Diesel Spills & Cornering

[Haggerstoner]

OK soz this post has nothing do do with GS per se other than I ride one but am interested in your thoughts on this.

A mate of mine came off his bike (KTM) on a diesel spill as he came off Hyde Park corner. He's a very experienced rider and says that he just didn't see it. Went down like a ton of bricks. Bent foot, £1500 damage plus dented pride and confidence but thankfully no major ijuries which is something short of a miracle given how busy that area is.

We've been discussing it. Lorries if they spill diesel through over-filling (why is that allowed to happen ) will always do so on the outer side of the curve as the vehicle leans over. The outer curve is the preferred trajectory of many bikers as it gives the best view around the corner. I'm now thinking that it must be safer to stick to the inside and sacrifice the view a bit.

Thoughts?

 

[Wapping]

More likely to have been a bus at Hyde Park.

Diesel slicks can appear anywhere on the road, coupled to the crap and oil dropped by a variety of vehicles. Ask you mate to have a look at the centre of the road at the traffic lights as he goes down (not literally I hope) Park Lane.

Forward view in any town / city is not going to be vastly different around a 'normal town-type bend' at 30 mph (you are doing 30 max aren't you ) so surrendering a bit of road space isn't going to make too much difference. So give it up if it makes you happy. This would be particularly true at Hyde Park, which has open views in about 360 degrees; probably more important to position yourself correctly to avoid car and bike interface and for your eventual exit. The police bike motto in London is: 'When in town, ride the crown' as it allows you to dominate the road.

Diesel is slippy stuff for sure and definitely not great stuff to come across. But (given the millions of road miles travelled by bikes - V - the number of falls really caused by the stuff) is not so common a problem as people might think.

 

[cookie]

Lorries if they spill diesel through over-filling (why is that allowed to happen ) will always do so on the outer side of the curve as the vehicle leans over. The outer curve is the preferred trajectory of many bikers as it gives the best view around the corner. I'm now thinking that it must be safer to stick to the inside and sacrifice the view a bit.

Thoughts?

personally i start on the outer side, but i'd still be going more or less straight at that point. by the time i get to the middle of the corner, where the bike is leant over the most (& therefore most vulnerable) i'd have cut over to the apex where only vehicles on the pavement could have flung diesel. wide choice of exit route allows last minute line change to avoid/straightline any crap on the road.

my theory anyway

 

[Boz]

I had an experience with a large spill last week (see blog link below) fecking tones of the stuff, wet day so that made it worse....nearly had me off!

I see them all the time - think there quite common, luckily I smelt this one before I got on top of it..

Nik

 

[Lord Snooty]

Your mate should be able to make a claim with the MIB (I think that's the acronym). I came off on diesel a few years ago and I received a payment for injuries etc. The MIB is funded by the insurance companies for incidents of this nature.

I believe that there is a Kill Spills Rally in September this year in London. Motorcycling and motoring organisations are trying to get the Government to take this more seriously and to implement a set of measures to prevent diesel spills.

 

[ptf5470]

As a trucker and a biker, my experience of most truckers is that they are, on the whole, professional drivers and, collisions aside, take proper precautions to prevent diesel spills i.e. properly securing the filler cap, which is the most regular cause of spills.

Unfortunately, there are a minority that do not do this... without tarring all with the same brush, it appears to be the untrained up-to-7.5 tonne commercial brigade (vans and lorries) that are the main culprits, though larger class drivers are not immune from a poor attitude to this.

It is a specific offence not to have a secured fuel filler cap (exact wording escapes me) for the very reason of preventing diesel spills from large vehicles.. however, like most traffic related offences (except the money makers), they are rarely enforced due to the lack of proper and regular vehicle inspections/road side checks (I have not been so much as looked at in the last 50k miles).. this, on the whole being down to the general erosion of dedicated 'traffic' police, their being replaced by cameras and VOSA staff.

I would imagine though, that the number of diesel spills relative to the number of commercial vehicles on the road is small and that the actual amount of diesel needed to cause a problem on the road surface is pretty small.. this being no consolation to those who have come a cropper on the stuff (had a near miss or two myself)..
Yes, it is a problem but so is mud and cow sh*t left on the road by farmers, which have caused me the same amount of arse-twitching moments.. granted, you can see mud better than diesel, but not always in time.. Is it any different to the patches of bull dust/deeper-than-expected ruts/mud that looks like regular track surface etc.? We know it might be there but ride on anyway..
All part of the challenge of biking maybe? This is why we spend so much on protective equipment isn't it?

 

[Timolgra]

We've been discussing it. Lorries if they spill diesel through over-filling (why is that allowed to happen ) will always do so on the outer side of the curve as the vehicle leans over. The outer curve is the preferred trajectory of many bikers as it gives the best view around the corner. I'm now thinking that it must be safer to stick to the inside and sacrifice the view a bit.

Thoughts?

My thoughts exactly, and particularly at night in the rain I assume there may be diesel on the road and ride accordingly.
The preferred trajectory you are refering to is in my mind the 'theoretical' preferred trajectory, real situations compromise this and we ride the safest line