M42 posted:

goddamnedtwisto posted:

Tube strikes in London mean it's loving amateur hour on my commute. Not sure what annoys me the most - car drivers who think that if they can see the front of the mile-long jam they're in it'll make it shorter so they pull out and block the filter lane, cyclists who think their freebie high-vis vest obviates the need to look behind them before changing lines, or weekend bikers paddling their midlife crisis money sinks 20 yards then stopping because the gap is less than six feet wide.

Oh wait it's the last ones because they manage to combine all the sins of the others, also then take up all the loving space in the car park at work.

M42 posted:

Slavvy posted:

I'm at the point where I can't summon the energy to get riled up about it. I just tend to sigh with resignation and try to be as polite as possible. The fundamental issue is that NZ has an unbelievably lovely driving record for a first-world country. This is mostly down to our lack of mandatory insurance, laughable licensing system and no driver training whatsoever being required to get a license. The nature of our political system means that instituting any sort of long-term, multi-administration fundamental change to the licensing/driver training system is completely impossible.

For this reason it's basically just lumped on the police to lower the road toll. The police have no realistic way to discourage people from driving like morons, so instead "speed kills" has become an issue of national hysteria; statistics and facts are ignored in favour of mindless harping. The police get blamed when the road toll is bad, the police blame speeding, ergo issuing more tickets is a way of showing that they're combating the problem. This is especially unfortunate because it gets lumped into the same category as drunk-driving (also at epidemic levels), which sucks because it makes it seem like driving drunk is a behavioural issue and not a massive cultural problem. It also means that the police bundle them both into the same safety policy; namely, pulling more people over at random to breath-test them, then finding things to issue tickets for when they turn out to be sober.

Ironically, the police here actually have a huge amount of independent oversight and all their actions are very closely scrutinised and dissected by the government and public. I honestly think the NZ police system is one of the best in the world. But no one wants to criticize their powers over motorists because that would be seen as being against the road safety agenda, which is about as suicidal politically as an American politician saying they're an atheist.


That is amazing. NZ is an awesome place if you aren't interested in riding bikes or making money. It's basically the world's biggest retirement home.


I have a lovely Chinese camera permanently pointed at my speedo, with enough visibility to show where I am at any given time.

Tanbo posted:

Contour Roam2's on Woot. http://www.woot.com/offers/contourr...8856209#tracked

I almost got one but if I'm gonna buy a camera I want an external mic jack at least.

M42 posted:

Snowdens Secret posted:

Note, that's only $15 less than Amazon, and like twisto posted in another thread yesterday, they deal really poorly with wind noise and can only be configured via the (lousy) computer software

goddamnedtwisto posted:

Got too bored to do any more so just have a couple from the last five minutes of my commute:



Dude was less than six inches from the bumper of that car and maybe a foot from the scooter with those stupid hard cases, then got himself stuck at the next red light because he doesn't know poo poo about how to filter.



The hand gesture is pointing out that bright loving blue dedicated, segregated bike lane (sorry, Cycle Superhighway) exactly 3 yards to his right, instead he was motoring along the pavement and if I'd have been a car he'd have been strawberry jam.

Coredump posted:

Does no blip the throttle because its fun? I do.

Chichevache posted:

I do it because my ear plugs work really well and I can't tell if my bike is running sometimes.

M42 posted:

goddamnedtwisto posted:

Got too bored to do any more so just have a couple from the last five minutes of my commute:



Dude was less than six inches from the bumper of that car and maybe a foot from the scooter with those stupid hard cases, then got himself stuck at the next red light because he doesn't know poo poo about how to filter.



The hand gesture is pointing out that bright loving blue dedicated, segregated bike lane (sorry, Cycle Superhighway) exactly 3 yards to his right, instead he was motoring along the pavement and if I'd have been a car he'd have been strawberry jam.

And finally...



This stupid bitch was right in my parking spot.

Ozmiander posted:

I maaaay have also just picked up something that starts with a GSX and ends with a 1100G.


Help me.

hot sauce posted:

drat son where'd ya find this?

Slavvy posted:

Mother of god! I don't know how well that would scale down to AV size though.

Slavvy posted:

At the risk of being a dumbass: how do you get an AV bigger than 125x125? I want to make the larger one mine so as to reward your sterling efforts but it won't let me upload an image that large.

Z3n posted:

Post moments from today's commute!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ILnKm_9_fM

M42 posted:

I always make that mistake.





Have you ever gotten stuck

M42 posted:

Z3n posted:

In case of emergency, I could have pulled a few more inches by counterleaning the bike. That one was pretty close though. I haven't misjudged a gap lately, most SF drivers are pretty decent at giving you room when it gets close.

Slavvy posted:

slidebite posted:

Mrs. Slidebite and I want to take a few friends of ours out to the range to expose them to handguns and cool rifles over the summer, just for a cool way to kill an afternoon in the summer. I just found out the wife doesn't want to go because she doesn't want to risk leaving their child as an orphan.

slidebite posted:

I'm pretty optimistic I can help her see it's not a suicide mission, but it's the fallout of her upbringing.

They're both extremely intelligent and educated, amongst the highest of most intelligent people I have met, but brought up as and they themselves are very far left leaning people. Holding a handgun is simply a foreign concept. Coincidentally, and more related to this forum, getting her on the back of my bike a few years ago was something in itself. But once she was there she loved it and didn't want to go home.

slidebite posted:

Mrs. Slidebite and I want to take a few friends of ours out to the range to expose them to handguns and cool rifles over the summer, just for a cool way to kill an afternoon. I just found out the wife doesn't want to go because she doesn't want to risk leaving their child as an orphan.