Quit your motorcycle and pedal a bicycle!

Speeders & Drunk Drivers are MURDERERS wrote:


hehehe.....as a convicted drunk driver and habitual speeder, I can only
assume you lost a family member to a speeding drunk driver to call them
'MURDERERS'.......Iv'e never hurt anyone LOL.

In article .com,
"donquijote1954" wrote:

I was riding my motorcycle to work one morning a few months ago when
the car in front of me stopped. Cold. The woman behind the wheel had a
phone to her ear, but she also had the green light. There wasn't any
traffic to speak of and there was nobody in front of her. In other
words, she stopped for absolutely no reason at all (except, probably,
for whatever it was someone had just whispered into her shell-like
ear).

Although I was at the speed limit, her stopping was so completely
unexpected that I didn't have time to ride around her, which would have
been the usual evasion tactic. My choices: Dump the bike or visit her
back seat. I hit the brakes and down I went, ass over teakettle.

Oh, baloney! Did she have working brake lights? Were you following at a
decent distance? (Do you know the two-second rule?) Since it was at a
traffic light, chances are the speed limit was 45 mph or less. Do you
practice hard braking? Obviously not.

--
Timberwoof me at timberwoof dot com
faq: http://www.timberwoof.com/motorcycle/faq.shtml

In article ,
"Dt Lemons 1900" YEAHRIGHT wrote:

It's never the fault of the motorcycle rider, it's always the fault of the
"cage" driver. You have to understand the mentality of the motorcycle
rider.

Oh, baloney! Some of us bikers know we're more exposed to traffic
stupidity, so we advocate reasonable following distances jut for this
sort of thing.

--
Timberwoof me at timberwoof dot com
faq: http://www.timberwoof.com/motorcycle/faq.shtml

In article ,
"Dt Lemons 1900" YEAHRIGHT wrote:

"Tim Kreitz" wrote in message
oups.com...
Dt Lemons 1900 wrote:
It's never the fault of the motorcycle rider, it's always the fault of
the
"cage" driver. You have to understand the mentality of the motorcycle
rider.

That's 'Cager' to you.

Statistically speaking, the car driver is found to be at fault in just
over 75 percent of all car-bike crashes, according to the NHTSA. So no,
it's not ALWAYS the cager's fault. Just most of the time.

As for the rest of Donkey-Hotay's original post: complete drivel.
Cagers in metro areas run over bicyclists at an alarming rate, as well.
Robbing yourself of a motorcycle's potentially life-saving horsepower
and handling for the sake of pedal power is nonsensical.

Tim Kreitz
2003 ZX7R
2000 ZX6R
http://www.timkreitz.com


Life-saving horsepower?????

Yes. On a bicycle, the only way to get out of a situation is to stop.
With a motorcycle, there's also the option to get out of there.

Consider if I'm stopped at the end of a queue of cars waiting at a red
light. I monitor my rear-view mirror and see a car heading towards me
faster than it ought to: I sneak over between cars and ahead a few, and
avoid a rear-end collision.

Consider if I'm cruising along the freeway and some inattentive cager
decides to change lanes into me (typically after a merge). Depending on
where I am, I could brake hard and still have to deal with the
possibility of the cager also braking hard or the car behind me not
braking hard ... or accelerate out of there. (Which, since I keep good
following distance, I have room to do.)

So if you're not an experienced motorcycle rider, don't be quick to
dismiss possibilities you haven't thought of.

--
Timberwoof me at timberwoof dot com
faq: http://www.timberwoof.com/motorcycle/faq.shtml

donquijote1954 wrote:
"the motorcyclist's No. 1 nemesis remains the inattentive driver. So

I've recently read that the #1 nemesis is the inattentive rider. A
different perspective altogether.

Greg

listen up: Your job as the driver is to drive. Period. Your attention
is focused on what's happening outside, not inside. Period."



I'm assuming that you want to save the buck, and that perhaps you care
about the environment, if not that you plain hate "cages," and, most
importantly, that you want to avoid a senseless accident like this.
Sure, you would say, "Why not ban the damned phones!?" But you know
deep down it won't happen. Too much money into it, you know. So in a
bicycle you could have let yourself go and hit the stupid woman (maybe
a MADD member?) square on the bumper. At least I've made the switch.
You can even get a chopper bicycle!

