mcatrophy
Privileged to ride a 2018 FJR1300AS
I'm posting this really because of erixun's topic "Days like today suck". That post made me want to write this as a reply, but it's a bit sideways, hence the new topic.
Last Friday, my son and I were going to a funeral. It was of my wife's cousin David; she couldn't go because of her 10-day-old replacement knee. David was leaving behind his devoted wife of many years, she is devastated, needs family support. David was a golfer, not a motorcyclist (but still one of the good guys), so Son and I were going by car.
Travelling down a dual carriageway road, two lanes either side. Traffic was fairly heavy, in particular plenty of lorries. Since they are limited to 60 mph on this 70 mph road, when one decides to overtake the other, all traffic has to slow to the 60 of the overtaker, as he very, very slowly overtakes the one doing 59.9 mph.
In my mirror, I saw a motorcycle a few cars behind. Thought to myself, "OK, when he comes behind me, I'll try to let him by." Less than two seconds later, he flew by me between the two lines of traffic, continued to weave round cars, came up to the two side-by-side lorries, and squeezed (the only word for it) between the two, barely six inches of clearance either side to the two vehicles, at probably another 60 mph above their speed. I didn't see him after that.
I'd not assessed his speed when I first saw him. I use my mirror fairly regularly and was a little surprised I'd not seen him further back, which should have alerted me. But my mirror glance was just that, enough to realise there were the twin headlights of a bike, not enough to see his relative movement. My concentration is mostly on what's ahead. Cars are too likely to swap lanes without warning in these traffic circumstances, hence my mirror micro-glance. And that means very few of the lane-swappers will have realised his speed.
Lane splitting is perfectly legal, provided it is safe. This example was clearly NOT safe.
David died of cancer. This squid is going to die sooner rather than later. He will cause his family, as well as colleagues of erixun, a lot of grief. Very likely cause some other innocent people grief as well.
It is simply not fair that Squid will die quickly, whereas David has been suffering for many months. But then, I suppose, life (and death) isn't fair.
[rant (one of many)]
There are too few police patrolling our roads. Plenty of speed cameras, but these don't assess driving safety (and the forward-facing ones can't see the number plate of a motorcycle). Please, please, please give us back our police patrol cars and motorcycles.
[/rant]
Last Friday, my son and I were going to a funeral. It was of my wife's cousin David; she couldn't go because of her 10-day-old replacement knee. David was leaving behind his devoted wife of many years, she is devastated, needs family support. David was a golfer, not a motorcyclist (but still one of the good guys), so Son and I were going by car.
Travelling down a dual carriageway road, two lanes either side. Traffic was fairly heavy, in particular plenty of lorries. Since they are limited to 60 mph on this 70 mph road, when one decides to overtake the other, all traffic has to slow to the 60 of the overtaker, as he very, very slowly overtakes the one doing 59.9 mph.
In my mirror, I saw a motorcycle a few cars behind. Thought to myself, "OK, when he comes behind me, I'll try to let him by." Less than two seconds later, he flew by me between the two lines of traffic, continued to weave round cars, came up to the two side-by-side lorries, and squeezed (the only word for it) between the two, barely six inches of clearance either side to the two vehicles, at probably another 60 mph above their speed. I didn't see him after that.
I'd not assessed his speed when I first saw him. I use my mirror fairly regularly and was a little surprised I'd not seen him further back, which should have alerted me. But my mirror glance was just that, enough to realise there were the twin headlights of a bike, not enough to see his relative movement. My concentration is mostly on what's ahead. Cars are too likely to swap lanes without warning in these traffic circumstances, hence my mirror micro-glance. And that means very few of the lane-swappers will have realised his speed.
Lane splitting is perfectly legal, provided it is safe. This example was clearly NOT safe.
David died of cancer. This squid is going to die sooner rather than later. He will cause his family, as well as colleagues of erixun, a lot of grief. Very likely cause some other innocent people grief as well.
It is simply not fair that Squid will die quickly, whereas David has been suffering for many months. But then, I suppose, life (and death) isn't fair.
[rant (one of many)]
There are too few police patrolling our roads. Plenty of speed cameras, but these don't assess driving safety (and the forward-facing ones can't see the number plate of a motorcycle). Please, please, please give us back our police patrol cars and motorcycles.
[/rant]
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