Sailor

This one can go on forever. My last word on the subject is....Yes the biker should not have passed but that does not give the car driver the right to try to kill him. The car driver should be fined and banned from ever driving again, a little jail time as well would not hurt.

Biglenny....the report you read sounds similar to the Hurt Report. Dr. Hurt got the co-operation of the local police department to have a police scanner in his office. As a result he was able to get to an accident site at the same time as, or even before, the police. In an example a car turned left and hit a motorcycle. The motorcyclist was injured and removed from the scene. The police interviewed the car driver who stated the motorcyclist came out of nowhere, must have been speeding. This was not borne out by the fact there were no skid marks and the damage to the car was not nearly enough to substantiate the claim the biker was speeding. The police wrote up the report as motorcyclist at fault due to speeding. He found that 70% of the time the car driver was at fault according to the evidence at the scene. The police reports, however, showed the motorcyclist at fault as they did not investigate and just took the word of the car driver. I try never to put myself in a dangerous situation but I was stuck behind an old goat in a pickup who was doing 30 kph in an 80 kph zone for 20 k. There was a double yellow line the whole way. I was well back in the long line of traffic or I would have passed him regardless of the line. There are a few places where it would have been safe and some cars did manage to get by.

When you say 70% of motorcycle accidents are rider error where did you get that statistic? The only definitive report on motorcycle accidents I know of is the Hurt Report which shows 70% of accidents involving motorcycles are caused by car drivers. It also shows that the majority of police reports are written up wrong and blame the biker instead of the cager who is actually at fault. In my humble opinion it does not matter what the motorcyclist was doing that guy had no right to try to kill them. What if the situation were the same and the cager pulled a gun and shot at the bikers? He just might do that next time.

Saw a comment from a guy who said he had switched out his horn for a device that mimics loud gunfire. He said cars pay a lot more attention now. I think he was joking but.........

Does the warranty cover parts AND labour? Some cover just parts and the labor is more costly than the part.

I woke up one morning and could not move without excruciating pain in my back. I was on my back and inched my way across the bed and rolled out on to my hands and knees. Loud scream. Took a while to catch my breath then work my way up to my feet using the dresser. Turns out a disc had rotated during the night. Physio therapist had me fixed up in no time.

We got stuck on Hwy 5 north of Seattle. An hour and a half of crawling through construction. The really frustrating part was the lines never completely stopped but never got above walking speed.

I think replacing your bikes with an HD should be cause for a 9mm divorce.

I worked at the airport in Vancouver for a few years. When I was on the ramp one of the duties given to the newbies was driving the " honey wagon" . You would park under the plane, climb up on the back of the wagon and connect the hose to drain the toilets. You had to push the connection up then twist it a 1/4 turn to the right to lock it in place. failure to lock it meant you got the full load all over you. There was one particular newbie who everyone disliked. He was arrogant and unpleasant. The entire time he drove the honey wagon no one explained about locking the connection.

my old Yamaha 400 was great. enough room for 2 up and enough speed for the highway but light weight and nimble on the back roads. Being a 400 the insurance was cheap.

I use Autosol. Works well.

I am sure all jobs have their fun with the new guy. Lets hear some. We would tell a new guy it was time to wash the props and send him to the engine room to get a bucket of prop wash. We would also send him down to get a left handed crescent wrench.

For me the interest is there but the time factor is important. West coast is possible but East coast or South East is not. Just have too many other things going on to take that much time.

Most of the members seem to be eastern or southern USA. I don't know the areas they propose so I leave it to those who do know to decide. I live on an island off the west coast of Canada and it is near impossible to travel to the proposed sites. I have twice been to the meets in Nelson BC, one in Cody Wyoming and was planning on being at Yreka California until my accident. I much appreciate the effort put forward by organizers of these events and think they do a great job.

I read a lot of books of all kinds. I get really annoyed when even the best of authors make grammatical errors or claim items as factual when they are way off base. Don't they have spell check? Can't they be bothered to check so called facts? I sometimes get so annoyed I take a pen and correct the items. OK, so tell me your pet peeve is people who write in books.

