Generally you will find me in accord with the Devil’s Kitchen on most things – even if I don’t swear quite as much.
This morning he has a fine old rant about motorcycles. Clearly someone has nipped past him a little bit too close for comfort. The issue seems to revolve around the cost – or not – of parking bikes:
Can someone tell me why some cunt from the TPA has asked me to join a group on Facebook protesting about the fact that some place somewhere is asking motorcyclists to pay for parking?
Fuck them: car owners have to pay for parking—why should motorcyclists not do the same? I’m sorry, but can anyone tell me why motorcyclists should not pay for parking—is it the case that motorcycles magically disappear, not taking up any space, when they are parked?
So, no, I absolutely believe that motorcyclists should pay for parking; especially cunting moped-riders: they should be made to pay through the nose in return for all of the fucking trouble they cause on the roads.
Shortly before leaving the UK, my local authority (South Gloucestershire) removed the charges for its pay and display car parks. I believe that this is because something similar was happening with other authorities. Bikes had long had a free parking bay. Indeed since I have been riding (since 1975) I have rarely paid to park the bike.
One of the advantages of a bike is that it takes up less space than a car, can be parked more efficiently and is generally (certainly for the smaller ones) more fuel efficient in traffic. Indeed, even my R1150RT is frequently moving when cars are at a standstill.
The question DK should be asking here is not why don’t bikers pay for parking, but, as council tax payers who therefore pay for the facilities provided by the council, why are drivers of other vehicles forced to pay for their parking?
The rant then goes into some of the more predictable complaints I’ve encountered over the years:
I keep seeing and hearing government-sponsored adverts about how “two motorcyclists a week are killed or seriously injured”: anyone who drives a car could tell you why—because the stupid cunts do not follow the rules of the road.
Pretty much all of them are cocks and deserve all that they get. The only thing that worries me is that car owners are almost always blamed and that they feel in some way guilty for causing accidents.
Well, actually the single biggest factor(pdf) – some 38% – in motorcycle accidents is drivers who emerge into the rider’s path – so, yes, drivers are blamed with good cause. It is also worth bearing in mind here that riding a motorcycle and staying alive requires more skill and concentration than driving a car. I have ridden and driven both professionally and trained riders and drivers of both. Given that experience, I would choose the bike every time; the level of skill required makes it a more satisfying vehicle to use. Being a rider, I am well aware of bikes approaching when I emerge from junctions.
There is a school of thought that says every road user should spend some time on two wheels before graduating to four. There was a time when people did that as a matter of course. These days, many new drivers have little or no experience of two wheels and therefore have no comprehension of the tenuous relationship twixt tarmac and rubber and make little allowance for riders coping with adverse conditions. I’ve nearly been run off the road by such drivers.
Still, I’m getting a little off topic here. During the discussion that followed, DK’s position was tempered somewhat – indeed one rascal suggested that the original post was somewhat alcohol fuelled, the rapscallion. I cannot possibly comment… I do find it disappointing when entrenched positions develop in such discussions – “all bikers are suicidal idiots”, “all cyclists are morons who don’t obey traffic lights” and “all drivers are blind fools”. It doesn’t help. I use all of the above mentioned means of transport, so am acquainted with the difficulties each presents – to both the user and others.
This little comment from Chalcedon struck me:
The B660 is a biker magnet. But when you see them they are going well over the limit. I’m doing 60 or even only 50 because of the bends and one just zooms past at 80 or 90. One bastard was on my side of the road as I was entering a bend as the stupid fucker was overtaking. I thought he was going to ram me, but he recovered just in time. A brown trouser moment indeed.
To which, I responded thus:
So? And drivers of other vehicles don’t? Also bear in mind, that breaking a speed limit is not the same thing as riding or driving too fast for the prevailing conditions. Blanket speed limits merely cater for the lowest common denominator, their relationship to a safe speed will depend on the conditions at the time, the ability and alertness of the driver and condition of the vehicle. The questions is, are these riders travelling too fast for the conditions, not whether they are exceeding an arbitrary posted limit – every driver and rider exceeds these at some point.
There is a clear difference between the legal speed and a safe one – as I tried to discuss with Neil Harding at some length last year (waste of time, but there you go). So telling me that these people were breaking the speed limit impresses me not one jot. The story he relates refers to one rider overtaking inappropriately – the rest may well have been riding rapidly but safely.
