A biker is lucky to have escaped serious injuries after he crashed into the back of a vehicle in slow moving start-stop traffic on busy motorway.
The collision happened on Monday April 10, 2023 at 3.13pm on the A1(M) southbound near Darrington, West Yorkshire.
Dash cam footage shows the driver of the camera car in outside lane, whilst all other traffic has already merged into the middle lane which is the busiest.
Four bikers come into view, one precariously swerves from the inside lane directly to the outside lane to join another and disappears into distance.
The driver of a blue Skoda appears to brake hard having not realised the traffic in front is at a standstill and one of the bikers collides with the rear of the vehicle.
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Rear footage captures the collision as the impact throws the motorcycle and the male rider into the outside lane along with debris as the remaining biker looks on.
Fortunately despite the Skoda having bicycles on the back the man only suffered minor injuries.
Sharing the footage online the driver of the dash cam car David Simpson wrote: “I was travelling south on the A1M towards Darrington, the motorway ends and merges into 2 lanes from 3 – it’s always a bottleneck and slow traffic.
“The biker in lane 2 couldn’t see the stationary traffic in front of the blue Skoda, the traffic slowed and the Skoda braked hard and the biker didn’t.”
One user commented: “All just sat in the middle lane too, and 3x as many cars in that lane than lane 1 for absolutely no apparent reason.”
Another said: “Looks like rider error to me. Hard to tell for definite but I have car and bike license so not taking sides.”
A third wrote: “Brake lights probably couldn’t be seen probably because of the cycle carrier on back of the car, hope everyone was OK.”
A fourth added: “I hope the rider is okay, but seriously drivers need more education and riders in this case lane 1 was free.”
West Yorkshire confirmed they were aware of the incident and that it appeared that the biker had minor injuries.
The highway code states that on roads carry faster-moving traffic drivers should leave a two second gap in order to allow time to react and stop safely.
Last year a trial on the M1 by National Highways found that to many drivers are driving too close.
Out of a total of 60,343 motorists detected by cameras during the 12-month trial, 10,994 were repeat offenders and 2,144 were sent warning letters.
Driving too close to another vehicle can lead to prosecution for ‘driving without due care and attention’.
The offence carries a minimum fine of £100 and three penalty points, and in some cases more severe penalties or a court appearance.