Actually we hope to visit Newfoundland sometime in the next couple of years.

British Columbia Ferry System. The islands are dependent upon the ferry system. It used to be government owned then they quasi privatized it. Now they raise the fares every year and reduce the service. at the same time they went from 150 managers to about 700 with no increase in employees. That makes one manager for about every 5 employees.

We probably only have this problem here but being an island people seem to think traffic laws don't apply. People who wander out on the road without looking. People who stop their car on the main road to wave people out from side roads and pedestrians across the road. They are creating a long line of annoyed people behind them.

My first job was clearing brush for an elderly lady down the street. I don't remember how old I was but I spent more time drinking lemonade and eating cookies than clearing brush. Next it was the usual paper route. It was a rural route with 50 lbs of paper on the front of the bike and another 50 on the back. The route was 13 miles long. It was wicked when it snowed. Lots of hills. First real job was when I worked weekends in the plywood mill while going to high school. I was on the cleanup crew and we would go in and crawl inside the machinery and blow out all the cinders and splinters. The worst were the dryers. Crawling along on your belly inside the machines in 90 degree heat. The absolute worst was the power house. They used sawdust from the mill to generate a lot of their own power. There were four furnaces, each about 12 ft square. They would shut down two on Friday night and then we would smash open the door of bricks to make an opening about 2 1/2 ft square Saturday morning and crawl in. There would be about 8 inches of talcum like powder on every surface and we had to shovel it out. It was over 100 degrees and we had to be completely covered because if the powder came into contact with moisture it turned to acid and could burn you. You had to provide your own clothes. The whole crew was Chinese, I was the only white guy. I also worked feeding sawdust. There was a huge warehouse that held the sawdust. It was about 30 feet high and about 50 ft by 40 ft with a conveyor belt along the bottom. You had a long pike pole and you had to go along and poke the sawdust which would get packed up and create an avalanche into the conveyor. You were alone in there. The guy on the other shift disappeared one day. all they found was the hard hat and pike pole. They figure he went into the furnace. I finally got on full time and was working alongside guys with university degrees. At $4.75/hr it was the highest paying job they could get. I was finally sent to the specialty room which was good. Just two of us and we made up the special orders. We got a list left for us in the morning, set our own pace and quit when it was done. Never saw any bosses. I finally escaped the mill and went to work for the airlines in Vancouver.

People who happily follow you for miles along the highway then suddenly pass you and cut right to exit forcing you to hit the brakes. Women who stop to chat in the middle of an aisle and when you ask to please allow you through sneer and refuse to move. People who allow their spoiled rotten kids to run wild in a restaurant. People who yell on their cell phones disturbing everyone within 50 feet of them. "Homeless" people who demand handouts as if the world owes them everything. etc,etc,etc.

Just got a notice from my financial adviser that the market has taken a hit world wide due to the fall of the Chinese economy. This seems to be panic selling and they expect the market to recover in 3-4 weeks.

I believe it was in Quebec that the employees tried to unionize so they simply closed the store.

Sometimes it is cheaper in the long run to build a new building than try to bring an old one up to code. They could strip an old building, build a new one in a better area, sell the old site and still come out ahead.

Sorry you can't make it. There is always another time.

Hey Rick. Even better. The airline I was working for sent me to Montreal on a three week long agents course. It was a snap but on the last day when we were to write the exams they came in and announced the course was canceled, they had changed it to a two week course so we all had to come back. Good deal, 5 weeks all expenses paid in Montreal during expo, met a nice girl from New York there. A British airline had rooms reserved right across the hall from my room for their stewardesses for their three day layover. Every three days a new batch moved in. Don't remember much of the course but I scored 98% ( Did pretty good on the course too). I do remember walking down the middle of the street at some awful hour of the early morning with two other guys singing the Jets/Sharks song from West side story.