Death Wish Motorcyclists

[Bluesman]

Tim you must live near by to me. I live within a few hundred yards of where we suffered lunatic motorcycle maniacs for years until eventually the police and council managed to get it shut down. I meant to show it to Pete milliepplod but couldn't find it. Mike.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1339237/The-decibel-hell-of-rural-Britain.html

[milleplod]

The Telegraph report is 14 years old.....you say the meet has been shut down. So, some motorcyclists used to get together and do antisocial stuff. They don't any more.

Or......how about "Motorcyclists in shock normal behaviour scenario"

......"In Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, on any Sunday or Bank Holiday when the weather's decent, upwards of 20,000 bikers come into the area from all directions. A few are caught speeding on the way in/out sometimes, but the vast majority ride safely and sensibly, with a huge amount of respect for the local area and its population. There is zero anti-social behaviour. These riders, sometimes carrying their wives, girlfriends or children as pillion passengers, spend lots of money in local businesses, which equates to very happy shopkeepers. Parents visiting the area take their children to look at all the bikes, its very much a friendly atmosphere. Derbyshire County Council runs BikeSafe events from the centre of Matlock Bath - riders have the opportunity to get their riding assessed for free by police or police-trained assessors. All-in-all, this mass-gathering of like-minded people enjoying themselves is a sight to behold, with local residents and business-owners alike in their praise for the people helping to keep their community alive and thriving."

Pete

[Dim Tim]

Hi Mike, we are close to Spitfire Bridge (South of M3 Junction 9), big roundabouts on dual and single carriageways.

From this junction there is the bendy A31 dual carriageway and the equally bendy single carriageway A272 with long straights. There are a number of linking roads whaich also appeal to motor cyclists.

The A272 goes to West Meon where there is a cafe (known as Loomies Moto Cafe, close to the Meon Hut) where there are collections of hundreds of bikes at all times. From there, there is a screaming fast A32 towards Four Marks and then loop back to the start at Winchester again!

Perhaps the cafe at the Meon Hut took over from the one at North Warnborough.

The main attraction seems to be that the roads are all very fast and the bike can be laid down to make the bends.

I have never tried to count the gear changes made but it does seem to go on and on.

[bluenose1940]

Up until recently we had a static caravan situated in Charmouth (Dorset) and we were sited very close to the A35. At night particularly, you could hear the motorcyclists hurtling down the long straight past the site, the engine sounds were unbelievable, heavens only knows what sort of speeds were being achieved. A blow-out at those sort of speeds..........................doesn't bear thinking about!

[Bluesman]

The Telegraph report is 14 years old.....you say the meet has been shut down. So, some motorcyclists used to get together and do antisocial stuff. They don't any more.

Or......how about "Motorcyclists in shock normal behaviour scenario"

......"In Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, on any Sunday or Bank Holiday when the weather's decent, upwards of 20,000 bikers come into the area from all directions. A few are caught speeding on the way in/out sometimes, but the vast majority ride safely and sensibly, with a huge amount of respect for the local area and its population. There is zero anti-social behaviour. These riders, sometimes carrying their wives, girlfriends or children as pillion passengers, spend lots of money in local businesses, which equates to very happy shopkeepers. Parents visiting the area take their children to look at all the bikes, its very much a friendly atmosphere. Derbyshire County Council runs BikeSafe events from the centre of Matlock Bath - riders have the opportunity to get their riding assessed for free by police or police-trained assessors. All-in-all, this mass-gathering of like-minded people enjoying themselves is a sight to behold, with local residents and business-owners alike in their praise for the people helping to keep their community alive and thriving."

Pete

It didn't actually stop completely untill some 7 years after that article but when ever it finished does not negate how those motorcycle nutters conducted themselves and their machines. As an ex policeman you know that a crime 20 years ago is still a crime today with all the antisocial behavior that goes with it. You only have to read the m/c bloggs and forums that still to this day moan about how heavy handed the police were and the races that they now miss on the roads around our area. As for numbers I wont get into the mine is bigger than your argument, 2000 or 5000, for the local population its murder. I wonder how long car drivers would get away with it turning up in huge numbers and then act like maniacs by showing off and racing around the roads.

They still pop up in numbers occasionally but as the Lord Derby is now a B&B with no facilities for bikers they don't hang around long and you can here them long into the distance winding their machines up to almost destruction levels. I am not having a go at you personally but to assume that large majority of bikers are good riders is in what I have experienced is the complete reverse of that. As for your statement "some motorcyclists used to get together and do antisocial stuff. They don't any more." No they have moved 15 miles down the road and do exactly the same there and the residents, council and police are now working hard to get that one shut down to. Mike.

[milleplod]

My point all along Mike has been this - you choose to tar all motorcyclists with the same brush......

(Me........"Have you ever seen a motorcycle ridden responsibly?"
You......."On the odd rare occasion and then its was a Police bike.")

........I don't do that.

You can't even bring yourself to say that you've seen a single, civilian motorcycle, in your presumably many years of driving, being ridden properly. That's a nonsense.

