Heads up - vigilante reversing

[Peter Room]

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

Waiting at traffic lights in 33 deg C heat behind 4WD with no rear windows & navy stickers. After 1 minute he reversed into me and stopped as soon as front of my bike crunched & at same moment I found my horn button, then he pulled forward. It took me a minute to put bike on side stand & remove gloves, full-face helmet, earplugs then I took photos with mobile phone while his passenger moved debris from my bike off the road (removing evidence of where impact happened?). No damage to 4WD. The driver seemed surprised to see I'm 68 years old & weirdly insisted on shaking my hand. He claimed he did not see me in his side mirrors. I did not realise he had a reversing camera until I magnified my photos on computer the following day.

 

$5,500 repair quote obtained, insurance claim submitted and police informed of incident + my photos & told that 2 railway station CCTV cameras point at the intersection. Police say they will request CCTV footage but that may take longer to get than statute of limitations on malicious damage offence (i.e. they are not interested?). The 4WD driver will probably claim I rear-ended him & he might get away with it.

 

This was not standard road rage - I don't think I ever saw the 4WD or driver before and certainly not that day. More likely, a calculated & calibrated attack using a reversing camera. The handshake might have been to check I am not a member of his secret group. If you have had or know of a similar incident, please post. We need to know if there really is a group out to get us!

[Dave McReynolds]

Here in the US, we're advised to stop in a line of traffic such that we can scoot between the lines of cars if we spot someone speeding up behind us who might rearend us. I don't think people give much thought about the car in front backing into them, though. It's hard to imagine why anyone would do that, and might reasonably raise suspicions of purposeful mayhem. However, he could just be a driver like me. I've lost track of the number of expensive crunching sounds I've heard behind me. Most of my vehicles have been fairly high, and have had blind spots right behind them. And I obviously have a blind spot in my brain for remembering to check the blind spot behind my vehicle before I back up.

 

Thankfully, I now have a truck with a backup camera and backup sensors. I can't give you any non-malicious reason why your driver would ignore his, but I suppose there are people who are even more dunderheaded than I am, and maybe he just spaced out. Hopefully he will fess us (I always did) and at least you'll get an insurance recovery.

[StuGotz]

I agree with Dave.

 

Situational and positional awareness. Never position your motorcycle where you can be "captured". Alwyas have an escape route.

 

Don't know about secret handshakes and conspiracies against motorcyclists "down under"... But I'll venture to say the cager was the same sort we have here: Inattentive and preoccupied with other things rather than driving in a safe matter.

 

I'm sure you'll get your bike taken care of by the cager's insurance company. No damage to the vehicle points to a low speed collision initiated by the driver.

 

Don't get yourself into a position of vulnerability. Always have an escape.

 

Good luck

 

MB>

[szurszewski]

The usual reason I see people reverse at an intersection is because they pulled too far forward. I almost never see anyone check behind them before backing up in this case. Weird that he would do it after having been stopped for awhile. Glad you're ok!

 

[elkroeger]

I'm always suspicious of other drivers, so with regards to this, I try to leave a fairly large gap in between me and the guy ahead of me. If they reverse for no reason. I might have enough room to skirt around to the side. Also, if I get rear ended, hopefully I won't get pinched between vehicles. Thankfully, I have not had to test my theory.....

[Kitsap]

Even if vigilant it is impossible to anticipate all stupid actions. In that vein I invested in a Sena 10C for video support should the need arise. At the end of an uneventful commute I erase the footage.

 

[szurszewski]

Hijack Wade: I have a 10c as well and have been trying to run it in video tagging mode. I get maybe 20min before it powers off the camera stating battery low. How long are you able to record on a charge?

[Kitsap]

I've been running straight video during the commute, no video tagging. I've recorded up to 104 minutes between charges without getting into the battery warning mode.

[szurszewski]

Thanks Wade - I haven't tried just continuously recording* - I'll try that and see what I get. end thread hijack

 

 

*thought I'm pretty sure that's what video tagging is doing - only not saving the files as it created them unless you tap to tag/save a particular chunk....

[UTCVMgrad]

The usual reason I see people reverse at an intersection is because they pulled too far forward. I almost never see anyone check behind them before backing up in this case. Weird that he would do it after having been stopped for awhile. Glad you're ok!

 

Interesting take on the situation and I can see it being exactly what happened. They don't see us when we're in front of them so why should we expect them to see us when we're behind them?

 

TBH, I really don't think I've ever anticipated this happening although it has happened to me but the circumstances were different. I will now have one more thing to consider in addition to the inattentive driver coming up from behind me when stopped at the lights.

 

When it happened to me it was when I was a teenager on an XL250. I was in my neighborhood messing about with a friend who happened to be in a mid-60s Chevy that was jacked up in the rear as was popular back then. I'd been bumping his back bumper with my front tire a couple of times and he reversed while my tire was against his bumper. Being lifted his bumper rode up on top of my front wheel and hit the fender. Lucky for me the wheel held up, the tire survived and the front fender was plastic and returned to original scuffed up shape after he pulled forward. No harm done.