Driver Blamed for Hitting Cows on Road at Night

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by Smoke Pursuit

You sound like you have never driven a country road at night.

how many assumptions do you make a day?

You have NFI I've driven at night in Africa. I've also driven a truck in the Syrian desert. and plenty of other conditions
and also know a fair bit about farming and Trucks

but that's all had nothing to do with my point. are you saying your night vision is only as good as those dash cams?

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

Actually despite what the "professional" road safety experts say about "never swerve.. You must brake and brace for impact of wildlife ahead", I actually owe my life to swerving and accelerating instead. Picked up a new GT 335 from far North Queensland and had to return to work by Monday in Sydney. .

I was kind of responding in relation to a truck swerving, I'm sure your GT is a lot more nimble and I agree with the right skillset you most likely saved yourself a lot of bother.

[Smoke Pursuit]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

how many assumptions do you make a day?

You have NFI I've driven at night in Africa. I've also driven a truck in the Syrian desert. and plenty of other conditions
and also know a fair bit about farming and Trucks

but that's all had nothing to do with my point. are you saying your night vision is only as good as those dash cams?

Yes that sounds typical, I wouldn't be comfortable driving on a country road unless I could see the length of a rugby pitch.
my point is those cheap cameras cant do that without night vision.


I was referring to what u said above. There's plenty of times when you can't see the length of a football field at night. You must be pretty uncomfortable driving at night

[new2ford]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Do you get much milk from the vehicle

One would hope so, you wouldn't be able to milk the ATO for much

[Vesper Martini]

Still missing the point, and resorting to insults. moving on

[XB GS 351 Coupe]

Originally Posted by XBROO

Yes that's because you are an experience country/rural driver, same can be said about country folk driving into the big smoke. I guess it comes down to what you're use to and the hazards that naturally come where you live. Me I live semi rural so I do a bit of both, but mostly city as that's where my job takes me.

Yes I used to live in the city (Sydney) until about 4 years ago and used to often work in the country and considered myself a very good city and country driver, now when I go into the city it's a lot to take in for me, especially at busy intersections, where I now tend to hesitate, and traffic, traffic lights etc now frustrates me.

Where as I now feel I am a much better driver on Country roads, which is a skill in itself especially at night, spotting animals and road hazards is the biggest skill, then there is the farm machinery moving around and we get plenty of road trains with two and three trailers, on narrow roads and dirt roads, a whole new ball game.

Vehicle set up is different as well, living in the city I had lowered cars with low profile tires now I have standard height cars with all terrain tires, bull bars, driving lights and LED light bars. Priorities are different depending on where you live.

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by superfly

I think that's a bit harsh. If someone is flashing their lights at me, I assume there's a radar up ahead. So if I'm doing the speed limit or under, I will keep doing the same. It's hard to say if the driver was doing the speed limit or not.

And the return flashing of lights, could have been an acknowledgement of the flashing.

But I do agree, he should've put his high beams on when there was no oncoming traffic.

Thing was he didn't really flash his highbeam back at the car. he held it on for a couple of seconds, dipped it then held it on for a couple of seconds as the car passed, then dipped it.

At least with a quick flash of your high beam, the light hardly reaches it peak power so it's not like the other driver is copping the full force of your light. This guy is holding the high beam on as he passes an oncoming car shows aggression imo.

Originally Posted by Express

Is it only me or does anyone else think the headlights on the car was throwing a short beam?

I would say it's just the dash cam. I have looked at my dash cam after a night drive and you can hardly see anything compared to how much you can see with your eyes.

Which makes me wonder why this driver was so slow to react. He reacts just as the cows come into view of the dash cam. I really would of thought he would of spotted them before the camera did. He was probably looking in his rea rview mirror think "how dare someone flash their lights at me"

Originally Posted by 99AUXR

Average cars probably take what ~40 meters to stop at 100kmh and every 1 second of reaction time will add another 28 meters to the stopping distance. I remember speaking to one of the serious crash police guys that attend the fatalities down my way at the scene of a recent fatality and he said normal reaction times are 2-4 seconds.

