Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length.

[alan colson]

This weekend there was a Rockers Revival of some sort along the South Coast, the A24 was like a racetrack the idiots showing no respect for other road users. At one stage having just overtaken another car I saw a large group of motorcycles coming up fast behind me. I was indicating left to pull back into the nearside lane and bikers doing what must have been 100 MPH passed me on both sides. My personal opinion of these people riding these big bikes is that they should be priced off the road. £1000 a year road tax and very high insurance premiums to pay for scraping them up off the road.
Alan

[dougal99]

I wonder why we are constantly enjoined to 'Think Bike' when the bikers themselves (or most of them I see) seem hell bent  on doing their best to collide with other road users by dangerous overtaking snd exceeding the speed limit.

Funnily enough I've just returned from holiday in Colorado and Wyoming where I saw lots of motor cyclists mostly Harleys who rode very responsibly. I was followed for about 30 miles on a mountain road by a group of about 12 who maintained a realistic distance and did not try to pass until I turned off. Eminently sensible.

JMO

Doug

[Subculture]

Why price responsible bikers off the road for the sake of an irresponsible few?

[Colin Bishop]

I agree, target the delinquents rather than spread the grief.

[Bunkerbarge]

Come on guys be fair, so every time I see a Subaru Imprezza driven by a teenage lunatic in a similar fashion I am entitled to think that all car drivers should be considered in the same manner?

Deal with the individuals irrespective of the vehicle they are driving not some ridiculous blanket approach because you have preconcieved predudices.  I have driven motorcycles now for thirty years, am a member of Rospa and hold a Gold standard advanced motorcycle test certificate so I speak from a good deal of experience and probabaly more than the vast majority of car drivers.  

There are idiots on bikes and there are idiots in cars, lets deal with them all appropriately.  

[nhp651]

like all things in life, the minority give the MAJORITY  a very bad name.
i agree with subculture that a motor cycle is a very safe and enjoyable form of transport, if ridden in a responsible manner, and the usual culprits are the "born again banker's" , oooops sorry, freudian slip there, i ment bikers. who think that now they can afford such high powered machines they are immune from the usual laws of the road.

[andygh]

In nearly 30 years as a motorcyclist and having ridden everything from a moped to very fast superbikes I have had 5 "accidents". One was caused by an irresponsible idiot leaving diesel all over the road and the other four were all car/van drivers who weren't looking where they were going

Tax for idiots who refuse to look before pulling away at a junction and chavs who drive cars with stereos more powerful than their engines should be £10,000 IMHO 

[alan colson]

Judging by the amount of idiot bikers on the road this Sunday, they certainly did not seem like the minority to me, there seemed to be hundreds of them.
Alan

[sheerline]

I tend to disagree with NHP on this one, most of the 'born again bikers are usually older blokes who survived the mad testoreroned youthful stage and so have regard for their own mortality. From my experience, being a biker, I find most of the irresponsible biking is down to youthful madness, young bucks trying to prove themselves and impress their mates... all young men appear to go through this stage. The problem is they have to do something dangerous to really earn themselves so called respect and if you give them a two wheeled missile or powerful car or indeed anything else that is life threatning, they will thrash it to within an inch of their lives and risk everyone elses just for the hell of it.
I spoke to one such rider recently who reckoned if you went past a speed camera at speeds of 150mph and the like, it couldn't get you as it is unable to take your pic at these speeds... could be bull.... but you never know. They even go to the lengths of wrapping the camera in clingfilm if they want to use a certain stretch of road so they can race all day whilst the camera flashes its head off with zero pics logged. These are not the actions of older blokes who have spent their hard eaned dosh on a dream bike, they are the actions of young hotheads.
If they really wanted to do something about it, they should police the roads better and maybe disqualify riders more readily for what is considered dangerous driving.... and crush the bikes! Anything you do on a bike which is not within the road safety act should be considered dangerous, if not to others then to yourself!

[puffer boy dom som]

HAVING AGO AT BIKE RIDERS.....I DON'T BELIEVE IT !!!! TAKE A LOOK ON THE ROADS TODAY IDIOTS EVERYWHERE IN CAR,LORRIES,VANS & BIKES,RACING AROUND AS IF THE OWN THE ROADS/CAR RAGE ON THE INCREASE...IT'S NOT WHAT THEIR DRIVING BUT WHO'S DRIVING...WHERE AS US PEADESTRIANS SET A MUCH MORE CIVILISED EXAMPLE.

