IT WAS A CLASSIC “SORRY, MATE, I

didn’t see you” accident. I was young, overconfident and late for work, so was riding my Suzuki GSX1100 up the outside of a line of stationary traffic a bit faster and less cautiously than I should have been. Just as I approached from behind his Land Rover, a farmer decided that rather than wait any longer, he’d get some petrol in the garage on the opposite side of the roa… CRUNCH!!!

He probably hadn’t looked in his mirror, and if he had done, he probably wouldn’t have seen me approaching in his blind spot. Luckily, I’d almost stopped by the time I hit him, so both I and the bike were barely scratched.

But many “Sorry, mate…” incidents with motorists have much more serious consequences for the rider, which is why the latest research – ironically from Jaguar-Land Rover – makes very encouraging reading. For motorcyclists, one problem with modern cars is that as manufacturers have tried to improve safety for their occupants, they have increased the cars’ strength by making the roof pillars wider – with consequent reduction in the driver’s ability to see approaching motorcyclists.

A couple of months ago, Jaguar-Land Rover announced that they were working on technology that they call the “360 Virtual Urban Windscreen” – basically a series of screens, built into the car’s roof pillars, that display images from cameras outside the car. The effect is that for the driver it’s almost as though there are no roof pillars at all.

Given how poor the visibility is when driving many modern cars, and that drivers pulling out on bikes is a significant cause of accidents, such a system becoming widely used would surely be a major boost for riders’ safety. The technology is at an early stage but could appear within a few years.

And, meanwhile, Jaguar-Land Rover have just announced a second safety system that would have been even more relevant to my crash on the GSX1100. In the car firm’s own words, its ‘Bike Sense’ is a “range of new technologies that use colours, sounds and touch inside the car to alert drivers to potential hazards and prevent accidents involving bicycles and motorbikes”.

The idea is that sensors on the car detect when another vehicle is approaching and identify it as bike. ‘Bike Sense’ then makes the driver aware of the hazard, using lights and sounds that the driver instinctively associates with the potential danger. To help the driver understand where the bike is in relation to their car, the audio system makes it sound as if a motorcycle horn (or bicycle bell) is coming through the speaker nearest the bike.

There’s even potential for a physical warning: if a bike is approaching from behind, ‘Bike Sense’ detects whether it is overtaking or coming past on the inside, and the top of the car seat extends to tap the driver on the left or right shoulder. As the rider gets closer, LED lights on the window sills, dashboard and windscreen pillars glow amber and then red as the bike approaches.

It all sounds very promising, even if it’s no closer to becoming production reality than the Virtual Windscreen, and although when it does appear, it will inevitably be fitted only to highend cars at first. While we’re undoubtedly a long way off being safe from “Sorry, mate” accidents just yet, at least some car manufacturers seem keen to reduce them.

Mind you, such a system would have cost me money if it had been fitted to that farmer’s Land Rover back in the 1980s. Not long before the accident I’d crashed the GSX in a club race, stoving in the tank when the bike cleared the gravel trap and hit a fence post.

The farmer’s face when he saw the flattened tank – and assumed he’d just caused it – was a picture. Rather than trouble his insurance company, he rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a roll of notes and gave me enough for a new tank. Naturally, I didn’t bother buying one, but left the poor battered Suzuki as it was, and put the money towards the next weekend’s racing instead.