BIKE’S LEGAL EXPERT SAYS
This driver chose to join the highway with a dangerously overhanging load. Generally, the larger and less vulnerable a vehicle the higher the duty of care owed by its driver.
The motorcyclist, riding within braking distances, faces a closing gap. With advanced training, our man would have acted differently, but he only has to react like an ordinarily competent motorcyclist in the face of imminent harm, a situation known as `agony of the moment’, that is, the rapid processing of unpleasant choices created by the negligence of another.
The Court will not blame him for making the wrong decision, unless it was so bizarre as to be foreseeable. The driver’s lawyers must show that the motorcyclist did something wrong and I see no evidence of that, without which the Judge cannot find against the motorcyclist.
Andrew Dalton
Bike Magazine
July 2010
