Andy from Areostich fail

[enigmaT120]

Don't insult R65s. Mine is 50 hp. Same as my Triumph Bonneville.

[Zombie Master]

ZM - there is no doubt you like to ride fast and have for a long time. And there is even less doubt you do not yield to a stop sign and signals over the years. I know for a fact that cars, trucks and other bikes will ride up on you sitting at idle or motoring off a start. If/when you pull over to the side to change your glasses or or attempts to make yourself comfortable - visibility counts. So please do not discount wearing dark suit as not making your riding safer - it is not the case.

Over the 50 years of riding... how many times have you been down? And when you do again, i hope you wear a brighter suit as i like your input here.

Actually I do stop at stop signs. I don't take my feet off the pegs though. I have reflective material all over my black helmet and the rest of my gear, even my boots have the stuff. So at night I'm pretty conspicuous. When I first started riding I was hit from behind when stopped at a red light, so I always expect to be run down at a light. At the beginning of my riding obsession I did crash quite a bit. There were no training courses back then and I learned a lot of skills the hard way. In the last 40 years and a million KLMs I have had no collisions, and one wipe out on the street. That was on a friends R 75/5 who I was visiting. I rode his bike with a pair of walking boots with speed hook lacings. The hook caught the float bowl retainer wire and the bowl jettisoned without my knowledge. Of course the bike ran poorly but instead of stopping immediately, as I will always do now, I tried to return to my buddys house that was only a mile away. The rear wheel of the bike got coated with gas and I hit a patch of moisture on an off camber and did a very gentle low side. The valve cover took all the damage. I most likey will die from a deer jumping from nowhere onto the road. This happened when I owned my R/60/2 and I barely got it stopped. That's when I sold that bike.

[Zombie Master]

Ya know ZM, if you ride with the wreckless disregard for your and others' safety that you claim to, it's simply amazing that you haven't become a large grease spot on some road, somewhere, long ago. Yeah, I know . . . you're gonna say that you don't claim to ride with wreckless disregard for your and others' safety . . . Blah, blah, blah . . .

I don't ride with disregard for my or others safety. I am a very considerate rider to other road users. I just will not be in the proximity of other road users for and extra millisecond if I don't have to be. And Blah, blah, blah, ect

There is no way in hell that you, or anyone else is going to convince me that faster (than the speed limit) is safer on a public road. Why? Because there is absolutely no way you can know what the other meathead is gonna do. So, faster just gets you in trouble . . . faster.

What makes you think that speed limits are are all set properly for all road users? Where I live we have some dangerously low limits. Where in Pennsylvania you would see a speed limit of 45mph in British Columbia that same limit will be 30 or even 25mph. As far as what a meathead might do; I will not be around long enough to find out, nor do I want him to know where I am so that he might focus on me. If I have to ride slower or faster, If I am not there he can't hurt me.

Nobody is skilled enough, focused enough, experienced enough, or even lucky enough to avoid a potential disaster 100% of the time. Not even you. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that your self-described riding style and attitude puts you squarely in the dangerous category.

Experience and knowing yourself, your emotions, yours skill level, the condition of your machine and equipment are all part of the safety equation. I ride for survival, not for compliance with some arbitrary regulations that have been designated by persons who haven't a clue what motorcycles are about.

[enigmaT120]

I speed almost every day, but I don't do it because I think it's more safe. I just like it.

Like ZM says, many maximum speed limits have nothing to do with safety. Remember when our speed limit was 55 on interstates? Even the 65 limit in Oregon is a stupid joke in most places, and our back roads are still posted 55.

I base my speed more on road conditions and sight line (did somebody mention a "dead horse" test a while back?), rather than signs. I get a speeding ticket about every 15 years and just send the check in. It's a tax on freedom.

[Zombie Master]

I speed almost every day, but I don't do it because I think it's more safe. I just like it.

Like ZM says, many maximum speed limits have nothing to do with safety. Remember when our speed limit was 55 on interstates? Even the 65 limit in Oregon is a stupid joke in most places, and our back roads are still posted 55.

I base my speed more on road conditions and sight line (did somebody mention a "dead horse" test a while back?), rather than signs. I get a speeding ticket about every 15 years and just send the check in. It's a tax on freedom.

Seems a sensible approach. This obedience to the law thing is profoundly un-American.

[Scot]

This obedience to the law thing is profoundly un-American.

What a load of crap.

[Zombie Master]

This obedience to the law thing is profoundly un-American.

What a load of crap.

Well.... you're not a subject like I am.

Perhaps I should have written: This blind obedience to the law thing is profoundly un-American?

But I am free to have another opinion.

And if you don't like my opinion, then tough titty.

[Major Softie]

ZM, you have turned the discussion on its head. No one here said they always follow the law - especially speed limits. The difference is that no one besides yourself is trying to convince anyone that they are doing it to be safer. That's the load of crap in my book.

We aren't arguing for everyone to blindly follow every speed limit at all times. We are arguing for not claiming that one's self-endowed superiority entitles them to ignore laws that are only there for others to follow. We are also arguing that one's choice to speed is laden with the responsibility of greater risk, and that greater risk is not to be dismissed with a fantasy that one is speeding to be safer.

We are arguing for not bullshitting either oneself or others.



Oh, and by the way, You got this 100% wrong, again:

I am aware that traffic police are the lowest rung of the enforcement ladder.

First, your representation of traffic police is entirely false. They are not even close to the lowest rung of the enforcement ladder, which would be, in my estimation: parking enforcement. Making traffic stops is, in fact, generally considered to be the most dangerous thing officers have to do. Enforcement of speed limits, drunk driving laws, and people running stop lights all have a very important impact on keeping people alive; it is in no way merely revenue gathering. Parking enforcement, on the other hand, is 100% revenue gathering.

You estimation is erroneous as parking enforcement is not carried out by the police where I live. My information about the skill level of traffic enforcement comes from a judge who is a friend of mine. Police traffic stops being dangerous, does not speak to the relative skill of police duty assignments.

Although in my jurisdiction, and most of the U.S.A., parking enforcement IS done by the police, it makes no matter. You did not say parking was the lowest rung of the police, you said that traffic police was "the lowest rung of the enforcement ladder." I did not say parking enforcement was done by the police, I said it, not traffic, was the lowest rung of the enforcement ladder. Thus, your entire response is a "straw man" tactic: saying I said something I did not, and then tearing down what I did not actually say.



So, in fact, to both points you have made arguments that are unrelated to the actual arguments being made against you. Way to be consistent.