During my advanced training, I would “dither” at around 50 – 60mph on B roads and was told to “make progress” by my riding instructor (a class 1 Police rider at the time). The lesson being taught was that it is safe to make rapid progress.
Anyway Chalcedon complains about mopeds:
Moped riders…..yep. Hate them. 30 mph on a 60 mph road and often no way to overtake them safely.
So travel at 30mph until you can. Or is your journey that important?
A little more consideration for other road users please, people.
And finally:
I’m thinking of attaching scythes to my wheels in order to kill more of the two-wheeled cunts…
In which case, shall I put in for my rocket launcher now? I think I could fit one just under the steering head. Might affect the handling a bit, but the roads will be clearer…
I do indeed slow down to 30 mph and overtake them if and when it is safe to do so. But it is still annoying. Especially the very high pitched whine that these things generate. Not to mention the smell from the exhaust. Carcinogenic no doubt.
I posted up to you on DK BTW (and I wasn’t rude and no swearing). Just to say that as bad news tends to sell papers, you only tend to remember the incident re a biker, not the many other sensible motorcyclists you see.
I’ve responded over there, too.
An anonymous commenter made a valid point about mopeds; that they are restricted, so it isn’t their fault they are dawdling at 30 – 35mph. At one time, mopeds could travel at speeds of up to 60mph. The smell would be from two stroke oil. It’s no more carcinogenic than four stroke fumes so far as I am aware. Some of us quite like it – it is evocative of a past age.
All the more reason to take a step back and look beyond the silly emotional arguments 😉
Silly, emotional arguments!!!! LOL. OK. Everyone that I see on a moped, which really isn’t that often, is not wearing any real protection other than a helmet so it is a good thing that their speed is restricted. Still annoying to be stuck behind one though. I’m not the most patient of people but I don’t do anything to put the other party at risk.
And I didn’t make the scythes on wheels comment either. That was only DK.
Oh, yes, I realise who made the scythes comment 😉
As for protection, when you are travelling at double figures, very little protection short of a metal box is much use in the event of a spill as organs and the brain tend to move about with the inertia. I do regard not wearing gloves, boots and some sort of abrasion protection as negligent, but well, their choice. So be it. There are many motorcyclists who claim that there should be laws demanding that we wear such stuff – usually when they see some berk riding in nothing more than shorts and sandals during the summer. But as far as I am concerned, they are aware of the effect of gravel and tarmac on skin and choose to take the risk.
I don’t think that restriction of moped speed is a good idea. It makes them unnecessarily vulnerable and unable to accelerate out of trouble should the need arise – and, at its most basic, it limits their ability to move with traffic, causing the very frustration that you mention. Not all drivers are patient and considerate. This places the rider in greater danger than allowing them to travel at a decent speed, but politicians are terminally thick, I’m afraid.
OK, OK, not one of my more finely crafted posts. One of these days I shall put up a well-considered piece on why I dislike bikes in general…
I just wanted to pick you up on this…
The answer to that, of course, is that is seems to me that it is only right that those who want to use said facilities, i.e. those with vehicles to park, should pay for them so that those who do not have vehicles do not have to do so.
It would, of course, be nice if that applied to all council services – why the hell should I pay for libraries that I don’t use, for instance – but it doesn’t.
If one is going to argue from that point of view, however, surely it is better that those who actually use the services pay for the services, rather than everyone having a higher tax bill?
DK
Fair point – however, I’m arguing from the present position – i.e. we already pay for these services, so why should we pay twice, which is what is happening. South Gloucester council did the right thing in my opinion.
Actually, I don’t use the local library (preferring to buy the books I want to read) but I have no problem with my council tax paying for it, as I consider it a useful resource that I may want to use. I don’t have children, but I have no problem with my taxes being used to fund education as I consider the future is important even to those of us who remain childless. By funded, I don’t necessarily mean state provided, of course – I’ve seen first hand the results of that, thankyou very much.
If we had a position where the council did not pay for these facilities through council tax, then you would have a valid argument, I think. In which case, as bikes take up less room, are more efficient, help to ease traffic congestion and create less wear and tear, the fees would be proportionally lower.
No one is asking you to like ’em, just stand by the rights of those of us who do, to do so free from state interference. As one of your commenters pointed out; we are frequently at the sharp end of authoritarian behaviour on the part of governments, being a small and relatively unpopular minority. First they came for the Jews etc, and all that. I don’t smoke – detest it even – but I have stood resolutely behind the smokers. I don’t drink – can’t stand the taste – but will man the barricades with the soaks. I’m not fat… You get the picture, I think.
