2 down but not me

So just what are the chances that there should be *two* bike accidents
outside my flat yesterday morning within three hours of each other?

Firstly a friend managed to lob his bike just a few metres from my flat.
Apparently, the back end just stepped out without warning and he's still
none the wiser as to why that should have happened. He'd just filled up
with petrol so thinks he may have picked up a bit of diesel at the
petrol station, but who knows.

Then a few hours later whilst I standing outside my flat, I watched a
GS1200 go by. Then I noticed a car just about to pull out of a side
street. The car stopped, the elderly driver looked directly at the
biker and then proceeded to pull out in front of him! Needless to say
the biker flew some feet over the bonnet, but miraculously was uninjured
except for a bruised thumb. The bike didn't come out of it quite so
lightly.

So after all that, I decided that yesterday would not be a good day to
take the bike out for a ride, and decided to go out and get drunk
instead

Nothing happens for ages and then it all happens in one day.

Now would you all stop lobbing your bikes please!

 

Speed cameras, traffic plod, media witch hunts, but the stupid cnuts
don't even require a driver to pass an annual eye test or note on the
driving licence whether contacts/glasses are required.

 

I think you'll find that code "01" on your driving licence equals "Eye
Correction"

It lisks it next to my full A, B, B1 and f, k & p entitlements as well
as the provisional BE and GH entitlements.

 

Really? that's news to me!

Still the visual test needs to be much more strenuous and renewed
annually IMHO

 

Uproar as 70% of UKRM lose their entitlement to ride...

 

Hog wrote

Snot yer eyes going wrong so much as the brain behind it. A moving blur
is still just as much a hazard as a moving sharp focus. If you fail to
register the moving part the accident will still happen regardless of
it's clarity.

I am also not convinced that wrinklies see worse. Once you are in
glasses you become much more aware of small deteriorations in your
vision than some 30/40 something who has not yet realised just how bad
their eyes are getting and how overdue they are for their first pair.

 

gbzzl wrote

Once you have reached the stage where you need/first get bins you do get
regular eye tests.

I need new bins about every 2-3 years and the stage of deterioration at
which I get them is well above that which drove me to specsavers in the
first place.

Getting close to the truff.

 

I trust you offered yourself as a witness?

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, The Older

Well, that'd certainly take the poor bugger's mind off the bruised
thumb.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer as featured in
Performance Bikes and Fast Bikes

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha Vmax Honda ST1100 wiv trailer

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, steve auvache

You get *invited* for regular eye tests. Doesn't mean that most people
go for them.

I was chatting to the nice lady who was taking photos of my retinas a
few weeks back. This get offered to all diabetics in my area once a
year, and is the *only* way to tell if you're getting retinal bleeds
that can be simply taken care of with a laser. If they're not taken care
of, you go blind. Big incentive to attend, yes?

She gets roughly 50% no-shows.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer as featured in
Performance Bikes and Fast Bikes

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha Vmax Honda ST1100 wiv trailer

 

Wicked Uncle Nigel wrote

I wasn't even thinking of diabetics, I was considering normal wear and
tear rather than the few exceptions to the rule.

Before your first eye test you will allow your eyes to deteriorate to a
point where you can't see. Once you have bins and know what bad eyes
mean and how much a pair of bins improve this you won't allow them to
get that bad again without a replacement.

Although, with regards to the above statement, I get new bins not so
much because of the ongoing sad state of my eyes but because the glasses
themselves have accumulated enough damage that they get hard to see out
of. So, in a sense, I am ahead of the game and I suspect this holds
true for most glasses wearers.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, steve auvache

I'm not getting my point across. If people who *know* they are at a
raised risk of blindness fail to show up for tests, what are the chances
that someone who just needs glasses will?

I disagree. And I wear contacts, so I know what a difference proper
eyesight correction makes. The problem is that eyesight deterioration
creeps up very gradually. If you woke up one day and thought "Ooh, my
eyes are all blurry", then you'd go and get them checked. For many
people the change is so slow that it's un-noticed.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer as featured in
Performance Bikes and Fast Bikes

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha Vmax Honda ST1100 wiv trailer

 

Wicked Uncle Nigel wrote

I take your point, I was just ignoring it. This is ukrm after all.

I dunno why this should happen. I can only presume that it is something
to do with the cost of glasses and the fact that opticians like dentists
make their money from overselling.

Yebbut the point I am failing to get across is that you will tend to get
a new set of lenses long before your (assisted) sight gets to the point
where you first needed them. My example is that before I bought my
first pair of bins I would not be able to read this without a great deal
of squinting and sore eyes and headaches and shit. These days it tends
to be when I have accumulated enough scratches on the lenses that night
riding becomes a psychedelic experience without recourse to mind
altering drugs.

 

"exceptions"? Half of UKRM is diabetic, due to chronic obesity. Serves the
fat bastards right.

 

I'm with WUN on this. I went to have my eyes checked after skipping a
few years. I really didn't notice blurry until the doc showed me what it
was supposed to look like. Rather eye opening as it were.

 

Tell me about it. I paid €550 for my last pair of specs (nuthin special
apart from the CK frames). Luckily it was reimbursed by the guvvemint
and my insurance scheme.

€550! I tell ya. It's not bloody surprising that people don't want to
go for tests in the UK [1], if they're that expensive. I don't
understand how manufacturers can stich up people like this. Even my
contacts are a damn sight cheaper than that.

[1] I _am_ assuming that prices are pretty much like for like between
the two countries.

 

platypus wrote

Chronic understates it somewhat, imho.

Indeed.

 

I was trying to be diplomatic.

They should be rendered down to fuel shipping.

 

gbzzl wrote

"I would wear them ossifer but them metal frames interfere wiv me mobile
signal summat chronic"

 

"Ooh, look - it's all swollen and throbbing ..."