First Motorcycle Accident

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Why have vehicles been allowed to grow to such manifestly unsuitable size for crowded roads? Compare for instance the width of an original mini with the current offering..
I had a Smart loan car a while ago, tiny two seater affair. I was quite impressed with it. That is until I parked near an original Mini. I paced out both cars and was amazed that it had taken Mercedes 60 odd years to ‘catch up’ with the bloody Mini! But even then their offering is a two seater vs the Minis four !

We live near a number of ‘schools for the wealthy’ here in Oxford. Watching the traffic chaos at school run time is mind boggling. If two Mums meet down a narrow street, head on in their £100k+ SUVs, requiring one or the other to reverse, it’s hilarious !!
 
I had a Smart loan car a while ago, tiny two seater affair. I was quite impressed with it. That is until I parked near an original Mini. I paced out both cars and was amazed that it had taken Mercedes 60 odd years to ‘catch up’ with the bloody Mini! But even then their offering is a two seater vs the Minis four !

We live near a number of ‘schools for the wealthy’ here in Oxford. Watching the traffic chaos at school run time is mind boggling. If two Mums meet down a narrow street, head on in their £100k+ SUVs, requiring one or the other to reverse, it’s hilarious !!

The Mini should have been a foundation stone for British industrial success. What a design...
 
The Mini should have been a foundation stone for British industrial success. What a design...
Yes indeed - another British genius right up there with Reginald Mitchell and Colin Chapman. Alec Issigonis ( apologies if I misspelled) set the standard layout for nearly every small car from then till now and likely for years to come - transverse 4 in the front with front drive and strut suspension. Millions have been made following his model . I hope he was rewarded better than Nikola Tesla .
 
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Yes indeed - another British genius right up there with Reginald Mitchell and Colin Chapman. Alec Issigonis ( apologies if I misspelled) set the standard layout for nearly every small car from the till now and likely for years to come - transverse 4 in the front with front drive and strut suspension. Millions have been made following his model . I hope he was rewarded better than Nikola Tesla .
MG 1100.
 
I was riding up to a local Starbucks for my morning coffee and a read of the latest and most important propaganda offering from my local paper. Goatta' keep up.

Multiple right side parking spaces on a busy 2 lane street.
A coed from the local university has her face buried in her phone and walks right out into the street, not the cross walk, oblivious to her surroundings and strolls right into my drive path. I saw her from a distance and was already stopping but i did let her hear my horns from about 8ft. away.

Scared the ever loving $hit out of her. She jumped 3 ft. straight up, her coffee went flying and she really teed off on me.
She mf'd me up one side and down the other while stomping straight toward me, still stopped in the middle of the lane.
I hit her with the horns again and she jumped again. Now she's really pissed. I started laughing and pulled around her and slipped into a parking spot taking my helmet inside with me.

The entitled one follows me in letting me have it like a veteran sailor.
There are two police officers that had just entered the store in front of me. Her inane squawking got their attention. She stomps up to the lady cop and starts railing on me for scaring her telling the cops I threatened to run her over and to arrest me. The lady cop responds she and her partner watched the entire incident and let her know she was lucky someone (me) was paying attention or she could be splattered all over the street.
Now she starts challenging the lady cop and gets in her face.
The lady cop gives her ten seconds to back off and leave or she is going to arrest her for peace disturbance or something like that.

Psycho Betty takes off but now I'm spooked she is going abuse my bike in some way so I start to go back out. The other policeman says stay there, I'll walk her out. Which he did.
He was gigantic. She STFU.
20 minutes later I am drinking my coffee, reading my not so popular local paper about a Starbucks manager in Arizona asking 5 policeman to leave because their guns made a customer uncomfortable.
Rather than allowing said customer to remain uncomfortable, the cops left.

No moral here, just sharing a story about my morning coffee.:rolleyes:
 
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I have no problem with sharing the road with bicyclists, but I'd be happier if they shared the taxes. In this stupid state (MA) if a manually powered 2 wheeler hits your tax paying motorcycle/car, the motor vehicle operator is instantly held responsible. The Lycra Lizards around here know this and some have the brass to play "chicken" with you. I have started writing to my elected representative asking for the pedal-power crowd to share responsibility/liability as well as to be properly insured and pay licensing fees (more taxes!), I can't believe that any MA legislator can resist more fees/taxes and I am also thinking that that Big Insurance may do the lobbying once the idea (if ever) begins to take shape. This what I experienced in Wisconsin as a kid, far from a pipe-dream.

Best.
 
UK same stupid deal. No license, no road tax, never at fault, small minority of road users, lots of clout with our idiots in charge.
 
Why have vehicles been allowed to grow to such manifestly unsuitable size for crowded roads? Compare for instance the width of an original mini with the current offering..
crash 'worthiness'?

side impact protection and crumple zones add to the size of the vehicle.

I suspect the occupants of a 'modern' Mini would easily walk away from the sort of crash that would have killed the occupants of a 'classic' Mini.
 
Hey Nigel -ever since I read this I‘ve been looking for you on every episode of “ Endeavor “ .... no luck yet . LOL
Ha!
I prefer the original ‘Morse’ but Endeavor is also very good. And yes, all filmed on our doorstep !
 
Ha!
I prefer the original ‘Morse’ but Endeavor is also very good. And yes, all filmed on our doorstep !
Yep - Morse the original, Inspector Lindley the sequel, and Endeavor the prequel - a triumvirate of sorts and love all of them .
Also enjoy Vera and Unforgotten . Send some your countrymen across the pond to teach the former colonists how to make good programs.
 
No in UK you donot pay road tax for a historic vehicle

Correct!
But then we do have a license for it....
 
The Trout was one of Morses favourites, it’s about 2 miles from where I live. They do a cracking Sunday roast !
 
She mf'd me up one side and down the other while stomping straight toward me, still stopped in the middle of the lane.
I hit her with the horns again and she jumped again. Now she's really pissed.


One grey December afternnoon was threading my ES2 through through the traffic when through the gloom could see a couple of pissed females walking towardsme shouting etc... Had to swerve and brake sharply and turned round to gve them a piece of my mind only to see that a following car had knocked them over and they were lying sparko in the road...
Clearly the force was with me
 
crash 'worthiness'?

side impact protection and crumple zones add to the size of the vehicle.

I suspect the occupants of a 'modern' Mini would easily walk away from the sort of crash that would have killed the occupants of a 'classic' Mini.

I would have thought that crumple zones would make vehicles longer , not fatter... The increase in width seems to come from wider wheel base no doubt to help your average bad driver think he or she is some kind of budding world champ..

You may be right about the survival of occupents being better in a new rather than an old mini, and doubtless they feel this to be so... butis this really a good thing for pedestrians cyclists and bikers? The safer drivers feel the more reckless they become with others saftey
 
I would have thought that crumple zones would make vehicles longer , not fatter... The increase in width seems to come from wider wheel base no doubt to help your average bad driver think he or she is some kind of budding world champ..
Sometimes wider comes from a need to increase stability with a higher centre of gravity, which the new Mini no doubt also has - plus the ever increasing "need" for interior space...
 
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