It’s been a truly dreadful week here in Derbyshire with a total of 7 fatalities over the past 2 weekends. I would suggest anyone speculating about the root cause of these terrible accidents doesn’t, it’s unhelpful & disrespectful - wait until the police publish their incident reports. I live in Derbyshire and am out most weekends riding these routes, which can be challenging for inexperienced riders. I’d recommend that any new rider having recently passed their test, enrolls in one of the advanced rider training programs. Clearly they aren’t a guarantee that you’ll never be involved in an accident, but they do elevate your understanding of road craft & hazard awareness. Group rides can be a nightmare for the inexperienced, there is always the pressure to push on outside of your comfort zone. Passing your bike test is just the start of a lifetime of learning
Tragic for all concerned, my heart goes out to the families.
Heartily agree regarding Advanced riding, I see too many riders in groups following the leader during overtakes that extra 0.4 of a second decision making can cost you your life .
I never ride in groups only ever two bikes, three max if it’s people I know but that’s a very rare occurrence. Ride your own ride always
Bikers urged to read the road after deaths in Derbyshire | Derbyshire Constabulary
There have been a number of recent fatalities here in Kent.
Regarding “Group Riding” (Which I’m a not a subscriber) I use to belong to a Cycling club, in which group riding was part of the Sunday club ride. Despite having a policy in place in which included “Best Practice” accidents between cyclist during a club ride did happen from time to time. Smaller groups as in 3 to 5 proved to be much safer.
(Riding with people you knew well was my preferred approach)
That’s a really tidy tip, never considered the “shoulder shimy” on the bike !
I cover the brakes, slow, and watch for the next move so to speak -in my head I aim for the back end of the car in case of the pull out, my thoughts is that it will be open space
“eventually” as the offender moves forwards. What’s the official take? Should you pile on the anchors, close you eyes and aim for the drivers door to get your own back so to speak ? I am being factious here, but would like the official take on this…
Unless he (or she) stops across the middle of the road upon realising they’ve made a mistake. Which happened to me. Doubly unfortunately, it was a LDV Pilot minibus. A bit too big to swere around! Altho I did try my hardest - didn’t make quite it, but as a small consolation, smashed up the front of the bus real good. The bike, an R80RT, I was still able to ride home…
I agree with Mike, the first reaction of a car driver to seeing a bike after pulling out across in front of it can be to slam on the brakes, I know as it happened to me and the car then blocked the road.
I would suggest slowing down for junctions even if you have right of way.
There is a tendency these days for people to pull out so as to get in front of you in a stream of traffic, it seems strange that this unfortunate habit extends to trying to be in front of bikes as well as cars even though we will overtake shortly after.
Keep safe 
Thanks guys - fortunately never had a “T” bone incident - been close a few times, but pulled up just before the impact …Sure makes you sweat and its hard to not to loose your cool with the offender. (As you say - no one sets out to kill you) Last crash I had was two years ago on holiday in Corfu, on a newly re surfaced, narrow mountain road and was squeezed off by a local in a car as I descended the steep hill, (~15 MPh ish) brakes / front wheel locked and down I came as the front wheel tucked under me on a Yamaha XBR 250 - it hurt a lot and I now remember the feeling of shock and the winding as I hit the road and slid with the bike on me. I am now in my fifties and I am sure the pain is worse now, the recovery is longer for sure. Good news though, no broken bones just minor cuts, gravel rash, bruises and soreness …Its a shame we cant get this resultant “pain” over to the car drivers just for a split second, je to show how much it hurts when they collide with us.
If anyone hasn’t seen it be sure to check out the SMIDSY video further up the thread
Paul, they may not set out to kill, but sometimes I do wonder. I was on tour in the highlands two years ago, riding a the head of a group en route from Helmsdale in the east to Plockton in the west. It had stopped raining, but had been 70mph headwinds at Achnasheen, so we were riding steadily. Approaching the entrance to a pub car park on my near side as a Mercedes was pulling up to leave the car park - a chap driving, woman in the front passenger seat and young children in the back. I slowed as I approached and had fog lights, high viz, running lights etc on. He looked and saw me and we definitely made eye contact. At first he stopped and then still looking me in the eyes, he started off agin and pulled out right in front of me. I had to do a FULL emergency stop and virtually stand the bike on its front wheel coming to a stop with less than a foot to spare whilst he casually drove off the other way. If I hadn’t stopped, I would have hit the rear passenger door hitting one of his children at whatever residual speed. It’s entirely possible that both one of his children and I could have been seriously hurt and feasible we could have ended up arguing tit-for-tat that I was doing excessive speeds etc. - What can you do when some idiots just don’t care or aren’t sober enough to make sensible decisions?
