On spills - I have been biking in and around London for 20 of the last 30 years, 4 of which were as a despatch rider, so I have a fair bit of experience. Like Dazzor, I have done well over 200,000 miles on bikes, most of it in heavy traffic. My Dad was a Met Police traffic officer (class 1 on bikes), and before he died, passed on quite a bit of advice to me.
I've had 3 accidents in that time;
1. Someone came through a red light and I hit the side of him. Avoidable, I was gunning it away from the lights myself, but he was still held responsible, he was just gambling.
2. I hit my knee on the back of a car that was crossing in front of me, and I thought he was going to be clear by the time I got to him. He stopped, and I hit him. My fault, but a stupid mistake. Avoidable.
3. A drunk driver hit the car in front of me, head on, and I went into the back of that car. I can't really see how I could have avoided that, the car in front went from 40mph to minus 20 mph in half a second.
I wasn't seriously injured in any of these.
All of those happened before I was 25. Nowadays I ride more carefully and definitely slower then I used to. It's unlikely that I'm going to repeat any of these crashes.
Here's how I see it.
- You are half way there when you recognise you are inexperienced, and that you take it easy to compensate. That is EXACTLY the right attitude.
- Understand that the serious accidents are usually associated with speed. This is a generalisation, but if you have a crash at 20mph, you're going to come out better than one at 40mph, right? It also likely that at 20mph you will have time to avoid the problem altogether. So, be sensible.
- Remember on a bike, you have far better vision than a car driver. Use that to your advantage - car drivers will do stupid things because they don't see you. You need to see them doing it, and avoid it. Experience helps here, but get used to watching everyone like a hawk. After a while you can anticipate what they're going to do.
- Be in the right place on the road. Don't follow too close, and if someone is up your arse, let them pass or move to where they're not up your arse. I know Ego can say you deserve to be in front of a 50cc scooter, but if you're endangering yourself, let it go.
Do some, all or more than this, and you've only got statistics to deal with. I do all I can to avoid accidents, but sometimes they just happen. What I try to do is make the odds the same as the 'you could get hit by a bus on the pavement' ones. Then I'm no worse off than anybody else.
Last thing, just to put the above into perspective - you already get to ride around traffic, use bus lanes, and generally go at 2 - 3 times the speed of a car through town. Enjoy that, you don't need to get to work 5 minutes earlier than you already do.
So, if you see an old fart on a bright blue MT07 on the A4 one morning, give me a toot, I'll get out of your way