[catengineman]

BAN bad drivers Oh dear Oh dear

OK watch the tv and there is a program POLICE CAMERA ACTION and the drivers they find still driving with a ban !

Conviction, crush = deterant IMHO

Me I have a clean driving record Motor Cycle ADI HGV 'STGO' and PSV, though PSV & HGV are not in use (DVLA notified) due to a heart problem some years ago.

R,

[das boot]

Hmm..it's an old cherry, this one. I hold several driving licences for various classes of vehicles as does catengineman, and during my years on the roads I reckon I've seen most things. There are dangerous drivers driving all classes of vehicles, not just motorcyclists, but car drivers, truckers, bus drivers..all sorts. I'd put money on the fact that all of us have at some time, probably a few years ago in several cases, have been as guilty of doing silly things on the roads as the bikers the original post was about. I have, I admit it...I've done the magic 'ton' across the A259 between Eastbourne and Bexhill many times, on a Norton Dominator SS, done it in a C type Jaguar (as a passenger that time) done it in my street rod many times...I've been guilty as hell of exceeding the speed limits whilst I was a trucker, we used to think nothing of putting the hammer down as soon as we hit a straight bit of road and keeping it there (what's a speed limiter?) and I guess we all have done likewise.

I've also seen some bl**dy outright dangerous driving by all classes of driver in all classes of vehicle...it's not just bikers, guys...we are all guilty of speeding and doing silly things at times.

I was stopped by a policeman last week in Heathfield ( a little village in Sussex) driving at 34mph in a 30 zone in a council van. I got a well deserved lecture from the man, was told I'd be receiving an official caution, and then told to leave...at a respectable speed.

Hit those that drive recklessly and hit them hard...not those who break the speed limits by a few miles an hour, but those who insist on driving with careless abandon and totally ignore other road users. Bikers, public service vehicle drivers, car drivers (young and old), truckers...whatever they may be, hit those who deserve to be hit, but don't tar every driver/biker with the same brush.

That's my two pennyworth....

Rich

[catengineman]

 

I think thats what I meant to say

 

R,

[das boot]

Same as your goodself, my licences are as clean now as the day they were issued to me, but I have been lucky a couple of times. Since I took over driving a sweeper ( 4mph in sweep mode for 80% of my working day) I seem to drive a lot slower than I used to...the girlfriend is always calling me an silly old fool and tells me I should be buying a Volvo.   


Rich

[alan colson]

Catch them and crush the bikes, now I like that, that would have taken a good few hundred off the road yesterday. What I did not say earlier is that the A23 London to Brigton road seems to have had the same problem yesterday according to people I work with. I just experianced the A24 myself. There where so many bikes involved that the police could never cope.
Alan

[sheerline]

Yep, we've all done daft things and the only reason we are having this conversation is because we survived... and learned something. I am not claiming we should just crush bikes.. I love bikes and own one but what do you do about a problem with maniac drivers/ riders. It's no good just fining them or taking their licences away, they just stump up the fine and drive/ride anyway. If each time they were caught they lost their very means of demonstrating their prowess the message must at some time start to get through. Mr nutter on his  dream bike or in his stereo powered muscle mahine would really hate it if not only were he to lose his machine to the crusher but that if he were made to go along and forced to push the button himself.
If not this, then what is the answer... has anyone out there got one cos this is the only one I can come up with!
To be frank, it will never change, it has always been thus, and young bloods will always want to push the envelope no matter what the means available.
 

[das boot]

Makes good sense that...back in the days of "naughty" radio, our local man had his own way of dishing out punishment if you were caught. Your radio and everything that went with it was confiscated and you had the choice...take your punishment the legal way or his way. His way involved all your (sometimes) expensive radio equipment being laid out in a line on the floor and they you would be invited to destroy it. With a rather large hammer...

Man, does it ever hurt when you have to smash up a Yauesu FT707 complete with amplifier, mike, 11metre beam aerial and rotator and everything else you had.