Isn't this cute?

http://www.phatcycles.com/soon.htm

(I meant the girl)


Hang Up and Drive

I was riding my motorcycle to work one morning a few months ago when
the car in front of me stopped. Cold. The woman behind the wheel had a
phone to her ear, but she also had the green light. There wasn't any
traffic to speak of and there was nobody in front of her. In other
words, she stopped for absolutely no reason at all (except, probably,
for whatever it was someone had just whispered into her shell-like
ear).

Although I was at the speed limit, her stopping was so completely
unexpected that I didn't have time to ride around her, which would have
been the usual evasion tactic. My choices: Dump the bike or visit her
back seat. I hit the brakes and down I went, ass over teakettle. I
never touched her. I landed on top of the bike, fortunately, emerging
with a badly bruised elbow (not to mention a rip in my leather jacket)
and a pretty nasty welt on my upper thigh. The motorcycle got beaten up
pretty good but everything was put right for about $400 -- more than
the bike itself is probably worth.

As I looked up, with murder in my heart, off she went, oblivious to
what had just happened behind her. I hope that phone call was her
boyfriend, dumping her.

Even before the accident, my motorcycle was no gleaming machine -- no
snarling, customized Harley with the chrome pipes polished to within an
inch of its owner's life. It's an '86 Honda Shadow. At 500cc, it's
nimble enough for city riding while packing enough power for the road,
as long as the road isn't too long. The seat's kinda ripped up, there's
some rust and it's got its share of dings and dents. But it runs OK,
costs about $4 at the gas pump and, best of all, you can park it pretty
much where you like.

It's also a freakin' death trap.

The most hard-core biker -- even the biggest fat guy straddling the
baddest hog -- knows that riding a motorcycle is inherently dangerous.
There's no such thing as a "minor" motorcycle accident, aside from
maybe dropping the bike on your foot. We know this, but we accept the
risk of riding.

Why? Well, some of us are probably just stupid. There's the thrill
factor, of course, and it is fun. It's also relatively cheap, you can
maneuver through heavy traffic and you always look cooler than even the
coolest dude in his Euro sports car. Because you are cool, and he's
just a loser who dropped 60 grand on a penis extender.

Why is it that only a handful of states have made it illegal to talk on
the phone while driving? Driving is not something you do as an
afterthought, OK? You're hurtling down the road behind the wheel of a
3,000-pound vehicle (more like 7,000 pounds in that idiotic destroyer
of worlds, the Hummer) and it doesn't take a physicist to figure out
that if you hit a human being -- astride a motorcycle, riding a bicycle
or on foot -- you're going to do some damage.

And it doesn't take a rocket scientist or an IT guy or a professional
poker player to understand that anything you do -- like talking on the
phone -- that distracts you from the business of driving increases the
chances of causing a serious accident.

So do everybody a favor and turn off your cell phone while you drive.
(It's OK. Your important life can wait while you zip over to the mall.)
If you have to make a call this very minute, pull over. This ain't
exactly brain surgery, but it might help prevent some of it, you know?

Then there are the vehicles themselves. Hummers aside, have you seen
the size of some these, these ... well, when Paw drove to town we used
to call them pickup trucks. Now? Pickup trucks on steroids, maybe. (A
truck that seats six adults: What genius dreamed that one up?)

They're huge. They ride high. Too high. There's a hood the size of
Rhode Island out in front of you, blotting out the sun. It makes it
even harder to see what's out there. If it was easy to miss a biker
when you were driving your Volvo station wagon, well, try checking your
field of vision in one of these mesomorphic babies. Of course, you're
probably so busy cranking up that Slayer CD that you'd miss Sonoma
Sammy at full throttle on his Fatboy. RIP, Sammy.

Car manufacturers are also tarting up their vehicles with all sorts of
things that, when used like most humans tend to use them, distract you
from watching the road. GPS (What? You can't pull over and read a
map?), high-end sound systems requiring your full attention to operate
and -- what in God's name were they thinking? -- in-dash video
monitors: These have no place in a motor vehicle. Cars exist to convey
you from one place to another. They are not concert halls or TV
babysitters for cranky children. (Teach the kid to read. Better yet,
teach him to love to read, then give him a book, fer crissake.)

What about the motorcycles themselves? They're bigger, faster and more
dangerous than ever. Why would anyone want to ride a motorcycle capable
of doing 150 mph? So they can scrape you off the road with a spatula
instead of dumping you in a body bag?

But the motorcyclist's No. 1 nemesis remains the inattentive driver. So
listen up: Your job as the driver is to drive. Period. Your attention
is focused on what's happening outside, not inside. Period.