Normal reaction time 2-4 seconds? No way. I would of thought 2 second is on the high side.
No one would ever stop for a yellow traffic light with reaction times that slow.

[2011G6E]

Bullcrap outdated law. Start fining...heavily...Farmer Joe for letting his damn cattle wander.

Years back near Bundaberg there was a series of accidents outside town when some idiot farmer was neglecting his fences. The council went and put signs up saying "cattle on road", and that was it. Talk at the time was that the farmer was a relative of some local council officer so nothing would be done.
A local lawyer put an opinion piece in the local News Mail which said basically that the council had to be careful...by putting out signs and doing nothing else, they are just admitting they know about the problem, and are opening themselves to liability if someone is hurt or killed. Pretty soon afterwards the farmer was taken to court by someone and the problem went away.

But yes, the people who hit the cows all received fines for their accidents. Totally, absolutely wrong, but they got them.


And yes, if someone flashes their high beam at me, I assume they've either mistakenly hit high beam or were notifying me of a radar trap. I don't slow down.

[XR6TCraig]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

Ill say it again those dash cams, will only have near sighted vision in the dark. the driver will be able to see much further.
An object in the road (especially the size of a cow) doesn't just appear in front of you like those clips suggest.

You have obviously never come across a cow on the road at night then if that's your belief.

Having driven many thousands of klms on remote Qld country roads at night, some notorious for wildlife as well as domesticated animals, I can tell you that cows literally do appear out of nowhere and are harder to see than most wildlife (wild pigs are also a ***** to see because of their colour).

I have had many close calls with cows. On one occasion, the only clue that cows were on the road ahead was the fact that as they crossed the road, they blocked the broken line up the middle of the road. I couldn't see the cows until much closer but the missing line was my clue to slow up.


They can be very difficult to see, even with the high beams on, particularly if they are a dark colour and have their rump facing you. Its not until you have a near miss that you realize how you can see. Its all sunshine and lollypops on a well lit up freeway or Arterial road of course, but get out in the middle of nowhere on a dark night and things are a little different.

Did you actually check out Smoke Pursuits youtube vid of the truck with highbeams on?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0dmjRO8ZsQ

It can literally happen that quickly.


The solution would be to drive to conditions, but that would entail doing 50KPH everywhere after dark. Not exactly practical if you are trying to cover 700klms after sunset is it?

[XB GS 351 Coupe]

Originally Posted by Ben73

Thing was he didn't really flash his highbeam back at the car. he held it on for a couple of seconds, dipped it then held it on for a couple of seconds as the car passed, then dipped it.

At least with a quick flash of your high beam, the light hardly reaches it peak power so it's not like the other driver is copping the full force of your light. This guy is holding the high beam on as he passes an oncoming car shows aggression imo.




I would say it's just the dash cam. I have looked at my dash cam after a night drive and you can hardly see anything compared to how much you can see with your eyes.

Which makes me wonder why this driver was so slow to react. He reacts just as the cows come into view of the dash cam. I really would of thought he would of spotted them before the camera did. He was probably looking in his rea rview mirror think "how dare someone flash their lights at me"



Normal reaction time 2-4 seconds? No way. I would of thought 2 second is on the high side.
No one would ever stop for a yellow traffic light with reaction times that slow.

Agree 100% with all of this.

[XB GS 351 Coupe]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Bullcrap outdated law. Start fining...heavily...Farmer Joe for letting his damn cattle wander.

Years back near Bundaberg there was a series of accidents outside town when some idiot farmer was neglecting his fences. The council went and put signs up saying "cattle on road", and that was it. Talk at the time was that the farmer was a relative of some local council officer so nothing would be done.
A local lawyer put an opinion piece in the local News Mail which said basically that the council had to be careful...by putting out signs and doing nothing else, they are just admitting they know about the problem, and are opening themselves to liability if someone is hurt or killed. Pretty soon afterwards the farmer was taken to court by someone and the problem went away.