Perhaps if the 'young bloods' were invited to destroy their souped up Citroen Saxo/Mitsubishi/Subaru/Nova/whatever/ it may make them think twice before they give the thing the wellie again? Or would it? I guess in many examples the answer would be "NO"...in the right places (and from the right people) you can buy these things for a song nowadays, so maybe it wouldn't be a deterrent.

How about being 'invited' to join the Army for a few months every time you got caught doing very silly things on the road? Now that may make a few of them think...an old RSM with the bristling walrus type moustache under their nose would be enough to put the sh*ts up an awful lot of the 'young bloods'. Worth a thought?

Rich

[andygh]

Catch them and crush the bikes

Nah, crushing cars is a much better idea, more room for bikes 

[catengineman]

A few months in the ARMY ! why not the NAVY that way when their time is up the should be in a different country   see if they can make their own way back.

Mind the attitude from some of late would be "apathy" am I bovered state will pay me for a new gizmo anyhow cos I m disadvantaged or suffer ADHAD yada yada yada

R,   no win no win comes to mind. but I could have fun crushing a few lumps of crud

[nhp651]

sorry, and yes, sheerline, I agree with you about born again bikers. I was doing, what I was saying we shouldn't..tarring all with the same brush, and I worded it badly
What I ment to say was those who could never afford a bike in their young and reckless days, now taking to the road with a motorcycle far too powerfull for them to handle.
In my day, many moons ago when my BSA RGS was but a couple of years old, the traffic was nowhere near what it is today, and the bikes weren't half as powerfull. you could get away with recklessness, and nothing has really changed with the motorcycle fraternity just yearning for a little speed and exitement.
If we think back.......we were just the same.
sadly though, now there is just too much traffic on the road to be reckless with, and the problem is much more noticable.

[Colin H]

BAN, BAN, BAN. Thats all I seem to hear these days, Ban bikes because of bad rider's Ban hand guns because of one total nutter. Ban knives because people get stabbed.

I carry a lock knife on my belt whilst at work PSO spots it and tries to give me grief. I ignore him and carry on into the house I am working in. 10 mins later PLOD arrives to back up PSO, threatened with arrest for having a bladed weapon in public. I take both to the back off my van and remove two 24" handsaws, two claw hammers, one club hammer and ask the question when is a knife not a knife? WHEN ITS A TOOL. Both walk away muttering as if demented.

What ever happened to being responsible for ones own actions. I would personally ban nothing just severely punish people who misuse everyday articles and perpetrate crime.

Rant over. Birthday today wife has bought me a selection of good bottled ales so will pop off and open one or maybe two.

Colin H.

[catengineman]

Happy birthday 

dont want to ban
just crush the egos and the stuff to teach lessons

R,

[Colin H]

Crush their cycle's a very big yes, same with untaxed and uninsured cars, no excuse straight to the crusher.

When you ban something its like society has a collective responsibility rather than making the offender responsable for their actions.


Colin H.

[andygh]

Colin H

sounds familiar, working as a maintenance techie airside at the airport I am happily allowed to carry knives, hammers, chisels, drills, saws etc. through security but I am not allowed to take a fork through to eat my lunch with, apparently it could be used as a weapon  ???  :-\

[Albion]

BAN, BAN, BAN. Thats all I seem to hear these days, Ban bikes because of bad rider's Ban hand guns because of one total nutter. Ban knives because people get stabbed.

I carry a lock knife on my belt whilst at work PSO spots it and tries to give me grief. I ignore him and carry on into the house I am working in. 10 mins later PLOD arrives to back up PSO, threatened with arrest for having a bladed weapon in public. I take both to the back off my van and remove two 24" handsaws, two claw hammers, one club hammer and ask the question when is a knife not a knife? WHEN ITS A TOOL. Both walk away muttering as if demented.

What ever happened to being responsible for ones own actions. I would personally ban nothing just severely punish people who misuse everyday articles and perpetrate crime.

Rant over. Birthday today wife has bought me a selection of good bottled ales so will pop off and open one or maybe two.

Colin H.

A friend is a 747 pilot and afew years back had his toenail scissors removed at security. He said he wasnt asking for special priviledges, but he does have a large axe in the cockpit with him so it seems a bit pointless removing his scissors.

In the event of a fire or smoke coming through the bulkheads they use the axe to find out WTF is going on.