Motorcyclists aren't all the same, they never will be. None of us should stereotype people from a certain group based on what we see a minority of that group doing. And no matter what you say, you've only ever seen a minority of a huge group misbehaving.

Pete

[Bluesman]

My point all along Mike has been this - you choose to tar all motorcyclists with the same brush......

(Me........"Have you ever seen a motorcycle ridden responsibly?"

You......."On the odd rare occasion and then its was a Police bike.")

........I don't do that.

You can't even bring yourself to say that you've seen a single, civilian motorcycle, in your presumably many years of driving, being ridden properly. That's a nonsense.

Motorcyclists aren't all the same, they never will be. None of us should stereotype people from a certain group based on what we see a minority of that group doing. And no matter what you say, you've only ever seen a minority of a huge group misbehaving.

Pete

Pete. I am sure you are a great bloke but I am only telling you what my experience with m/c is. This morning I went to the bakers, 5 miles there and 5 miles back. Heavy rain with lots of leaves on the ground as you would expect in the rural setting I live in, there is a stretch of road that used to hold the record for having the longest set of double white lines in the country, speed for the road is 40 all of a sudden there is a m/c 2/3 feet off my rear bumper with his headlights on full beam into my rear view mirror (that's another one of my beefs with m/c why do they ride around with their headlights on full beam?) I was doing 40mph but after a few hundred yards he had had enough of that and over the double white lines he goes and accelerates too a speed high enough to take him and bike into orbit. There has been several deaths of m/cs along this road because of a farm entrance and you have tractors and the milk lorry which always has trouble backing in and out of the entrance all the deaths have happened there and there is all sorts of road signage to warn traffic this is an accident black spot but it made no difference to him/her. I didn't see any other m/cs so that's todays experience of lunatic m/cs. We have had one member of the family killed 3 years ago 25 yrs old on a m/c and it was estimated he hit a tree at 90mph, he was a lovely boy and always a pleasure to be around but when he got on that bike down comes the red mist with the only outcome that shouldn't have been a surprise to any one. Mike.

[milleplod]

But....they're not all like that, and they never will be. End of.

Pete

[Spacewagon52]

I think the only difference between car drivers and motorcycle riders is the fact that on a motorcycle you are far more vulnerable to serious injury. There are bad motorcyclists and bad car drivers. Conversely the opposite is true. A good motorcyclist, who sticks to the speed limits and drives carefully is still at the mercy of other road users and their mistakes. We have all made mistakes and errors of judgement, probably more so when we were younger.

The clip of that crash brought more questions to my mind. Yes he was speeding but did he have his headlights on? All immaterial now as the poor lad is dead.

It is not good to generalise but certain car makes and models, in my own experience, seem to have more aggressive / faster drivers. BMW / Audi. / Mitsubishi Evo / Impreza. Most bikers enjoy a bit of speed, as do owners of certain cars, so it is not surprising that our own experience on the road seems to confirm the stereotype. There will always be exceptions to the rule.

A neighbour, a young chap in his mid 20's I guess, has pranged his cars nearly half a dozen times to my recollection. He drives fast and aggressive but obvious hikes in insurance do not seem to slow him down. He now has a motorbike! Watch this space!

[Bluesman]

But....they're not all like that, and they never will be. End of.

Pete

I agree end of. Mike.

[bluenose1940]

Thread revived today because of two incidents witnessed yesterday.  First off, driving along a fairly lengthy and not straight stretch of 30mph road, a motorcyclist coming towards me at an estimated 60mph (my rough guess) and, what does he/she do, he/she puts both arms high in the air and waves them from side to side, as people do when at a pop concert! If he/she had hit a pot hole or a stone, he/she would have lost all control of his/her bike.

The second incident, I was on the same stretch of road and was approaching my right turn.  I looked in my mirrors and there were a number of cars behind me with a motorcyclist on the crown of the road about three or four cars back with his headlight on. I indicated that I was intending to turn right and moved to the crown of the road myself, there were vehicles coming towards me and so I was going to have to stop before completing my turn.  The road is not very wide and so traffic behind me will also have to stop until I have moved out of their way. At this point the motorcyclist simply overtakes the cars behind me which are more or less in the centre of the lane but amazingly, he/she passes me as well, even though my wheels are virtually on the white centre line, he/she manages to squeeze his way between me and the oncoming without getting knocked off his/her bike. This manoeuvre was not done at low speed either, I reckon he/she was still doing in excess of 30mph.

Unfortunately the number of occasions when you see a bike being ridden safely/sensibly seems to be getting less and less.

We have motorcyclists round here that totally ignore speed limits and rev their bikes to an almost fingers in ears decibel level.  Do they really think that they look anything other than absolutely stupid mindless morons?

They expect motorists to 'be aware' of them, why can't they be more aware and respectful of other road users themselves.

[The-Acre]

The part that annoys me above all is the way the majority of bikers ignore the speed limit, not all, but most.  Overtaking in heavy traffic I'm fine with, that's one advantage of a bike, but I'm constantly overtaken by bikers when I'm driving within the limit.  

[Spacewagon52]

Had you turned and hit him, you would have been to blame! Cyclists also are not always considerate.