I'd Like To Think ...

.... that I saved someone's life today.

It is decreed on UKRM that 'taking the piss' out of motorists isn't nice,
except when done by a select few, or by a goil. I'm neither, so this post
will probably incite the usual flames and infantile insults, but in my
defence, maybe this wasn't 'taking the piss'.

This morning, I'm filtering gently between lane 2 and 3, say around 60
km/h, maybe ten to fifteen clicks faster than the surrounding traffic. As
I'm going between a sort of Renault Espace on my right, and a small
hatch thingy on my left, the former sort of 'wavers'. I drop a cog and as
I'm pulling ahead, a quick glance to my right, tells me why: the driver had
a magazine perched on the steering wheel, and he was reading.

I pull into lane 2 ahead of him, and then into lane 1, and he comes up on
my left. I keep pace with him, and glance across, and sure enough, not
only is the thing perched on his steering wheel, but in reading it, he's
spending periods of a good five or six seconds at a time, reading it, i.e.
_not_ looking at the road ahead.

I keep pace with him whilst at the same time keeping my distance from the
car in front, and after about a minute, he notices me. He looks at me, I
look at him, and he keeps on reading. Ten seconds later, and he looks back
over, realises in fact that I'm deliberately staying level with him, and
slowly, doing his best to look as if he'd been intending to do it all
along, he takes the book off the wheel and closes it on the passenger seat.

I accelerate away, back between lanes 2 and 3, and half an hour later, I'm
here.

All the time whilst next to that car, I couldn't help but wonder if, when
he 'SMIDSYed' someone, would he admit to having been reading, or would it
be, 'that bike just came out of nowhere !' ? I'd like to think that two
minutes after I fucked off, a bike filtered down his offside that he
_wouldn't_have_ seen, if he'd still been reading.

 

I'd have been content with him knowing I'd seen him doing that, then I'd
have fecked off into the distance. My alarm bells start to go off if I'm
close to such people, then I just want to get away and leave the
accident waiting to happen in my dust.

You're still alright, so it must have been ok thing to do, maybe.

 

That's probably going to be the consensus, i.e. that I should just have
fucked off etc., complete with the requisite 'surrealist' post by porl
about my being not fit to ride a bike.

I just have principles which say it's just not right to endanger other
peoples' lives. *shrug* I can't say, 'I'm all right, Jack', and sod off,
because I think of the poor **** who's going to come along behind me, and
who _won't_ react in time, and will end up on the road. I've had to pick
my fair share of fellow motorcyclists off the tarmac, and frankly, it
pisses me off that drivers _still_ do the stupidest things...

 

We all know, and it has probably been spouted here many times before, that
the best way to get car drivers to waken up and especially "think bike" -
never mind having them just think - would be to get the fuckers out on a
bike for at least six months before they get near a car.

This will never happen because I don't think that the government has the
balls and I don't think they could deal with the mass carnage as all the
dizzy idiots ended up under the wheels of buses.

They'd rather ban bikes first. If you'd had an accident this morning it
would most likely have been construed and twisted to be your fault.

I am of the piss off and get the hell out of there mentality. We've all
got to look out for number one when we're out on our bikes I'm afraid.

 

You're Sir.Tony aren't you.

 

<frantic denials>

How dare you ??

 

They would make a great couple - the insane and the inane.

Phil

 

Gaz, for the love of everything the good lord made in heaven above and
beyond do NOT listen to froggie if you want to live. He's posted about his
lack of confidence (self-confessed) and lack of understanding (tacit) in
operating a motorcycle safely. He's argued his impatience with, and
aggression for, other vehicle drivers and even pedestrians. There's no way
of knowing whether his assessment of the situation was even as he described
let alone a point in discussing his histrionic stress reaction afterwards.
He's been told he shouldn't be on a bike and yet he continues to ride, no
doubt endangering everyone around him.

 

<surreal-o-meter>
1.5

Nah ... try harder.

 

More and more, I'm beginning to think that the best way to get drivers to
'waken up', is with a 9mm between the eyes ..

 

"Des goes squicking"

 

****. I've just had to avoid explaining to Laura why I'm laughing.