Dashcams and motorbikes... that reminds me of an incident a few weeks ago (that, if I'd been a vindictive sort with nothing better to do, I could have posted on YouTube)... I was driving along a regular route I take and found I was following what appeared to be a more elderly bloke (I'd make an educated guess at 60+) riding a large, American style, motorbike, complete with paniers and fairings (most likely a Japanese job pretending to be a Harley Davidson Electra Glide - you probably get the picture).
Said bike was doing about 28 MPH in a 30mph zone, but wandering around the carriageway a bit too much for my liking, so I kept my distance. We then passed into a 40mph zone, where the bike starts doing 25mph. I maintained my 'even safer than usual' distance, suspecting the bike may be suffering from engine issues. We then pass into a national speed limit zone (60 mph limit) whereupon the bike travels at between 25mph and 40mph with no apparent speed correlation with bends, visibility splays, or other such road conditions.
I maintain my safe distance and we finally reach a set of traffic lights, where the chap positions his bike to the right hand side of the carriageway, but not signalling. Still maintaining a safe distance in case I have to negotiate my way around a broken down motorbike; the lights change and nothing happens for a few moments, he then sets off straight ahead, with the bike pulling away seemingly effortlessly, with no signs or sounds of engine trouble!
By now I have good reason to suspect that the erratic behaviour is down to the rider rather than the bike. I followed at a safe distance, with the bike accelerating up to 40mph to round a right hand bend, with the rider positioning the bike so far over to the right that the wheels were only a foot or so away from the double white lines down the centre of the road.
This meant that, in leaning into the bend, the rider's head and upper body were well over the white lines and into the path of oncoming traffic! I pulled back even further to provide sufficient room to avoid colliding with the wreckage and body parts if the worst happened! Unsurprisingly, just after the apex of the bend the biker had to veer suddenly to the left to avoid an oncoming car! Cue travelling at 25mph again until the crossroads, where the bike pulled up, after weaving to a halt, in the middle of the carriageway. Nothing coming, but we waited about 2 mins before the rider finally decided to turn left, wobbling off without signalling. I'm afraid my patience had run rather thin by that time so I announced my disapproval at his road manners with a long blast of my car horn, and gesticulated to the chap that I thought he was a t*sser.
I wouldn't mind, but stuck to the right hand side of his white, open faced, helmet was a camera! Not that I'd have appeared on it, unless he could have turned his head like an owl to look backwards (although I'm sure that remains a distinct possibility if he continues to negotiate right-hand bends like that into oncoming traffic!) but I couldn't ignore the irony! I don't think I've ever witnessed a more inept and incapable motorcyclist.
So do vehicle cameras make for safer motoring? Probably not, but at least the footage from mine might have been able to serve as valuable evidence in a coroner's court if that biker had not been able to avoid that oncoming car!
