A beekeeper has expressed the deep sense of shock he felt after a fatal collision between his truck and a motorbike rider at Marong in 2019.
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A video recording of a police interview, taken several hours after the crash, was played to a jury at the Bendigo County Court on Thursday afternoon.
In it, Rapple Borris Tadeje, now 32, said he estimated the motorcycle had been travelling at speeds of about 120 to 130 km/h.
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Mr Tadeje said the motorbike rider came around a "blind corner" on the Calder Alternative Highway.
He said he had immediately applied the truck's brakes when he saw the rider, but it was too late and the bike struck the heavier vehicle.
Mr Tadeje is on trial for dangerous driving causing the death of Norman Suckling on October 29, 2019.
The court had heard earlier in the day from police investigator, Detective Sergeant Rob Hay, that the truck's air brakes would have taken about five times as long to begin slowing the vehicle than a car's would have needed.
"(The truck) had air brakes, they increase the stopping distance from when the brakes are first pressed," he said. "In a car it's about 0.25 seconds; in a truck it's about 1.6 seconds. It's an appreciable difference."
Detective Sergeant Hay said the truck's emergency braking manoeuvre had left a scuff mark on the road, but there were no skid marks left by the motorcycle.
He said he could not determine how fast the motorcycle was being ridden at the time, nor whether it had slowed down before the crash.
In the video of the police interview, Mr Tedeje described how he had brought the truck to a full stop for one to two seconds on the Calder Alternative Highway before beginning a right-hand turn onto Bullock Road.
He said he had looked for oncoming traffic, checked his mirrors and his blind spot and began the turn.
"It was clear," he said.
"And then the motorbike was driving very, very fast and when I saw it coming I tried to stop the truck and go the other way but it was too late.
"He had already hit me. I put the handbrake on and went to check the person. I told Ron (a colleague in the passenger seat) to call the ambulance. I'm very, very shocked and I hate it."
Mr Tedeje told investigators he was a Filipino citizen who was in Australia on a working visa. He said he had slept well the night before and did not feel tired.
He said he and two of his colleagues from a Mornington Peninsula-based company had been in the Marong area harvesting honey from bee hives and he had been transporting containers of the produce at the time.
A police detective from the major collision investigation unit told the court the intersection was difficult for drivers to see.
Detective Sergeant Peter Romanis told the court from the witness stand there were no signs along that road in either direction to alert drivers to the fact there was an intersection at the location.
The trial before Judge Fran Dalziel will continue today.
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