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I have almost made this thread so many times. I hate car drivers around here so loving much. I was thinking they kept drifting into my lane as some passive-aggressive resentment for me passing them. Took the car out the other day, and I was still seeing them do it, and now my theory is they don't hold the wheel straight while texting. Seriously I sat on the side of the road near a busy intersection and just watched as car after car let a multiple-carlength gap open up in front, with dozens of cars behind, because the driver didn't look up from their phone Get off the loving phones
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Jul 24, 2013 08:33
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 18:23 |
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I assumed it had something to do with Cali building their lanes wider since almost all their roads are newer than everywhere else. Here in New England where every street is some converted 200-year old horsepath there'd usually not be room for filtering regardless of the law.
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Aug 10, 2013 02:36
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What baffles me are the Prius drivers who drive the things like bats out of hell. Like, 30 or more over the highway limit. Why would you buy a hybrid just to drive it like a GT? I hate getting passed by these guys because I know the moment we come to any kind of incline or turn that they will inexorably return to the cruel rules of physics that govern wimpy cars with skinny tires.
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Aug 10, 2013 23:01
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Linedance posted:well, I had one as a ZipCar rental once, and let me tell you, those pieces of poo poo can sure move if you cane them. Driving like a dong in a Prius is actually pretty fun. Instant torque is pretty useful in traffic, as anyone with a ~650 single can attest to. It's instant torque at city speeds, not when you're doing 80 in the hills.
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Aug 11, 2013 01:04
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Deeters posted:Speaking of dumb drivers, do you guys have people wave you through stop signs before you get a chance to stop? It seems like 90% of the time I get to an intersection with another car, they give me the "go ahead" wave. I know some are just being nice, but it's really weird when they're waving like crazy and I haven't even gotten to the sign yet. CT is full of people giving inappropriate 'go aheads.' I don't get why, because half the time it seems they could just keep moving and go and you could go right behind them even quicker, rather than waste time trying to decode if they're stopping or turning without signals (another CT delight) or they've just died of old age mid-drive or what. The other half of the time they're trying to wave you into traffic with thirty cars behind them and people trying to pass them on the shoulder, again because no one can figure out what the gently caress they're trying to do. I've actually yelled at people for coming to a crashing halt in the middle of the street and nearly causing an accident behind them, just to wave me past, when I was in no rush to go and could've safely turned if they'd just loving followed traffic patterns and kept going I could and probably will eventually fill this thread with tales of inexplicably dumb and dangerous poo poo CT drivers pull
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Aug 21, 2013 16:03
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Riding to work today, I get this guy behind me, black ZX-14-looking thing, no gear, ballcap and Ray-Bans. Guy keeps zooming up on me like he wants to talk or something. We get to a light and stop and I look back and the motherfucker is texting
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Aug 22, 2013 04:42
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Also on my like three-mile ride to work not one but two cars got in the right lane, put on their right blinker, and then merged left I need to start wearing a helmetcam so I can sell the footage to HNasty
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Aug 22, 2013 09:23
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Gay Nudist Dad posted:Actually I don't think they have to at all. Freeway traffic has right-of-way, entering/merging traffic has to yield. I think the point is that with regular traffic following at appropriate intervals there's more than enough room to zipper merge. Even with tighter, more realistic intervals you can usually squeeze. When you're dealing with a long line of staggered Harleys like some leather-clad human centipede, especially when they're being ambiguous about which lane they're actually in, it can be harder. Law or no, the non-dick move would be to get out of the far right if the troupe isn't exiting any time soon. And by the law they're supposed to be maintaining proper intervals in a single file and not riding two abreast anyway.
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Aug 29, 2013 02:22
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I did a charity ride the other day and got stuck next to some 50-ish lady on a late-model bagger whose only protective gear was gloves and unarmored knee-high boots. We were theoretically riding staggered so every time she fell back to where we were side by side I'd squirt ahead. At one point I noticed she was shouting some half-conversation vaguely in front of her and I'm still not sure if she was trying to talk to me or the bagger rider 30 feet in front of her. New bagger riders are especially awful. The bikes look like they'd be easy to ride, since their weight is kept so low. But the riders park the drat things at the front of every curve because they're scared about ground clearance. This isn't helped by the common tactic of lowering the rear and getting swoopier fenders \ bags to complete 'the look'. Slow down to where a normal rider would start feathering the clutch, and instead these guys start swerving back and forth, -knowing- they're riding in tight formation.
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Aug 29, 2013 03:48
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MoraleHazard posted:Which ride did you do? http://www.dreamride.org/ I did it out of Danbury Harley, which was a big mistake. The route wasn't bad and would have been fun at reasonable speed (a lot of it overlapped one of my usual weekend loops anyway.) The event itself was meh, but I'm not really the target audience. People were plenty nice enough.
