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Sydney crash stillVideo: Footage convinces police Aussie cyclist who hit car was not in the wrong
Police are often accused of assuming the cyclist is at fault whenever there's an incident involving a rider and a driver. When Sydneysider Paul Ludlow was involved in a collision with a car, the footage from his rear-facing Fly6 camera convinced police he hadn't broken the law.
Ludlow was riding through the junction of West and Falcon streets in the north Sydney suburb of Crows Nest when a car driver pulled out of the junction and allegedly failed to give way.
Ludlow said: "He had a green light, I had a green light. We were both coming towards each other but he should have given way to me coming through the lights but for whatever reason he didn't see me."
As you can see in the video, it's a brutal impact. The bike went flying and the camera captured the impact as Ludlow slammed into the car.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Ludlow bounced off the car's windscreen and hit the ground. He sustained glass cuts to his shoulder and needed more than a dozen stitches. The collision sheered both fork legs off his bike.
The driver claimed he had done nothing wrong, Ludlow said in the YouTube discussion of the footage from the crash.
"He thought he was in the right and that was what he explained to the police. However, once the police saw the footage they could make an informed decision based on visual facts rather than he said, she said. The driver has now accepted that the police declared him in the wrong. Without the footage - a different outcome could have occurred."
He told the SMH: "The video footage actually showed that I had a green light and he had a green light as well, that I wasn't speeding and you could also see the position of his car was in my lane and he was turning across in front of me and I ran into him but he was in the wrong."
On YouTube he added: "My understanding is that the driver will be charged."
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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18 comments
Driverless...
'sheared'
not 'sheered'
ouch!
Great advert for Fly6 camera though…
*heads off to website to buy one!*
I know it was the driver's fault, but surely the cyclist should have shown a little caution entering the junction, scrubbing off some speed?
We have to be aware that we are vulnerable road users and that the car generally wins come impact time. It seems he was entering that junction at quite some speed and a fast moving cyclist isn't as easy to spot as a fast moving ton or two of metal.
This is in no way trying to alleviate blame from the driver, it's just the reality of the situation. We are vulnerable on the road and regardless of whether we should be or not, when we are, we should ride as if we are.
I too have been hit by a car and ended up with a truly busted collarbone, concussion and a totalled bike.
I agree with above, a cyclist is small enough to be hidden behind a cars "A" pillar if they are both moving at the correct speeds and angles, I very quickly learnt as a new driver (far to many years ago) to move my head to see around the pillar after nearly running down a pedestrian on a zebra crossing, just didn't see him. "A" pillar was in the way luckily my passenger did.
But once again its the rule of gross hundredweight, what's going to come off best in a collision? 100kg of flesh blood and carbon or 1500kg plus of steel and plastic.
Its all right shouting "IT WAS MY RIGHT OF WAY" but it might just end up on your headstone. Nobody out will care about your life like you do, so don't expect them to!
Be careful and be safe good luck out there.
Presumably there were lots of witnesses as there were lots of other vehicles stationary waiting at the junction?
My experience is that drivers lie through their teeth, will make up any cock and bull to try and get off a driving charge. The usual crock of shit "He was swerving/weaving/riding all over the road" Yeah, right.
Unfortunately head and tail cams are becoming important pieces of kit not to ride without.
I just can't bring myself to do it. I don't walk around with a camera running, nor do I have a dash cam in my car, and I just can't bring myself to believe we've turned into this world where we *have* to have documentary evidence in all situations...
A sad reality unfortunately. After a collision on an empty roundabout where the only explanation was that the driver had run the red light on another entrance, I used my GPS track to demonstrate that the driver's account of the collision was a fiction. This was after I had got a default county court judgement on the insurer because that was the only way I could get them to respond to my claim.
What is really needed is presumed liability.
"...as Ludlow slammed into the car."
Should it not be, "as the car slammed into Ludlow"?
C'mon road.cc, this is basic stuff. You've already done this at least once this week too. Please sort it out.
To be fair, he did kind of slam onto the windscreen.
Forward facing camera would show more in this case, but seems to be "as Ludlow slammed into the car whose driver had just wrongly turned in front of him".
Great advertising for Fly6, terrible advertising for cycling in general.
I've already preordered the new version of the camera. It's an unfortunate reality of modern life that in a traffic accident, neither side will accept responsibility without evidence.
Not my experience.
I was knocked off my bike earlier this year. The driver admitted hitting me and was deemed liable by her insurance company without any further evidence or witnesses.
Though I expect in a more serious case, where criminal charges might be in play, a higher standard of proof might be required. I don't intend to find out
I hope the driver also accepted that he lied to the police and that he's an inconsiderate, callous, cold-hearted tw@. Another example of somebody making up any old rubbish to try to get off a charge that he knows he's guilty of and only giving in when he realises his lies can no longer work. He should be charged with more than driving offences.
Isn't lying to the police perverting the course of justice? In the UK I think it still qualifies for the death penalty.
Not quite or else almost every one that told the police it wasn't them wot did it would be up on a charge.
It's an offence to provide false details. It's an offence to perjure yourself in a sworn document. It's easy enough to prosecute the former. It's more difficult to prosecute the second because you have to prove that they're teling the truth now in order to prove they were lying then and that's without a dozen or more versions of "that's what I honestly thought at the time but I know better now".
It's hard for cyclists to speed in Australia; most roads are 60 kph.
Here is the link to the video. You seem to have forgotten it in your article.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLoz3zUVKPY