Re: OT: Self balancing wheel, electric unicycle

The way I think of it is that with one wheel you're riding a power unicycle and _objectively_ crazy, so motorcyclists are just one wheel away from psychosis.

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

The story does not say it but it looks like he was killed by another illegal that was driving a pickup and ran a red light.

True! But the reality is, if you're on a motorcycle, legal or illegal, in busy city traffic, the statistics are _strongly_ against your survival.

Particularly in Arizona, with the sun in your eyes, seeing a motorcyclist in your path can be damn near impossible.

I'm very cautious... just in this past week I was saluted by a motorcyclist who I spotted and gave him space to merge. ...Jim Thompson

I've seen people on powered skateboards that have one giant rubber wheel in the middle. That looks like fun. One guy told me that it took him two hours to pick it up, and his young daughter did it in half an hour.

Everybody will get old eventually, if you're lucky and not too very stupid.

I quit motorcycling when I reached the Age of Reason, namely 40. It's just too dangerous on the street. I might get another dirt bike. Cars and trees are both hard, but trees don't actively try to kill you.

Jim, as another dedicated motorcyclist I thank you on behalf of my unknown friend.

Your point about motorcyclists being at risk suggests that most drivers in your state do not respect the rules of the road and do not drive with due care and attention.

Like most drivers of automobiles everywhere.

They do not look where they are going very carefully, nor do they allow for sun, fog, rain,...

Motorcyclists by nature need to be very aware of their environment. Not all are of course.

Any motorcyclist who doesn't take advanced road safety courses (or any safety course) is toying with death - too many do not understand Push Steering, nor the dynamics of braking on the straight vs curves, along with working to avoid accidents by constantly looking for 'ways out' when riding/driving.

Of course road safety training works for car drivers too.

I, for one, can't wait for self driving cars to take the legions of lousy drivers away from their steering wheels.

John

Around here motorcyclists basically seem to like to tailgate and rev their engines while moving around in back of you trying to find an opening to pass on the left or right so they can do 70 instead of 45.

Or sit behind you at lights, and rev their engines. Rrrrvv Room room room, skreeeeeeeee blap blap blap blap. VROOM ROOM SKREEEEEEEeeee

Yes, many motorcyclists are obnoxious. One noisy bike can wake up a thousand people. Many also seem to have a death wish. Lane splitting is legal in California, and has the expected Darwin effects.

MCs are about 35x as fatal as cars, on a per-mile basis.

There are certain classes of vehicles, like 1200cc sportbikes, that you just know the driver isn't buying to use to be a courteous driver or take to track day, but is buying to use as a whackoff-mobile to behaev like whackoff on public roads with an unwilling audience.

Also like this dumb thing:

There should be a huge whackoff-tax you have to pay upfront to own whackoff-mobiles like that.

Same here, but sometimes it's 2 a week. Just reckless kids.

Cheers

We seem to lose older guys with families... just going to work, and hit by some clown, "I didn't see him" :-(

I've seen too many of these personally... a dead body in the middle of the street is _not_ a pleasant sight. ...Jim Thompson

Does driving off a cliff count as a faceplant?