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Aug 29, 2013 19:59
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Apparently I'm not allowed to park my motorcycle in the South Norwalk metro station parking garage, which is reasonably well lit and secure, because they're afraid bikers are going to jump the gates to get out and not pay the fee. No motorcycles allowed. So instead I can keep it in an open and unmonitored parking lot overnight, in not exactly the nicest area of town. I don't even like leaving my -car- in that lot. Thanks a lot, Metro North, dicks.
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Aug 30, 2013 13:11
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It's really more an argument on how motorcycle-related laws are usually dumb and counterproductive than anything else. People take 'here is the bare minimum you need to be legal' and twist that into 'if the law doesn't require it then you don't need it' and ride around in swim goggles and pith helmets.
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Sep 4, 2013 20:09
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The kind of nincompoops who are going to ride without eyepro are going to find other ways to hurt themselves (on the public dime) and/or others and make motorcycling look bad anyway. Making them think in terms of Law vs Are Freedoms actively keeps them from thinking about basic safety needs. Especially if sunglasses at night and/or a plastic yarmulke are sufficent to satisfy the law.
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Sep 5, 2013 02:28
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MoraleHazard posted:Probably. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3495621  If you're over about 26 you'll find that thread somewhat depressing
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Sep 7, 2013 03:08
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Deeters posted:some guy flooring it in his Honda Odyssey to get ahead of me and turn into Walmart. This loving poo poo Maybe 20% of the time they're trying to beat a merge because they really want to hustle. The other 80% they're just fiddle-farting around, often knowing they're going 100 yards down the road and then parking it cock-eyed in the lane with their blinker turned on only after they stopped, waiting 10 minutes for opposing traffic to give them a window you could drive the goddamned Graf Spee through. Good thing you jumped in front, buddy! Oh, who am I kidding, that blinker's probably burned out.
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Sep 11, 2013 17:24
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I blow my horn all the time. This is largely a New England thing. The trick is to use it early enough. You should use all tools at your disposal (inluding your own maneuvering and brakes) to avoid dangerous situations. Obviously an air horn is a bit excessive but throwing Stebel Nautilii / Magnums or Hella Supertones on your bike isn't uncommon at all. The stock horn circuit generally isn't hefty enough to handle the current (especially if you run two horns) but splicing in a relay is trivial. This is easier on bigger / full-faired bikes than it is on smaller / stripped down ones simply for ease of finding somewhere to stick the things.
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Oct 8, 2013 16:53
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I blink my high beams at people a lot, too, but this seems to have zero effect
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Oct 8, 2013 17:40
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We probably should try to keep the disbursing of useful knowledge to the multiple threads we already have for them and keep this ranting thread for blowing hot gas out of our enraged buttholes
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Oct 8, 2013 18:24
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I made up names for my bikes but then promptly forgot them because they were silly. Today I got mildly cut off, pulling up to an intersection to make a left, by a city bus that swerved at the last moment into the left turn lane in order to get past a stopped car in his lane, so he could run the red light. It wasn't even a fresh red light. He was nice enough to put on his left turn blinkers as he accelerated (straight) through the intersection. I had given him plenty of room as he showed no signs of slowing down, so I didn't get runnoffed the road or had to layer dan or whatever, but this is the kind of crap I see every day.
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Oct 10, 2013 05:27
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I think I had Roman and Gaelic god names for the Aprilia and Triumph It was still lame
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Oct 10, 2013 06:55
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Xovaan posted:I wouldn't knock riding Bruce until you've tried it. It just seems really weird to name a bike after an Australian philosopher, though
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Oct 10, 2013 18:36
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Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester posted:The BMW club magazine has quite a number of people, women too, who name their bikes. One girl named her KLR "Cart-her." Cause it carts her around. Where does a KLR land on the misery index?
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Oct 12, 2013 03:51
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ElMaligno posted:My motorcycle is named Aya Cyclone. Is that a KR reference, that's almost OK My crazy red futurebike sometimes makes me want to get a crazy red leather jacket, but then I kinda want red leather pants and putting a pill on the back and that's about when I catch myself
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Oct 14, 2013 04:00
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Deeters posted:Do you guys celebrate Valentine's Day with your bikes too? Vid is more amusing considering Silver's update that he traded her in for a slimmer model
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Oct 15, 2013 08:15
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MoraleHazard posted:I like people who come to a complete stop one an on-ramp to the highway. I got on the highway around rush hour today at an on-ramp that's actually two different highway entrances that merge about fifty feet before hitting the highway proper, with no clear right of way. Chaos reigned. I just went around the entire mess and merged into a hole a charter bus could've fit in without slowing down. Kind of a jerk move but people had all the room in the world and weren't going anywhere.
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Oct 16, 2013 00:23
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Use relative velocities. "Imagine you were doing 85 and I passed you doing 85 more than that." I'm not in any way trying to sound badass saying this, but I ride too fast, I know I ride too fast, but I'm extremely risk averse in the rest of my lifestyle so I don't mind a single exception. That being said, I don't think I've been over 130 on any of my bikes. The right answer to 'how fast does it go' is 'faster than me', at least on the street.
