Two riders, both highly experienced and respected police motorcyclists, were on a ride-out together, in Gloucestershire, on their day off.
The weather was fine, dry and clear- a perfect day.
They were riding perhaps more briskly than they should have been, but then haven’t we all on a clear road and with nothing else around?
However, to ride along the main street approaching a market town, in a 30mph area, doing a speed later calculated by experts to be around 70mph; and then to overtake traffic at that speed, by going on the wrong side of centre bollards; and then to hit broadside an innocent driver coming out of a side road on the left- was not only inexplicable, but verged on lunacy.
Both men were killed outright, having hit the vehicle almost simultaneously; the driver was badly injured.
The inquest was replete with specialist expert evidence- all of which confirmed that there was nothing to explain this atrocious riding other than that both men had willingly decided to ride that way.
Both bikes had been masked from the junction because of their illegal positioning on the wrong side of the road and their insane speed meant neither had any hope of braking or taking evasive action when confronted with the car pulling out of the junction.
The driver had done nothing wrong.
The suspicion in the minds of all concerned was the pair had been racing- although there was nothing to prove it for certain. Both left widows and children- none of whom would be able to claim anything in compensation for the devastation of their lives, because nobody else had been to blame except the riders themselves.