Think of the children

'ere. I misused it first, up there somewhere. Pip has merely been led
astray.

 

Sorby secured a place in history by writing:

*Legally*, which I clarified in the same post.

What is? I think you have a real problem separating what the law can
possibly put any framework around from my and your skills as a rider. If am
driving / riding in a fashion that the law deems acceptable, it's ludicrous
to suggest that I should be held responsible for an accident that happens
milliseconds later, whilst continuing to do so. I might well look at the
events after the fact and feel dreadful that I had failed to anticipate it,
but there is no way the law should step in to suddenly make me in some
sense responsible. It's just so nonsensical that I really struggle to
understand you thinking this "preposterous".

You can't disagree strongly with something that offers both possibilities,
only one of them - so I don't know what you mean. If the latter statement,
then I think you mean quite the opposite (read it again).

But the law already does this. The topic is moving the responsibility, not
creating it.

I don't. I think you're talking nonsense.

Often the case - I've never had an accident yet that I couldn't look at and
think I might have avoided to at least some extent. But that *isn't* *the*
*point*.....

 

Any fule kno it's 'cwic', anyway.

 

It was a big monotreme wot did it an' ran away, guv'nor.

 

Don't get too happy. I think a lot of your talk of responsibility for
accidents is nonsense.

If I have a crash of some sort - involving another vehicle, or a
pedestrian or just me and the ground - then I would certainly be
questioning my riding before the incident to see if there was some way in
which I could improve my behaviour in future.

It is nearly always possible to avoid an "accident" with sufficient
forethought. But that does not mean that I blindly accept responsibility
for any incident I'm involved in. That smacks far too much of fault and
logically you'd have to agree that everyone involved would have to be
responsible, including all these hypothetical pedestrians.

I would accept that I could probably improve my riding; I accept that I
have a responsibility to myself to do so where I can. Acknowledging that
sort of responsibility I'm not going to hold much of a grudge against the
other parties involved - provided they accept accountability for their own
actions. But I'm not taking the blame for an incident which was
essentially caused by someone else's mistake.

I lock my front door, becaue that's sensible. But if I forgot that
wouldn't make *me* responsible if someone robbed me.

 

"craic"

 

No, you've misunderstood. I don't mean responsibility after an accident I
mean responsibility to prevent one.

 

Enjoying yourself, are you?

 

I'm sorry but in this context your comedy apostrophes are a little
confusing. I can't tell what's sarcastic and what's not.

 

Don't know, it's not my job. But in my experience most mums are shit drivers
and distracted by just about everything bar what they're supposed to be
doing in a car.

Having said that I maintain that each case should be judged on the
individual circumstances. Might be a bit grey for you but things haven't
been black and white for me since I was about 10. I'm also not naive enough
to believe that each case could be judged on those individual circumstances
but I don't believe that this absolves us of extra responsibility in our
supposedly superior position of being bikers with specialist skills out
having a laugh.

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the

The whole notion of control is bollocks anyway. All we do is roughly
point something in the approximate direction where we want it to go and
correct it all the time. True 'control' would involve being able to stop
on a sixpence, turn on a tanner, and leap over tall buildings.

In the absence of such 'control', I content myself with trying to knock
down as few peds as possible within the control limitations of my
machine of the day.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10

 

That's exactly what he's been saying ffs.

 

You missed 'thrupenny bit through corners' How do you rate sherbert
fountains?

 

Sorby wrote:

Is this the granny that Porl had on his bonnet?

http://www.snopes.com/photos/risque/carhood.asp#photo01

 

Verdigris secured a place in history by writing:

Nice analogy.

 

porl?

S'up grandpappy Walton?

 

But the law doesn't *just* require you to drive at a safe speed for the
prevailing weather conditions!
And besides - you can't rely on the law to *prevent* you having an
accident!!
The law is only any used to you after the event - and only then if, in their
eyes, you're found to be blameless.

I'm really not interested in the law - or the legalities of who is to blame.
I'm not prepared to rely on the law to *prevent* me having an accident in
the first place. The odds are too poor.

Hmm - dunno what happened there - but whatever it was - I disgree! )

I'm trying to say that everyone should take as close to 100% responsibility
for their own safety as possible - rather than getting too comfy with your
legal framework and depending on the common sense of pedestrians to
guarantee the remaining % of responsibility.

NO - if you have an accident it is always the case that you have made a
mistake (not necessarily broken the law). That is self-evident!!
The mistake may simply be not anticipating a risk - or putting yourself in a
position where you no longer have control over whether an accident happens
or not.

Listen - I know you have valid points. I think I have valid, if idealistic,
points. But I think we're arguing about different things.
The only way to discuss your argument is to hypothesise about individual
incidents and decide who the law would find to blame.
My argument is far far simpler and doesn't require us to examine an
individual incidents - real or otherwise - so long as you accept my premiss
that if you have an accident then you must be at least partially at fault.
And since you don't accept this premiss (which is fine by me) then we're
just chasing each others tails to no real end.

Shall we call it a day?

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the

About the same as penny caramels.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10

 

Sorby secured a place in history by writing:

So what else does it require you to do?

Bzzztt. Two exclamation marks, it's all going awry.....

Their? Used?

Hmmm. Indeed.

I do. I'm also 'comfy' with the law as it stands. It's not at all
incompatible with my position.

Ho hum, yes, what is the point that you are making? This says nothing about
where the responsibilty for the accident, in law, should lie.

Two exclamation marks.....

Frail old woman falls out of a window on my head as I ride past. My fault?

....ie (see above) by going out on your motorcycle.....

I've always accepted this premise (note spelling), you just haven't
noticed, so keen are you to have an argument about something else (possibly
anything else).

If you've found something else to divert you, I won't be offended....

 

You've gone all serious of late. Either ditch the foreign bird, or
I'll suggest we reinstate the formerly funny AndrewR as resident comic.