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Nov 3, 2013 00:38
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Walking around in a full leather outfit is always a crowd pleaser. If I had one as stylish as RevDrMosesPLester's Ducati suit I'd wear that poo poo everywhere.
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Nov 4, 2013 22:29
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Actually speaking from my (albeit limited) four-wheeled experience at least some of those are going to be people who thought they'd turned the headlights on because the dash had lit up and the roads were brightly-lit enough for them not to notice. I actually got a kinda DUI when I was a kid because of this. My car had auto headlights and the road I was on was fully streetlit so I didn't notice I'd somewhere flicked off the main beams and was just running the parking lights. It was 3 AM in a college town over a holiday weekend so welp.
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Nov 12, 2013 13:54
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:nsap is some bizarro reverse-zen. He posts more than zen, but it's all just complaints about how much zen posts. In my years of posting here not once did it ever cross my mind that zee-three-en was supposed to be 'zen'
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Nov 29, 2013 01:22
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Y'all need to post more, #5 with a post a day, shameful
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Nov 29, 2013 02:18
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I read the book ages ago and even after Phat Albert called him zen that didn't pop to mind. If someone was going to wax poetic about fixing up an old BMW I'd expect it to be RevDrMo anyway
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Nov 29, 2013 07:31
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:I have to ask, how did you pronounce his name in your head (since no one should ever be saying forums names out loud), just "z three n"? y... yes?
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Nov 30, 2013 02:35
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Pretty sure nobody gets hysterical over 'hooning' and similar 'anti-social' driving / riding like the Aussies do. I've heard tales from Canadians but they're still not as absurd as Aus. Slavvy's struggles with Big Kiwi are a pale shadow.
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Dec 26, 2013 04:33
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If I'm doing a 400 mile ride and I do 80 it shaves an hour and change off the trip compared to 65. The higher speed also keeps me more alert and helps guarantee threats most likely come from my front quarter and not my sides or rear. If I do 40 instead of 25 my half hour commute becomes 18 minutes and that's 12 fewer minutes each way for other drivers to kill me. I am convinced that moving around cars at a low relative velocity - I.e. both of us around the speed limit - is far more dangerous - than doing it at a faster clip. Humans suck at formation driving and the longer you spend diddling around in someone's vehicular personal space, the more likely they will do something erratic and stupid. Target fixation dominates there, you go where you look, eventually they're going to look at you too long and crash into you. Cutting speed trades your agility and response capability in the hope other people's are better, which if you're on a bike is hopefully unlikely. Again, it shifts the risk approach vector from front to rear and especially on a bike your visibility in that quarter is the worst. Slowing down is definitely not automatically safer; if it was, stopping would be safest, and no one advocates coming to a crashing halt on the highway. I'm tempted to say speeding never killed anybody, but I don't want to argue semantics. It's about not outrunning your vision, your ability, and your vehicle / road conditions. Speed limits are determined part on hazard conditions - crossing traffic, etc. - part on handling and response estimated using a half-blind old biddy driving a '60s land yacht with bald bias-plys and drum brakes (and with margin to spare there), and part on political concerns that have zero basis in anything related to safety. If you have a vaguely modern bike in good shape, and you're not asleep or drunk, if there was nothing and no one else on the road, there are very few roads out there that you couldn't safely handle at double the speed limit, sometimes more, including the interstate, often even if you've never been down that road before. It's usually not safe in real life, because of all the other random poo poo and other idiots on the street. The idea that the maximum speed for safety for both a motorcyclist, on a high performance machine they slavishly maintain, who actively practices emergency high-speed maneuvering, who delberately maintains much higher than normal situational awareness - and your average bungling commuter in their decaying shitbox, music turned up, kids screaming, trying to shove a burger down their maw while they fire off a text - is exactly the loving same is abjectly ridiculous. Z3n if you lost a fellow rider to an avoidable accident, you have my sympathies, but there is always more to the story than 'they were going over the limit.'
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Dec 30, 2013 08:59
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Coydog posted:Wait, urine isn't the correct lubricant? I thought that's why so many riders were men. That it was a convenience thing. Well, shoot... No, no, it's good for curing athlete's foot. That's why you pee in your boots before setting off.
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Jan 17, 2014 00:12
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It has gotten to where I don't even notice the new snow falling, it's so far above the ceilings of the tunnels I've dug within the old snow, so I can visit the ruins of a town that functioned before eternal everwinter
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Jan 22, 2014 21:55
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I just made it up, man
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Jan 22, 2014 22:00
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I'm really beginning to think this is one of your mates loving with you. Are you positive you don't hear snickering in the background?
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Jan 22, 2014 22:31
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California is a wonderful place to live on your parent's dime.
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Jan 23, 2014 03:49
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 18:23 |
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Yeah, it's unfortunate with how pretty Cali land and weather is, but step 1 in getting anywhere money-wise in California is pretty much "leave California" CT's like that too but without the pretty land or weather
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Jan 24, 2014 02:37
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