Have a watch of this, even though he was looking right at you, he may not have seen you. Not saying he didn’t see you and wasn’t just being a plank but this video is worth a watch
Thanks but I’ve been teaching this stuff for 28 years for various road safety organisations and it’s all good familiar stuff about how you stand out from your background and grab the attention of other road users using visual and audible clues. However, there’s only so much you can do if the driver looks straight at you, stops and then pulls out in front of you anyway, even though he can see you (and the following bikes in your tour group) approaching. The only thing I could have done differently was to use my horn, but as he’d clearly stopped I deemed it unnecessary (at the time) and when he set off again it was too late to do anything but grab a handful of Brembo’s finest. Thankfully I had slowed as I usually do when a vehicle is waiting at a junction and was covering my brakes anyway as a precaution otherwise it was a sure-fire mess. What doesn’t kill you makes you wiser, or at least more cynical and wary.
I have been riding / driving for 44 years, and without doubt driving standards are the worst they have ever been. I think there’s multiple reasons why: too many distractions, phones, internet connectivity, Facebook, Tik Tok all being used whilst driving; zero traffic police presence; widespread drug driving; plus traffic congestion / density has increased exponentially over the past 40 years; some parts of the UK literally feel like the Wild West
Take care out there !
We are subjected to crowded roads with a greater mix of ethnicity and multi national driving licences in use, so varying training standards for sure - we’ve all seen the joke about Italian drivers chucking away the rear view mirror and then setting off. Ask your self why this joke has grounds and if you ever driven in Rome do you feel safe? With
Asia, I simply wont drive in cities. Its just too dangerous.
When I lived in Lincoln my ex partners Indian colleague gave her lift home one evening - she told me her driving was diabolical and she narrowly missed another car - later she told my partner she had a driving license obtained in India, however she hadn’t taken the test herself - the family paid for a friend to do this on her behalf … I was aghast… whatever - the standard elsewear, for youngsters in the Uk it is very high - my daughter passed her car test a few years ago and care and safety was definitely top of the agenda. Maybe if we could report the T bone offender to the police - you had others that witnessed the near miss, they could be made to attend a safety course just like those used for speeding offenders.
I wear a Techologic DC1 front and rear facing camera on my helmet. I have zero affiliation and other cameras are available !! I can attest that the vast majority of the time a simple point to the camera can modify the drivers behaviour, one of the worst places is 20mph zones where I stick to the limit, that usually sends drivers into orbit, not my fault I didn’t set the limit .
I could have done with a camera today.
Within less than a couple of miles having left home I had a driver on my tail who had no intention of backing off. When entering the next village my plan was to pull into a side road to allow him to pass.
As we entered the village the car overtook me (I’m in position 2) only to be be confronted with a car pulling out of a nearside side road.
The car that overtook me was forced to make a complete stop in order to avoid T Boning the car that had pulled out from the side road.
For several seconds I was behind the tailing gating car, I sounded my horn and made some gestures, who then sped off into the distance.
This driver was in a hurry for something and had zero respect for other road users.
Going to be looking for a front and rear facing camera now.
Will take a look at the Techologic DC1
It’s a decent camera, front and rear, not heavy, battery life is ok but you can run it in use from a powerbank ( I have one in my pocket ) and run a lead to the camera. Only needed on long rides though. Yesterday in Kelso an idiot in front failed to stop for a car reversing into a space, I could see what was coming so left 2.5 car lengths, of course she hit reverse without looking when she finally twigged what the car intended to do, and despite me blaring the horn and flashing lights she stopped about a foot from me. Any less than 2.5 cars and she would have hit me. Without a camera or witness who’s to blame .
I would recommend them to anyone, just remember the camera can be your friend and foe. It sees everything 
Some really useful stuff on this tread.
Stay safe folks.
I’ve invested in a Chigee A05-lite for my V100.
It’s an Android/Car Play phone mirror AND front/rear dashcam with blind spot alerts.
Also does tyre pressure monitoring with OBD data capture planned for future.
Very pleased with it.
Anyone want more details PM me.
Get the best protective gear you can afford and get him to join a local IAM group and learn advanced riding techniques as soon as he has his full license. A HeLite airbag is expensive but well worth considering.
Just for completeness, IAM isn’t the only option (or the cheapest IMO).
RoSPA and BMF also run similar courses based around Police Motorcycle Roadcraft as the syllabus.
I switched from IAM to RoSPA when I moved house as my local RoSPA group suited me better, so worth checking out local options and having try outs (taster rides) to get a feel for what works best for him.
https://www.britishmotorcyclists.co.uk/bmf-blue-riband-rider-award/