Fire3500 if everyone thought like that then great, but not everyone does think or ride like it, and that is the problem, I.E standing on the edge of the road outside Chalet yesterday, clearly a special event very slow moving bikes, loads of people, people by the bucket load turning in and out of Chalet, one sports bike goes past, I have no idea how fast, 100+ overtaking across a solid if I recall, right in front of the entrances not sure if solid was both sides though, BUT while people ride like that we will all suffer for it.
That's kind of my point though, I have no problem at all with people getting prosecuted for riding like cocks. It's all contextual. In that scenario the speeding biker was not making safe progress and prosecution should be the punishment for riding like that. I'm not advocating anti-social riding/driving at all and I'd welcome Police presence enforcing laws that ensured that people rode/drove appropriately for the prevailing conditions, traffic flow and the road itself. Anyone doing 100+ in a very inappropriate situation should be accountable for the consequences of their actions... that's very different to cruising along at 90mph on a deserted highway in the sunshine of an early morning with unfettered visibility. I hear from your comments that you get my point, I guess I'd rather see Police attention focused on the quality of driving and demonstrable consideration for other road users. If they were more stringent in these areas and in ensuring that vehicle maintenance standards were commensurate with the speed they were being driven at then it'd make more sense to me. Of course the roads need to be in decent condition too, mind! That's a whole other rant...
Now I know why you call yourself MadProff!!! Can you imagine how hot you'd get wearing a full-face and leathers on a push bike?
I saw that one too. A place where loads of people are stopping, turning in and out, travelling slowly etc is not a great spot to choose to do your showing off, is it? Last year there were some police in attendance, but I didn't see any this year.
The whole thing really was a lot more fun in the early 90s on my 851.[/QUOTE] Yep. 90 bhp never felt so good.
My Honda 900FZ felt amazing with 95HP. In '82. Pity it felt like it was hinged in the middle half the time. I changed to a Jota in the mistaken belief that it would handle better because it was Italian ,,, BIG mistake!
Bloody hell Glid....one minute you are saying you don't believe in personal liberty,the next you are whinging about being spied on electronically...a little more consistency please old bean! LOLOL! But seriously... You don't need to be going particularly fast to give yourself a thrill if you choose the right roads. The farm where I park my fleet is used by the filth for driver and rider training...no side turnings,no straight bits,well surfaced,but bumpy and whole ocean of fun just trying to keep at the national speed limit.Ok it's not particularly long,but there are loads of roads around here that if you stitch them together make for a good ride-out. Lately I'm doing anything between 90 and 150 miles on a Sunday doing exactly that,and I'm bloody knackered when I get home....serious concentration is required to keep it between the hedges and keep up a reasonable pace Choose the back doubles and the world is a police-free bikers playground,(apart from the first mentioned of course...)
theirs talk of reducing the speed limit further in an attempt to reduce emissions i read this smorning.
Well, do you think you ought to be banged up for that? There are 50 limits and 50 limits. Suppose there were no dwellings anywhere nearby, do you think it's a reasonable punishment? They confiscate his bike and licence, so he's unlikely to do it again in a hurry. What's the standard punishment for walking around with a gun or 12 inch blade? What's the standard punishment for beating someone up in/outside a pub? What's the standard punishment for a first offence burglary?
Do I think he should be banged up for it? No. I think that prison should always be a last resort for any kind of offence. Am I surprised? No. That's nearly 2.5 times the speed limit. It's ridiculous. You're right that there are 50 limits and there are 50 limits, but usually they're 50 for a reason. I ride a 50 limit to work every day that is covered by average speed cameras, but they are forward facing so can be ignored completely when on a bike. Most of this is 3-lane motorway sections but the reason for the 50 is the constant merging of traffic from other roads and this lower speed helps to keep traffic flowing. Normally I just make progress around 60-70mph but keep it sensible. Even if those roads were empty, and they are like a motorway, I wouldn't think 120mph would be acceptable. That's just nonsense. It appears that the severity is pretty much in line with the UK - must be an EU thing - in that if you Google there are numerous cases of bikers doing 120mph+ going to jail. Most of these have other circumstances that meant they really did deserve to go to jail anyway, imho. Have I done over 120 on public roads? Of course, quite a few times, but it's always been when I felt that the conditions meant it was acceptable, when I knew the risk of getting caught was minimal and knowing that I would be prepared to take the punishment if I did get caught. As for the other questions, you're now diverging. You cannot compare these to speeding on a bike; there is only one purpose for a gun, and that's to shoot someone. That is the whole design purpose. A motorcycle is a means of transport that, if used incorrectly, is also capable of killing but it is not its intended purpose. Christ I'm getting old...