(many replies at this link)

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,68769-0.html

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
http://webspawner.com/users/donquijote

BIKE FOR PEACE
http://webspawner.com/users/bikeforpeace

Ladies and Gentlemen (and I use those words loosely), donquijote1954
trolled in rec.autos.driving:

snip of alot of crap

Speeders & Drunk Drivers are MURDERERS wrote:
On 23 Oct 2006 17:03:36 -0700, "donquijote1954"
wrote:


I was riding my motorcycle to work one morning a few months ago when
the car in front of me stopped. Cold. The woman behind the wheel had a
phone to her ear, but she also had the green light. There wasn't any
traffic to speak of and there was nobody in front of her. In other
words, she stopped for absolutely no reason at all (except, probably,
for whatever it was someone had just whispered into her shell-like
ear).

Although I was at the speed limit, her stopping was so completely
unexpected that I didn't have time to ride around her, which would have
been the usual evasion tactic. My choices: Dump the bike or visit her
back seat. I hit the brakes and down I went, ass over teakettle. I
never touched her. I landed on top of the bike, fortunately, emerging
with a badly bruised elbow (not to mention a rip in my leather jacket)
and a pretty nasty welt on my upper thigh. The motorcycle got beaten up
pretty good but everything was put right for about $400 -- more than
the bike itself is probably worth.


All this proves is that you were either tail-gating or innatentive.

In 15 years of almost daily motorcycle riding I never rear ended a car,
nor came remotely close. The same rules as bicycles, keep you eye on ALL
possible hazards.
I had a friend get a broken hip, but even that was not his fault since
some really old (antique) lady turned left in front of him and even
though he tried to lay it down the car clipped the rear of his bike and
tossed him at about 50 MPH.
Whenever you are on the road, Bike, cage, or even walking, you are at
the mercy of idiots.

--
Bill (Sleepless biker) Baka

"donquijote1954" wrote in message
oups.com...
"the motorcyclist's No. 1 nemesis remains the inattentive driver. So
listen up: Your job as the driver is to drive. Period. Your attention
is focused on what's happening outside, not inside. Period."

I'm assuming that you want to save the buck, and that perhaps you care
about the environment, if not that you plain hate "cages," and, most
importantly, that you want to avoid a senseless accident like this.
Sure, you would say, "Why not ban the damned phones!?" But you know
deep down it won't happen. Too much money into it, you know. So in a
bicycle you could have let yourself go and hit the stupid woman (maybe
a MADD member?) square on the bumper. At least I've made the switch.
You can even get a chopper bicycle!

http://bicycleaustin.info/justice/
not the solution

snip

Pretty interesting post, and sadly it's pretty accurate as well. THREE
TIMES in the past 18 months, I've been in stop-and-go traffic in my big
Dodge truck - you know, the traffic where you move forward a few feet,
then stop, then a few feet more, then stop, then a few feet more, then
stop... - and the car behind me SLAMMED into my back bumper.

In two cases, it was some bubbleheaded broad. In the other case, it was
some pimple-faced, greasy haired high school boy. In all three cases,
they were jabbering on their cell phones and weren't aware that their
cars were still rolling.

One of the women was in a 3/4 ton truck, pulling a trailer with 4
horses. On top of that, she had a dog in her lap. All while jabbering
on her cell.

I didn't hurt my truck: I learned a long time ago to leave the trailer
hitch sticking out there. It protects my truck, and tears the hell out
of your car if you bump into me.

But the point is... in all three cases, what if I had been on my bike?


For the most part, I won't ride a cycle in town. It's not fun anyway,
since it's just stop and go; you can't just relax and cruise. Plus, of
course, being RIDICULOUSLY dangerous. If I'm just going to sit there in
city traffic, I might as well lean back in my truck and get comfortable
with the A/C and some good music. These people who use their bikes to
commute to work every day in big city rush hour traffic are just
begging for disaster.

There's no point in complaining about how dangerous cage drivers are;
it's like complaining about the sky being blue. Just adapt to it. And
save your cycle for nice cruises down country roads on Sunday
afternoon.

Bill S.

In article et,
necromancer wrote:

Ladies and Gentlemen (and I use those words loosely), donquijote1954
trolled in rec.autos.driving:

snip of alot of crap

Yes, he's a troll. So killfile him and ignore him, as I have done. Use
your newsreader to kill his threads. Stop feeding the troll!