And you are right, not one of your finer pieces 😉
“…drivers who emerge into the bike’s path…”
Yes, because said drivers – quite reasonably – don’t expect anything to be moving at 80mph+ on an ordinary country road.
Nor do they expect bikes to overtake by driving IN BETWEEN them and another vehicle which they are already overtaking.
Both these have happened to me and I managed to avoid an accident by being awake and alert – and quite lucky. In either case, I would have had a write-off and they would have been dead.
If bikers drove at legal speeds and observed the law they would not get into half as much trouble.
I do. I expect every other road user to be driving or riding like an idiot. It’s called defensive driving. That the other road user may be exceeding the speed limit or doing something stupid is no excuse. And, frankly, most of those accidents occur at fairy low speeds in urban areas where 80mph+ is pretty nigh impossible anyway. High speed accidents are more likely to involve loss of control or a head on through poor overtaking decisions. Someone I knew on-line was killed a year ago in just those circumstances.
What we are talking about here is a combination of incompetence and laziness – a quick glance instead of a proper look.
You are falling into the same trap as DK in stating that bikers don’t obey the law, when what you should say is some bikers just as some cyclists, some truckers and some drivers fail to obey the law.
The one time I was knocked off my bike, I was travelling at about 20mph having just left one junction and approaching the one where the vehicle emerged into my path. She didn’t see me… It’s not happened in the intervening thirty years because I expect myopic drivers to emerge at every junction I approach, so when they do, I am ready for them.
LR,
I don’t think that you can definitively say that we are already paying for these services unless you have seen the council’s full accounts.
For instance, it may be that the government hand-out plus council tax is enough to pay for schools, libraries, etc. but not enough to pay for repairs to parking surfaces — and thus the parking charges are used to fund said repairs. (I am not particularly defending the councils here, but I just don’t think that you can assume that you are paying twice over for said services, even theoretically.)
Where I drive, i.e. London, the vast majority of bikers, for instance, overtake with no regard for whether the other carriageway is clear: they expect the cars to move to one side to accommodate the fact that the biker can’t be arsed to sit in a clue. This is dangerous driving, as far as I am concerned.
Also, we are always told that we should allow bikes the same clearance as we allow a car — and yet the vast majority of bikers do not allow car drivers the same respect, e.g. weaving inbetween stopped (or moving) cars.
In other words, the vast majority of bikers drive in a manner that I consider to be dangerous. And I consider it to be dangerous because a single lapse of concentration, on either side, could result in a serious accident.
Many car drivers do drive dangerously too, but there appears to be an attitude amongst bikers that car drivers should adapt their behaviour to suit said bikers’ dangerous driving — and in doing so they fail to acknowledge that car drivers have enough to do to remain safe on the road without the added strain of having to factor in bikers who cannot be arsed to obey the rules of the road.
No, it is not all bikers — but, in London at least, it seems to be the vast majority. And don’t even get me started on cyclists…
DK
London is but a small part of the UK, and one I avoid like the plague. Driving on the part of all road users is abysmal compared to the rest of the country, frankly. How any traffic moves through there is a mystery to me. I recently had to get from Wandsworth to Rochester with the A2 blocked at Lewisham. Over two hours crawling through congested roads merely underpinned my absolute hatred for the place.
Yes, drivers should allow a decent amount of room when passing bikes. We may wobble, for example, or swerve to avoid a pothole or other hazard and it really, really pisses me off when people pass too close in freezing conditions making no allowance whatsoever for the road conditions. When filtering, we make full use of our lack of width because we are in control of the vehicle.
Filtering through stationery traffic queues is a legitimate manoeuvre and one that I will use to minimise sitting around in traffic – that is one of the benefits of a bike. However, to reduce that safety margin my safety margin of width is my prerogative, not other road users. This is not the same as weaving through moving traffic – something often observed in the capital and Despatch riders are particularly prone. I make no attempt to defend bad riding.
On the matter of parking – the council provides the service. I can’t say that I am much concerned if they spend it elsewhere or don’t get enough from central government, I pay the tax (well, I used to), therefore, I expect the service. If they spent it on something else, that’s their problem, not mine and I don’t expect to pay twice. South Gloucestershire are probably ahead of the game on this one in making their pay and display car parks free.
On the matter of adapting to others’ dangerous behaviour; if you don’t, sooner or later you will have an accident. Adapting to others’ behaviour, whether they expect it or not is the crux of defensive driving.