Biker Wave Protocol

Sell the bike. Buy a Humvee.

 

I think one of the issues we have here is that we have a lot of drivers who just shouldn't be on the road and we have people setting speed limits who clearly have little understanding of what the hazards are. Often the speed limit they set bears no resemblance to what the guidelines say it should be. Often they reduce speed to respond to a certain number of accidents but they don't seem to pay any attention to what caused those accidents and whether the people who crashed were paying any attention to the existing limit or were even awake when they crashed. So we all get penalized with a ridiculously low limit that doesn't stop the idiots from crashing because they either don't care what the limit is and continue to drive at warp speed, fall asleep at the wheel, drive drunk, drug affected or are just completely incompetent behind the wheel. They reduce speed limits arbitrarily and the result is that the limit is too low. When you set the limit too low, people start ignoring it. Those that don't tend to lose concentration faster because they are often bored and complacent.

I'd like to see it harder to get a licence and easier to lose it with more training required for those that do to get it back. I'd like to see higher speed limits with more competent drivers on the road and more flexible policing tools to assist the cops to target idiots and drivers too stupid to adapt to the conditions. I think the cops tend to ignore a lot of things as the way the law is written makes it nearly impossible to enforce. An example here is indication on roundabouts/go rounds. We're supposed to indicate left to indicate when we are leaving a roundabout, but the rules actually use the words "where practicable" so you can't enforce it as they have made it a matter of opinion as to what is "practicable". I could rant about the way the rules for roundabouts are written for hours, but won't bore you with our antipodean problems. Suffice it to say that the guys that wrote the rules didn't understand how a roundabout works.

 

So many of you are correct on many things.

The insurance companies take statistics and say speeding is the cause of a major proportion of the accidents and deaths. They are taking statistics out of police reports and ignoring others. Chiefs of Police will always agree with their counsels. They have to. That is the politics of policing at the higher ranks. What is believed out on the road by the grunts who do the work is often totally different. We cannot speak out against our elected employers or our supervisors. That is insubordination and is not tolerated in many professions, including policing

In my 25 years policing, 1/3 of which was traffic enforcement only, I recall only one accident that I can say "exceeding" the speed limit was a contributing factor leading to the death of a motorcyclist in a single vehicle accident. Alcohol was the other factor. He hit a concrete no post barrier at speeds estimated by witnesses to be around 130 MPH.

Speed, on the other hand, is a contributing factor for so many collisions. But that is almost totally in addition to another factor such as alcohol, weather, road and visibility conditions. Even though "speed" is a contributing factor, that does not mean the operator was exceeding the speed limit. A driver can loose control of his vehicle and become involved in a collision because there was puddled water, or snow , or something else on the road. You can drive on ice and in puddled roads safely if you are driving the appropriate speed for those conditions at that time.

Personally, I did not care to sit there and write speeding tickets all day. For what reason? I was directed to do that type of enforcement. I believed my responsibility was to determine what was the leading cause of collisions in a certain area, and do enforcement to combat that. On the freeway, it was alcohol, unsafe lane changes and tailgating. Also fatigue. You should see the reaction I would get for ticketing someone who fell asleep at the wheel for Driving Without Due Care and Attention. As very expensive and high demerit point offense. IF YOU ARE TIRED, PARK THE FUCKING CAR! Back to the speeding tickets. I was told to do such enforcement while working the freeway. The other enforcement I did in between times. When I worked city traffic, I most often would target offenses that lead up to accidents. Most of that was monitoring intersections where there was a high collision rate. Most of the time, people running yellow and red lights. Most places, law requires you to actually stop for a yellow light if it is safe, or clear the intersection. My yard stick was this. You made it past the m id way point in that intersection before the light turned red, you kept going. Otherwise you got a Fail to stop for yellow. If you had not entered that intersection (crossed the stop line or crosswalk) before the light turned red, you got a red light ticket.

Back to the speed. Even though exceeding the speed limit is not, in my opinion, a significant cause for collisions, it did proportionally have a direct effect on the seriousness of the injury, up to and including death. As a police officer, my first duty is to protect life and property, in that order. So if those dumbassed fucks who insist on driving like a fool, both cages and bikes or what ever, or those who insist that the use of cell phones is not a hazard, will not conform with the laws that are in place to help me accomplish that goal, then like I said, Grab a fucking chunk of the curb asshole. I want to have a chat and provide you with a coupon.

Now. Where it comes to tickets being written to raise funds for a town or what ever, give me a break. If you really believe that is common, you probably believe that Kennedy is still alive somewhere. There are asshole cops out there for sure, who think their quality of work is measured by the number of tickets written, but they are not even close to being the norm. We hate those pricks as much as you do because what they do, makes my work more difficult. I do have an idea what happens with a ticket once I am done serving it. The number of hands that these tickets go through, the number of offices that process the information, and store the ticket even though it is not disputed, is enormous. Soon as that ticket is disputed, costs sky rocket. Enforcement of traffic laws is not a good way to raise money for town coffers. Of course there may be a few exceptions but the vast majority of locations, it is unlikely.

A few of you have made some very valid points in the last few post here. There were a few hair brained ideas as well. I am sure it was not meant as a slam, but rather someone just not realizing what is behind a lot of what a cop does out there and for what reason.

So there you have it. I have ranted as well. You guys are all assholes and I love you all. BTW. I have not been into my stash of scotch either.

 

Some small burgs do have low speed limits. All it takes is one cop whose day is not complete until he or she hands out a shitload of citations. Case in point is Philomath, Oregon. The town is on Oregon 20. This highway starts at the Pacific and runs across the width of the state and is a main conduit to the I-5. One cop there is known to be the watchdog and I have heard this dude gets up in trees and videos the middle and high school kids.

It would seem that if revenue increases were the object, a switch from writing citations for a couple of miles over to really nailing talkers and texters might be the better source of more pesos.

But officer she says, that was not a cell phone that was an electric razor..