Motorcyclist clocked at 155mph on the A30 near Bodmin

Most of the traffic heading east out of Bodmin on the afternoon of 30 May was doing what traffic does on a warm Friday. One motorcycle was not.

A camera on the eastbound A30 at the Cooksland layby recorded the bike at 155mph, more than double the 70mph limit on that stretch of dual carriageway. The rider is now facing a hearing at the Magistrates’ Court, and Devon and Cornwall Police’s Road Safety Team has said it will report the outcome once it is known.

What the camera recorded

The clip, timed at 15:56 on 30 May, was captured on the eastbound carriageway near Bodmin. It put the motorcycle’s speed at 155mph in a 70mph limit, on a busy road shared with cars and other vehicles.

The Road Safety Team called the riding completely irresponsible. Summer brings dry weather, longer evenings and the kind of conditions that make getting out on a motorbike a real pleasure, the team said, as long as riders stay within the limit and keep their own safety and everyone else’s in mind. This rider, in the team’s words, chose not to do that, and will be paying the price at an upcoming court hearing.

What 155mph actually means on the road

At 155mph a motorcycle covers the length of a football pitch every 1.5 seconds. A typical alert driver takes about 1.5 seconds to begin reacting to a hazard in the road ahead. At that speed, that is 104 metres of travel before the brakes have even been applied. Add on a braking distance of around 350 metres and the bike has run 454 metres before it stops, four and a half football pitches, or considerably more than one whole lap of an Olympic running track.

The team put the danger another way. The kinetic energy in a crash at 155mph is roughly the same as dropping a family car from a 20 storey building, about the height of the top of Truro Cathedral’s spire. All of that energy is absorbed in an instant by the rider, the bike and whatever they hit. That could be a crash barrier, a bridge, or a family travelling in the car they have just collided with. The risk, the team said, is not the rider’s alone, and the consequences very often reach far beyond the person on the bike.

The doors of the court or the gates of the cemetery

In the team’s telling, the rider got off lightly. “This rider was lucky on this occasion,” the post said. “They will only be facing the doors of the Magistrates’ Court. Next time it could be the gates of the cemetery.”

The closing message was not a warning to riders in general. Enjoy the good weather, the dry roads and your motorcycle, the team said. All it asked was that riders keep within the law and keep speeds like this where they belong, on the track. The result of the court hearing is still to come.