I don't want an R1 anymore. Wow. That is very sad and disturbing.

It really is like a smack in the face of reality.

I don't understand why no one is panicking though. I would be absolutely terrified in that situation. They're also tampering with evidence of the scene.

no kidding about getting an R1. I am going to keep my little 500F. Thats video is scary shaZam!. Thanks for posting that. It really makes me think. Its weird how everyone is all calm. I guess you would have to. Poor guy is just laying htere on the pavement.

yeah, he grabed onto the car, with his whole body, thats the front wheel stuck in that car on the right front, if you notice, his glove is between him and the car. the subframe was riped entirly from the bike, wires all all. I would not doubt at all that he compressed himself into his helmet on impact.

Quoteno kidding about getting an R1

ok, dont even look at it like that.  it wasnt the bike that killed those folks. its the one controling the bike.  Bikes, cars, planes, trains, scooter, skateboards and wheelchairs dont often go faster then the operator allow it to go. there are ofcoarse exeptions, but now we get into Odd's and probability equations.

a bike able to run 200 MPH will sit idle, do 55 mph,  hold wheelies, perform endo's or what ever the "Rider" decides its going to do. this was human error, and it cost dearly.

Quote from: Blueknyt
a bike able to run 200 MPH will sit idle, do 55 mph,  hold wheelies, perform endo's or what ever the "Rider" decides its going to do. this was human error, and it cost dearly.

True, but a rider will only go as fast as the bike will let him/her. We sometimes lose judgement or perspective or get carried away with the thrill. But now I'm just arguing for arguments sake

I don't think it happened at really high speed. The rider is not far from the car and he doesn't miss any limbs which could be caused by high speed impact. The damage to the car looks a lot, but this is a really old car and old cars are not as sturdy as new cars. They're especially weak at side impacts.  A bike is much lighter than a car, but the impact zone is much smaller also, so you can still do heavy damage to a car. If he would have been traveling at 100 mph, he would've gone right through the car. I think it was more like 60-70 mph.  It looks like it happened in Eastern Europe or Russia.

ok...i'm just saying a few thing off my head in responds to Lars' post.

true, we may never know exactly how fast the rider was going...but he would have been immediately tost off the bike so i don't know what missing limbs (or not) would indicate.

as for the car being old...i would rather hit a newer car than a old. cars nowdays are engineered to crumber and absorb the impact. whereas the older cars are just sheet metals welded together like a tank.

i guess the point is not to hit (or get hit by) anything if possible. and there are lots of things to can do to avoid such circumstances...

Interesting point. Maybe it's different in the U.S., but in Europe the cars that were made 15 years ago were much lighter  and more fragile because they didn't have heavy steel beams yet to protect the passengers. It was very common for a mid-sized car to be under 1000 kg's! The sheet metal was sometimes a bit thinner than now also. Actually, the sheet metal of the Alfa Romeo of my brother was so thin you could make a dent in it with your thumb! If you look at it that way, it would be better to crash in one of those with a bike.  Even modern cars don't have much of a crumple zone on the sides. It's designed in such a way that the car can deform in a controlled way to a certain degree. There's always a sort of cage around the passengers that more or less stays intact. But when you're on a bike, a crumple zone doesn't make a big difference, you would get tossed off anyway. (exactly the point you mentioned in your post   )

consider the following comparison:

WEIGHT
2005 R1: 379lbs
2005 Audi A4: 3550lbs

HORSEPOWER
2005 R1: 180hp
2005 Audi A4: 170hp

POWER TO WIEGHT RATIO
2005 R1: 2.2
2005 Audi A4: 20.4

0-60
2005 R1: Much faster than A4  :mrgreen:
2005 Audi A4: 8.10 sec.

TOP SPEED
2005 R1: 186mph
2005 Audi A4: 130mph

PRICE
2005 R1: $10,999
2005 Audi A4: $

keep in mind that A4 isn't even a full size sedan...

also, nowsdays, cars are made of fiberglass and even plastic...

that's was just food for thought  

Quoteold cars are not as sturdy as new cars.

