TMS320 wrote:
On 12/08/17 16:48, JNugent wrote:

QUOTE:
"If I was going any faster I could've been killed.

"I usually do go quite fast because it's a straight run and you can
pick up a lot of speed."
ENDQUOTE

That can mean anything. For some, 15mph can feel like a "lot of
speed". Given that proms tend to be fairly level and it's a £100 bike
with knobbly tyres, it's more than likely. But I am sure you would
disagree.
She might or might not have been intently concentrating on the ground
below the front wheel. Only she knows which.

Perhaps the rope might not have caught her under the chin had she had
her head down (as per your uninformed idea of riding positions).

Besides, any road user (including drivers, even you) is accustomed to
look for things connected to the road and disturbing the background,
not for something static floating above it. The visual system works
mostly about matching things to past experience so would take several
seconds to work out something so unfamiliar.

But she failed to see the rope. This was a life-belt rope, by the
way. Not a wire and not a thin cord. It must be the best part of an
inch thick.

A life belt rope an inch thick? Wow, folk are tough in those parts.

A few weeks ago someone posted a link about a Range Rover driver
failing to see something considerably bigger and which should have
correlated to something seen before. The back of a bus.

If nobody has told you that you are a boring ****, please allow me to be the
first.