The examples you quote aren't strictly comparable, as 50 mph is the blanket speed limit in Switzerland on a non-motorway. So it's not a question of it being a dangerous bit of road. If it were, it would have a 40 mph speed limit, or at best a 45 (70 kph). Also, I question if you were prepared to accept the consequences for speeding if you knew they were jail. I'm not prepared to go to jail for speeding in open countryside. Now, in this case, I have no proof that the biker in question was in open countryside - I just suspect this to be the case. But that's not the point, because even if he'd been doing 100 mph in open countryside, he'd still be facing jail. That's the law here now, and this is what I find depressing. It's not a question of jailing someone for wantonly careless driving, it's a case of jailing anyone anywhere who exceeds the limit by a certain amount, and I think that amount starts at about 85 mph. I got a ticket in France last year, and another ticket the year before that. Last year's was for doing a bit less that 100 mph on a 3 mile stretch of deserted dual carriageway in the country on a weekday afternoon. Gendarmes with nothing better to do than hide on a bridge with laser binoculars. The one before was an unmanned speed trap on a deserted country road between two villages in the middle of nowhere on a Sunday afternoon. I only found out about it when the ticket came in the post a few weeks later. This is the current biking climate we now live in, with our 150+ bhp bikes (my 999 only has a paltry 140 bhp at the crank, or thereabouts) and it is no fun. May I point out that I stick religiously to the limits in all built-up areas and I don't wazz past the odd farmhouse either. But you can now forget the whole notion of "making progress" on the open road. It's an increasingly dead concept. The other crimes I mentioned just go to serve how harsh the punishments for speeding now are. I can assure you (and this is not racially motivated) that if you are an African asylum seeker caught dealing cocaine in Lausanne, you will be handcuffed and sent back to Geneva and told not to do it again. Nothing else will happen to you. And if you do do it again? Still nothing will happen to you.
Personally it is a joke someone could go to jail for just breaking the speed limit, It pisses me right off, so many worse crimes get a let off, like Burglary, and far worse, but just do 100 mph and its the end of the world.
Or better still to put it in prospective, once upon a time an E type jag could do 140 MPH on the M1 Legally, there was no speed limit, there were a few cars that could do those sort of speeds back then, now some of Today's cars can cruise far safer, and stop far quicker than an E type, and there are times on the MI late at night, Early in the morning when there is not a car in sight for miles, where is the logic in that? to be able to end up in Jail for doing something SAFER now, than that you could do legally a few years back?
If memory serves me, it was an AC Cobra doing 160 down the M1 which kickstarted the National Speed Limit. That was pre-seat belts, when hard shoulders were soft gravel and no central barrier existed. Austin A40's, Zephyrs and Vauxhall 101's were commonplace and 45bhp was a darned powerful bike output. Times have changed ( "no , have they ? ),brakes are vastly better as are the tyres they function through and traffic volume has increased manifold. Despite all our fretting, road deaths have reduced per capita by a huge ratio. We, dear readers, are likely to be a vanishing breed. Cars, trucks and busses are soon to be computer controlled/driven, so no driver's licence required, no skills acquired and the insidious reinvention of bike tests is reducing the next generation of bikers to a tiny proportion of road users. This is what freedom feels like. Enjoy it while you may. Life is finite, guaranteed. You will not live forever and what little there is will be over for all those reading this ( not a threat, btw ! ) sooner than any of us might wish. The World will continue to spin without us, despite us.
The bits that hav'nt improved over the years is the reaction time in all of this, and generally the ability of the riders/drivers. In fact with phones email music text i would say the reaction time has got worse.....so it doesn't matter how TOP GEAR great your brakes are if you fail to react early enough....