But yes, the people who hit the cows all received fines for their accidents. Totally, absolutely wrong, but they got them.


And yes, if someone flashes their high beam at me, I assume they've either mistakenly hit high beam or were notifying me of a radar trap. I don't slow down.

Why doesn't any of this surprise me coming from you

So if a driver flashes their lights due to a hazard ahead you just keep on motoring till you hit something, makes perfect sense to anyone without an ounce of road craft.

[99AUXR]

How is this still going ignore list sure is getting big lately.

[99AUXR]

Originally Posted by Ben73

Normal reaction time 2-4 seconds? No way. I would of thought 2 second is on the high side.
No one would ever stop for a yellow traffic light with reaction times that slow.

Yea sorry is my bad he said up to two seconds is normal reaction and up to 4 seconds with alcohol. Cheers.

[LTDHO]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Bullcrap outdated law. Start fining...heavily...Farmer Joe for letting his damn cattle wander.

Who would have thought there would be so much BS talking about cows?

Seriously, Do you think 'Farmer Joe' should padlock every gate in order to keep his cattle safe?

[OCTANEBOSS]

Maybe this could be the answer

Looking forward to Cows with Guns Thread. or cow Geez....

[Burnout]

Drove through a mob one night, way back in the early '70's up in the NT, killed 16 of 'em.
Thermodyne Mack, quad box with a joey, five trailers full of cattle, proof that sometimes you cannot stop for wandering stock.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by 99AUXR

Yea sorry is my bad he said up to two seconds is normal reaction and up to 4 seconds with alcohol. Cheers.

Maybe he said 0.2 to 0.4?

If someone had a 2-4sec reaction time, even if drunk, a doctor would probably be wanting to admit them for neurological tests. Even the RTA consider 1sec to be about the max.

Normal reaction time for an event you are anticipating is 0.1-0.2sec. I would guesstimate double that for an event you aren't.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by Burnout

Drove through a mob one night, way back in the early '70's up in the NT, killed 16 of 'em.
Thermodyne Mack, quad box with a joey, five trailers full of cattle, proof that sometimes you cannot stop for wandering stock.

With a 'B' model Mack you'd have trouble stopping them with 2 days notice

[Beastie]

Originally Posted by Smoke Pursuit

God theres a lot of keyboard heros in this thread. Not driving to the conditions? You can see another car further around the bend with its lights on, perhaps he didnt want to dazzle them as per why he didnt have his high beam on.

I wonder how many of you would pull up and call the local police if you seen cattle on the side of the road?

The driver reported that a gate was left opened as per why the animals were on the road. Does that still make him negligent? Half you heros probably haven't left suburbia let alone driven on a dark country highway at night.

Heres a video of a truck who hit one last year with his high beam on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0dmjRO8ZsQ

Whilst there will always be 'circumstances' around these types of accidents, I think that there is little argument that this clip shows how quickly things happens with little to no time to react.

I've watched the clip a few times now (mainly out of pure amazement), but it's clear to me that this driver had zero warning or site of the black cow, particularly as there was no visible reduction in speed, no visible reaction from the driver before impact and if you listen to his comments after the collision and stopping ie '***** Me', it tells me he had no idea it was there until too late, otherwise I'm sure you would have heard him swear before the impact & not after?

I have had one near miss with a big black cow at night and it was only the fact that he was facing me, that I noticed his eyes reflecting (believe me or not) and I was able to get on the anchors and slowed enough to avoid hitting him in time.

[STEALTHY]

Originally Posted by The Beast

I've watched the clip a few times now (mainly out of pure amazement), but it's clear to me that this driver had zero warning

So he didn't have an oncoming car frantically flashing his lights close to 20 times?

I think i watched a different video to you

[XB GS 351 Coupe]

Originally Posted by The Beast

this driver had zero warning.

He had lots and lots of warning, but he ignored those warnings and kept on motoring till it was too late.

[Beastie]

Sorry, I meant Smokie Pursuit's youtube clip - my bad

[99AUXR]

Originally Posted by b0son

Maybe he said 0.2 to 0.4?