Cant really agree there, design is better these days, crumple zones are used more and regaurdless of the builder, the firwall,A pillar,hinge pillar and rocker panels are the toughest part of the car,  in unibody cars these keep the car from collapsing in on the occupants.

the rider wouldnt have to be thrown far if HE hit the A pillar square on, whose to say he didnt fly far, i consider 20' up plenty far,  he may have only come to a stop 25 -30 paces from the car. being as a bike is lighter then a car, the speed would have to increse to do the same amount of damage as a car would.

My father worked Miami Dade metro PD for 27 years, when i started driving he began bringing home copies of acident reports with Traffic Forensics as he also had to do the investigations. I learned a great deal on wrecks and how to piece it back together.  Most of the time, when a bike hits another vehicle at average driving speeds (autoban excluded) you can wager most the time the bike will hit and come down on the side of impact of the bigger vehicle.  By  increasing  the speed of the bike, you increase the forces of impact, the harder the impact the more it inersia (sp?) or tendicy to continue in the same direction. the rider hit the car at the A-pillar, folding over the roof everything bent continued over the roof probly landed about 10-15 paces away and the momentum just had him tumbling few more feet.  the bike was inbetween him and the car, this means the bike didnt stop on side of impact. the car collapsed around the front wheel, the momentum/inersia of the bike ripped the axle from the forks as it continued OVER the car in a cartwheel motion landing probly about 10 paces with a bounce, showering parts , and tumbled to a stop few feet away. watched this film a few times, excessive speed on the bikers part is deffinetly top of the list.

Incredible and disturbing. I won't guess as to what really happened, but the accident occurred in Romania roughly 250 km north of Bucharest. You can see signs with cities and distances in one of the frames.

I don't know why i watched that vid caus' i felt kinda sick afterwards.  Lars...i beg to differ...older cars were made of steel for the most part...and a lot heavier as well.  I'm pretty sure he was doing more than 100 mph. when he hit her.  Also the accident appears to have happened on a turnoff..i could see her going the opposite direction turning left across the oncoming lane (drivers side appears on the right from what i saw..) when the R1 slammed into her.  It seems the cyclist went over her car but velocity killed him.

I had that image burned in my mind all day.  Weather was bad enough over here with rain in the morning and snow in the evening.  I made it home on my bike before the snow accumulated but i swear i grew eyes on the back of my helmet on the way home.   Yall ride safe.

he would have had to try to slow down...maybe 10-20 mph in speed...unfortunately that wasn't enough to save his life...

Quote from: juggernaughtLars...i beg to differ...older cars were made of steel for the most part...and a lot heavier as well.

Well, I know that most older American cars were made as heavy as hell(and hell is pretty damn heavy, that's why it's underground...it sank...)...and still are for the most part with the exception of the Fort Festiva, Focus, and other smaller cars... And I know that old Volvos are damn heavy.  Same thing with Mercedes.  VW's didn't start getting heavy until the 80's.  Bugs and Karmann Ghias I know for a fact are totally underbuilt from a structural standpoint...bare minimum...buses too, they just fare better in T-bone accidents because there is more to them(heaver beams in the undercarriage).  I don't know about older Audis(mid 80's) but I would think that it would be somewhat comparable to a Jetta which isn't necessarily overbuilt or underbuilt...the bike was just going extremely fast.  Most cars would probably have sustained similar damage.

I watched the video and have to say it was a real wake up call. I don't ride crazy or anything it just tells me I really need to pay attention to cars even more. You never know when you could end up on someones website on a video.

I speak some Romanian. That was pretty messed up. About halfway through you can hear the people talking asking if he's breathing and has a pulse. Only 3/4s into it is one person really concerned about the scene and tells people not to move or touch anything.

You can hear an old man say, "who's boy is this?"

Lots of interesting points here.  My opinion is that there is NO WAY IN HELL that he was going under 100 MPH.  The passenger of the car looked dead too.  That doesn't happen unless there was enough impact force to throw the passenger  into the windshield or something.  A 370 lb bike and a 170 lb rider will not cause that kind of damage unless there was amazing momentum involved.  I don't care how old or new the car is.  There is just no way.  In regards to the rider being so close to the car - It looks like the car wasn't moving all that fast, and the rider hit it pretty square.  That's the only explanation for the front wheel being imbedded into the body of the car.  I would have to say that the rider smashed into the windshield, which halted most of the momentum, and then he bounced off the car.  If he had not hit the car squarely, he would have gone flying a long long way.