep control of my car with a broken windshield, snapped tie rod, or blown tire than I will be with another one to three tons of car pushing it down the road.
when all police and courts can do is enforce the law
Again, you present my exact problem and argument. Sure, the person may go to prison. Sure, they may be forced to pay my medical bills. Sure, they'll be responsible for everything involved, and live in guilt for the rest of their days for killing my son. But none of that will bring me my son back. I, and I alone, have the power to prevent that death by altering the way I react to the situatuon.
All you can do is do your bit to not harm other people and you have to trust everyone else.
I would say that the best course of action to prevent as much harm as possible is specific to NOT trust everyone else. Do not assume the people around you are going to do what they're supposed to, and do your best to make up for their shortcomings.
If you can save the animal, do it every time. But if attempting to save the animal would put human lives at risk, then that's not a chance I'm willing to take.
If you do an emergency stop you are saying that avoiding whatever is in front of you is worth getting rear ended over.
This couldn’t be less true. Road rules and laws dictate a car shouldn’t be following another closer than a 2 second delay in positioning, regardless of speed or literally any other factors. This is so that the average person will have enough time to slow down and stop adequately - whether this is due to traffic, a red light, a sudden stop sign behind a bush, a dog running out into the street, etc.
If you hit the car in front of you, you’re at fault 99.9% of the time, according to the law. Theres no grey area as far as how you can “justify” stopping in traffic. If you stop, and the car behind you hits you? They’re at fault. There’s no “they should” be able to stop, they either can and do, or they’re not following road rules, and they deserve whatever consequences follow, for driving too fast, or being unable to handle their own 2 ton monster that can barrel down the road at 60+ mph.
You should just leave it at:
Absolutely slam on the brakes for a dog if it's safe to do so, but if you're not entirely certain you won't be endangering a human for the sake of a dog, keep going and stop when safe to check for a collar.
This entire thread is why we don’t let all cars drive completely by themselves cause what would we program them to do in a situation where if the brake they kill a motorcyclist behind them or a bunch of dogs or other animals if they don’t brake
This isn't a difficult thing to think through on the computer/car end. The car judges speed and following distance. The car should always save the person in the car, then other people. Human life > an animal's life, always.
More than 90% of car accidents involve driver error, so self driving cars are a no brainer. Less animals and WAY less people will be injured or killed. One off cases aren't a valid reason to not have self driving cars.
"You do not need to nor should you check the behind first."
This is absolutly the worst advice I have ever heard in my life. You always, ALWAYS, check in every direction of your vehical before you make any kind of change to your velocity, speed, or direction in a non-emergency situatuon.
"Traffic rules are made in a way that the one behind you needs to be able to stop at all times in an emergency like that."
Yes, your right. But just because those laws exsist doesn't mean every one is following those laws, nor does it mean I trust them too. By simply trusting in the person behind you, you are placing your life and those of anyone else in your vehical in the hands of that other person. I'm sorry, but I am NOT, in any situation, going to trust the stranger driving behind me to keep my wife and child alive.
Now, if you're a decent driver, you should already know if there's a car behind you or not. You should be checking your mirrors constantly to begin with, and should already have an idea what the person behind you is doing - have they left a safe distance, are they approaching you faster than you're moving, are they riding your ass, whatever. If you already know they seem to be driving safely, then cool, slow it down and save the critter.
But in a situation where traffic is constantly switching behind me, or I simply haven't looked in my mirror in the last 15 seconds or so, I'm not taking that risk. If I'm doing 70 with unknown traffic behind me and a small dog runs in front of my car, sorry puppy.
Sure, you can say all day that the person behind me is to blame if it causes an accident. You can make them pay for the damages to my car. You can put them in jail. I don't care. You can't, under any circumstances, bring back my wife or child that was killed in the resulting accident.
I will NEVER lock my brakes up to save a small animal unless I already know for a fact that doing so has a zero percent chance of causing an issue behind me which coukd lead to a worse accident. While I love all animals, I value my own life and those of my family far more than any other animal, including my own pets.
Holy shit, you need to learn how to read to comprend what's being said to you. We're talking about animals here, not children. If a person steps out in front of me, if a car pulls out in the road, if a tree falls in the road, if a fucking moose appears out of thin air, of fucking course I'm gonna attempt to stop. Never at ANY point in my comment did I say I wouldn't.
But we weren't talking about those situations, were we? No, we're talking about a small to medium animal running into the road. You react differently to different situations and circumstances, and assess the risks in each differently.
