Another bike down - "I didn't see him"

....and you don't seem to know what you're talking about,
....but you just keep on talking!

 

Well, there's one set of circumstances in which I would... it'd require
me to piss facing away from the fire, though.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Mon, 12 Jun 2006 08:08:14 GMT

You mean the lurkers support him in email?

I have no doubt at all that the tone of this group doens't suit
everyone.

It's changed a lot over the time I've been here, and not always for
the better.

There have always been people who didn't like it, no matter the tone
or the regular posters, there always will be, even if the most
prolific or the most obnoxious or <insert category here> suddenly went
away.

Welcome to usenet.

I could wish there was more useful info and less froth and idiocy, and
more thought and definitely more trimming of posts, but if wishes were
horses beggars would ride!

(And if wishes were Guzzis then the lot of you would be better off!)

I post the way I want to, everyone else does the same, cancelbots
don't work anymore, so once again.... welcome to usenet.

Zebee

 

Yep; and you'd find that it'd be the first question that a lazy,
looking-to-apportion-blame-on-the-biker, copper would ask too.
"Did he have his headlight on?"

 

None of your comments are; that's why you get so shitty when they get
scrutinised isn't it?

So by having a switch you can turn it off and on to suit the circumstances
and be safest ALL the time.

Pity we aren't allowed to make those decisions too then innit?

 

Yes you do; you've posted 30 messages blathering about it already!

 

That's because we ride in every single scenario (and in all conditions) and
that's why your childish one-size-fits-all cures aren't good enough for us.

Don't take it personally; we'd think you were an idiot even if we didn't
already know you.

 

~
[Applause]

 

I didn't wanna mention Allan K as I'm sure he's got a permanent name-search
running on this newsgroup so he can use it as an invitation-to-post any
time he sees his name.

 

I had a white R100RS (not ex-cop but looked the part) it was very
conspicuous people thought I was a cop and moved out of the way. Does not
happen on my other bikes, although the sidecar attracts some attention.

Boxer

 

I don't know him Clem, but on the balance of probabilities I will take your
word for it.

Boxer

 

I was just working on the theory that younger, sportier riders tend to wear
brightly-coloured helmets whereas older, more experienced and more sedate
riders wear plain ones.

That and brightly-coloured helmets seem to outnumber plain by at least 5
to1!!

 

Yeah but the newsgroup is just a name; it's the people who post to the
newsgroup who create the "group".
Saying you wanna' post to aus.motorcycles but don't like the people there
is just being a Megawanker and trying to make everybody confirm to what
YOU[1] think is correct!
There's thousands of places to post to; just find one that's full of people
like you want. (Or just try a bit harder to either fit in or block the ones
you find most objectionable).

Besides; it looks like it was shunned spammer-bitches who were doing the
complaining so I don't feel too guilty!

 

My worst fears have already been realized. Going against the grain in here would hardly bother me in the slightest if I felt the
need.

*Again*....complete ignorance, yet you comment on (what you feel are) my motivations? My thoughts are my own. You're a living joke.

 

Woohoo! *plonked* by Postman Pat, now he'll never know when I've already
made a booth joke and he'll look even _sillier_ than he does in real
life!

;-)

big

 

Maybe the fact I have only had close calls, and no contact or crashes with other road users, shows this line of yours to be BS.

That's one hell of an assumtion you make. You know it is possible to have a chat with the drivers in question at the next set of
lights. I'm sure even you can see that as a possibility.

While not perfect, motorcycle training here in Victoria is far better than car driver training in this regard. Car training consists
of learning how to drive a set course around the streets local to the Vicroads office. At least with motorcycle training here there
is time dedicated to discussing hazard perception.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:03:02 +1000

But will he be funnier?

Zebee

 

I' didn't say that though. I'm saying nobody _ever_ pulls out in front
of me when there's traffic around me. Car drivers _do_ notice other
cars. I'm also saying that on many occasions cars pull out on me when
I'm the only vehicle on the stretch of road. Not once, but often.
Probably several times a week.

Indeed I do. I'm a little flummoxed as to why you can't understand my
and many other peoples opinion that choosing whether or not to have your
headlight on is part of "riding according to the conditions"?

Errrmmm, did you _really_ mean to say that? We can't keep blaming car
drivers even though two thirds of car/bike crashes are their fault? I'm
sorry, but keeping on blaming them in those cases is _exactly_ what I'll
keep doing. And what my insurance company will keep doing. And, I hope,
what the police are trained to keep doing.

The problem with that is that I firmly believe that unless the driver
regularly thinks about motorcycles, a motorcycles single headlamp under
less than optimal conditions at a few hundred meters looks way too
similar to a pair of car headlights at 1 or 2 km. I suspect many of the
evasive actions I see riders taking at intersections are due to cars
assuming their headlight is a car a long distance away instead of a bike
thats very close.

Yep, I actively try to keep all those though processes in the
foreground, so I'm continuosly thinking to myself "where's my escape
route when that car pulls out on me", or "have I got enough space to
stop if the guy over there turns left in front of me". I think it's
_way_ too important to trust my unconscious thought patterns to "deal
with it", and I hope that by actively keeping all that thinking
conscious while I've got time to do it, I'll habitually still do it
while I'm busy concentrating on actually avoiding a situation. (I know
it doesn't always work though, the time IK an I got cleaned up from
behind by a Landcruiser I'd got all of my conscious attention on the
slowing cars in front of us, and I didn't have any attention left to
check my mirrors for 3 tonnes of dopey idiot behind us... That was _his_
fault, 100% no questions asked police report confirmed *his fault*, and
I _will_ keep blaming him for it!).

big

 

He'd HAVE to be!

 

How the hell _can't_ you? There's no difference in the bike population,
both groups deal with some headlight-on riders and some headlight-off
riders, some clad-in-black riders and some flouro-vest-wearing riders,
but _one_ group of car drivers is "massively under-represented" in the
set of people who "didn't see" bikes.

Personally, I about half agree with you there (and so, I know, does
Zebee[1]) and I half _violently_ disagree with you.

I would personally consider myself to have failed to anticipated the car
who fucked up in your above scenario, *BUT* that in _no way_ removes
*ANY* of the blame from the driver who would be totally at fault in that
case. Not just technically, but morally and legally and in every other
possible way. I'm actually quite horrified at the thought that someone
who at some stage was responsible for attributing fault in cases just
like that could possibly think otherwise, and I honestly can't believe
any rational human being could possibly "lead towards the cyclist being
more at fault". Thats completely fucking nuts! If the driver about to
pull out can't see past the car in lane one, he's got an iron bound
obligation _not_ to pull into that space. Anybody trying to claim "it
wasn't his fault, it was the fault of the rider innocently riding along
in lane 2" is insane. Do you _really_ think that? And if so, how the
hell do you justify it?

big

[1] I remember very early on in my riding experience Zebee explaining
how she personally would consider herself to have failed if she let a
car driver hit her - it would be an indication that she hadn't observed
and planned well enough - but that wouldn't stop it being the drivers
fault. She also said "there are no accidents, only fuckups - perhaps
crashing because you got hit by an asteroid would be an accident, but
crashes are caused by people fucking up"