If someone had a 2-4sec reaction time, even if drunk, a doctor would probably be wanting to admit them for neurological tests. Even the RTA consider 1sec to be about the max.

Normal reaction time for an event you are anticipating is 0.1-0.2sec. I would guesstimate double that for an event you aren't.

Nope Im sure by the time you have reacted those are the times. Enough searches on the internet will tell you this. I have no more to add to this thread, enjoy.

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/niatt...actionTime.htm

[b0son]

If I were that bad, I'd stop driving....

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by 99AUXR

Nope Im sure by the time you have reacted those are the times. Enough searches on the internet will tell you this. I have no more to add to this thread, enjoy.

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/niatt...actionTime.htm

Its not called bum****k Idaho for nothing, people there are slow.

Count 3 seconds in your head not many drivers would be that slow to read, if they were it would be carnage on the road. Lights go red and drivers are blowing through the red light for another 3 seconds....

[GasoLane]

Seems quite a contentious subject.

The average time it takes for most drivers to react to a risky
situation on the road is 1.5 seconds.
http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/saferroads...nd_crashes.pdf

A controlled study in 2000 (IEA2000_ABS51.pdf) found average driver reaction brake time to be 2.3 seconds. The study included all driver types, test were conducted on a controlled track and in a driving simulator.
http://copradar.com/redlight/factors/

According to the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials(AASHO), it takes an average driver 1.64 seconds to perceive and react to a roadside hazard.
Ninety Five percent of people react within 2.5 seconds.
http://www.internationalclinicaltria...king-time.html

[XBROO]

Originally Posted by The Beast

Sorry, I meant Smokie Pursuit's youtube clip - my bad

Funny thing is I knew you were talking about the Smoke Pursuits clip as you quoted it in your post.

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Seems quite a contentious subject.

The average time it takes for most drivers to react to a risky
situation on the road is 1.5 seconds.
http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/saferroads...nd_crashes.pdf

A controlled study in 2000 (IEA2000_ABS51.pdf) found average driver reaction brake time to be 2.3 seconds. The study included all driver types, test were conducted on a controlled track and in a driving simulator.
http://copradar.com/redlight/factors/

According to the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials(AASHO), it takes an average driver 1.64 seconds to perceive and react to a roadside hazard.
Ninety Five percent of people react within 2.5 seconds.
http://www.internationalclinicaltria...king-time.html

Some people...quite wrongly...equate drag strip reaction times with "real world real road" reaction times.
The mistake is an easy one...on a dragstrip you're sitting there waiting for the lights to come down and you KNOW that you're going to have to GO at a certain spot...you're ready, you're waiting for it to happen, it's no surprise when the light goes green and you launch.
On the roads in the real world, nope, it's really more like 2 seconds. I said this a while back and got abused for it...people honestly thought that their everyday driving reaction time would be something like half a second or less, say if someone came through a red light or a pedestrian walked out in front of them.

Sorry, but if they do it a couple of seconds away, maybe even up to five or more seconds away depending how occupied you are with other things at the time, chances are you won't even get your foot on the brake pedal.
Real life isn't a drag strip.

[99AUXR]

Originally Posted by b0son

If I were that bad, I'd stop driving....

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Seems quite a contentious subject.

The average time it takes for most drivers to react to a risky
situation on the road is 1.5 seconds.
http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/saferroads...nd_crashes.pdf

A controlled study in 2000 (IEA2000_ABS51.pdf) found average driver reaction brake time to be 2.3 seconds. The study included all driver types, test were conducted on a controlled track and in a driving simulator.
http://copradar.com/redlight/factors/

According to the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials(AASHO), it takes an average driver 1.64 seconds to perceive and react to a roadside hazard.
Ninety Five percent of people react within 2.5 seconds.
http://www.internationalclinicaltria...king-time.html

Look at this someone gets it

Love when people have no idea.

[Stefan]

I don't disagree I've not studied the subject but jeez it sounds like a ludicrously long time to react.

Scary indeed.