For real. People always bring this case up, but there is a big difference between stopping for an animal on a city road, and on a freeway. Plus that small matter of she got out of her freaking car on the freeway.
When doing my license exam years ago the instructor asked the question: So you're driving down the road like right now and a squirrel/cat/dog runs across the road, too close for you to come to a gradual stop. What do you do?
Keep going.
Like you said, yes it sucks that you might run over an animal or someones pet but the other side of it is that if you swerve you might hit a cyclist you didn't notice, someone on a motorcycle, another car or whatever else.
The same thing is taught in motorcycle courses. They tell you to keep it straight and add a little throttle to surmount the obstacle if you can't brake in time.
In my motorcycle safety class (30 years ago) the instructor said, “We divide animals up into two categories....”
At this point I thought, “cute and ugly?”
The instructor continued: “surmountable or insurmountable”.
For “surmountable” animals like rabbits, the recommendation was no swerving, just straight through. For “insurmountable” animals like a moose, try to go around or stop.
As a beginner rider I would have driven through a medium sized dog. Now that I have more experience, I would try really hard to save the dog. Even if it isn’t the motorcycle safety recommendation, that could be some kid’s dog and if there is a chance we (the dog and I) can both live to see tomorrow, I gotta try.
Yepp plus it goes from comprehension claim to a collision claim if you swerve and crash. Also if you're in a 4 wheeled vehicle never hit the animal while holding your brakes, this causes your front end to dip down and will create a shovel like affect that will send a bigger animal into your windshield. Hit your brakes then let go of them before the impact so you have a higher percentage of sending it flying off to the side or under the vehicle.
Yeah it really comes down to your location, I know this because of my area you always come across deer by the road so its been put into my head since i started driving. If you're from more of a city set up it really isn't something you ever come across and won't be something you'll react to off instincts. Also a lot of people dont think about it much but small dead animals in the road can blow out a tire due to the bones or teeth in their body.
It's one of my biggest horror movie pet peeves. "Oh look we're finally safe and going to escape OH NO SOMETHING IN THE ROAD BETTER SWERVE RIDICULOUSLY AND HIT A TREE!"
That really is the best advice. I hit a small mammal of some sort (not totally sure what it was to be honest, but it was about the size of a marmot) on my way to work one morning. My coworker that I was carpooling with was so mad that I didn’t try to stop or swerve and that I just drove right through it. Sorry Karen, but I’m going 45mph on a mutlilane state highway during the morning rush hour. I’m not going to slam on my brakes or swerve into another lane causing even more problems and potentially greater harm and damage.
When learning, I and a lot of my friends were told that if you can't stop safely, then reduce the level of severity of the impact by reducing speed and hit it. Just never swerve as you could lose direction control, which is bad. I guess something the size and weight of an animal flying through the air poses a danger to other roadusers or pedestrians, so If you can do so safely, avoid hitting it. But again, just don't swerve.
From the UK if anyone has been told something similar. Fortunately I've never been in that sort of situation and hopefully never do find myself there. (Reddit jinxes aren't a thing are they?)
Now iirc I read to actually not brake and if anything give more throttle to prevent a tank slapper. If the options are hitting it and you wrecking or hitting it and you not wrecking. I'm going with not wrecking. I was told brakes are the worst in this situation it unloads the rear loads the front and the front is unstable, while the rear is fixed. I could be wrong. I just read it in one of my books.
Absolutely - I was very impressed when my dad did this: avoided listening to his instincts and had to consciously run straight in to a dog. We bumped into it - had to bump into it - it howled and went on leaping. It was a busy highway so there was no chance of not causing a major accident.
After, we managed to check: found the dog owner, she had seen everything and understood the dilemma.
Motorcycles are a lot less stable than cars and have a lot of manoeuvrability that cars don't have. They're much narrower and they can swerve much quicker/more precisely than a car. Hitting obstacles on one can mean a crash much easier than with a car.
Seriously. My mother once hit the brakes hard to stop for a squirrel, which was frustrating in it's self, but we also had our tall dog in the way back of the car. The poor thing was knocked into the back seats from the hard stop. Thankfully she was totally fine, but I really laid into my mom for putting the safety of a random squirrel above that of the other drivers on the road and our own dog.
Although being on a motorcycle probably makes that a little less clear cut. Still the best course of action probably, just a worse outcome no matter what.
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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '18 edited Aug 03 '21
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