You reckon your having a bad day?

[au350hp]

Sitting in front of the laptop after an early knock off today, listening to Talkin Sport on the radio. 4pm bulletin came in with the sickening lead story of a motorcyclist who underwent a partial amputation (possibly at the scene), multiple compound fractures in his other leg & is now critical in hospital. I used to ride myself and hearing stories like this always rams home the reality of life and often, a timely reminder to be thankful for what we do have. My thoughts are with the rider & hope that it was just an accident, rather than a victim of somebody's stupidity.

Originally Posted by Roostercam

I used to ride myself and hearing stories like this always rams home the reality of life

Not to take away from the tragedy of what happened but I reckon you probably still do ride yourself.

Fingers crossed for the rider, I hope they pull through.

[au350hp]

Originally Posted by leesa

Not to take away from the tragedy of what happened but I reckon you probably still do ride yourself.

Fingers crossed for the rider, I hope they pull through.

Actually, I sold my bike a long time ago. A bunch of us got into road bikes in the early 90's & eventually people start to get hurt, sometimes badly, and worse, they die. A very good girlfriend of ours lost her left hand in an accident with a wreck less driver. Besides the personal side of it, the roads in Sydney and the amount of drivers that tailgate bikes as well as cars just wore me down. I am curious why you thought I still owned a bike?

[Jack91]

As riders, we know that its a dangerous game. The fun outweighs the risk, until something happens. And accidents do happen, all the leathers and high vis in the world is no match for a truck tyre or fixed barrier.
I love how you immediately point the blame straight to the other party though, like its never the riders fault. Ive seen riders put themselves in some down right dumb situations on the road. Yeah it sucks, but you full well know the risk when you don the jacket and pants, and if you dont, you're gonna find out really quick.

Originally Posted by Roostercam

Actually, I sold my bike a long time ago. I am curious why you thought I still owned a bike?

I don't, I was poking fun at your sentence because it sounded like you were talking about taking yourself out for a bit of a spin. (Sorry, I have a pretty bad and inappropriate sense of humour)
I'm also sorry to hear about your friend, that sounds horrific.

[roddy1960]

Yep , Hope it works out for the rider somehow . You just never know what might happen . My boss (principal) of our school was driving to work yesterday morning and was about to hit the top of the pass , then noticed a large tree that had fallen from the 100 plus kmh winds and about 80mm of rain over the weekend. A local council crew had one lane open ready for three school buses and other traffic and the boss was waved through at about 7.45 am .As he just cleared the work crew another tree began falling right in front of him . He couldn't stop and by pure luck it basically hit straight in front of him but two year old Jeep Wrangler hit the trunk square on , he reckoned about 10 kmh .
Airbags didn't deploy but he stowed in the front bumper bar and broke lights . If he'd arrived a second or two later almost certainly the Jeep would have copped the tree full on . Likely tragic because going by photos it was a decent sized gum tree about 50 cm diameter at an estimate .

Took about half an hour to clear up the tree and the boss and buses and other traffic moved through . He was a bit shaken but seemingly unhurt except a bit uncomfortable from the seat belt drag that he mentioned later in the morning and the car seemed drive-able to work that was about 4 km from the incident . He told a couple of staff he'd leave it at the garage though to get looked at before driving home in the afternoon .

He seemed fine and began his day apparently . About lunch time he let Admin know he was going to the hospital because he wasn't feeling so well .

I went to work this morning as was informed that he was rushed off to our main General hospital because of serious concerns with his health that our local hospital were worried about . Still didn't know at knock off time what the actual concerns were but it is a lesson to us all that never decide for yourself in such a case if you're okay or not.
Get checked out .

Probably one of last things the bike rider and my boss would have been thinking in the last day or two that they'd be in a pickle in hospital by the end of the day but they did. Just happens and at any time .

Sometimes life is a real bitch unfortunately .

[au350hp]

[QUOTE=Jack91;6104899]I love how you immediately point the blame straight to the other party though, like its never the riders fault.

Where did I say that? I said I hoped it was just an accident, which implies rider fault, rather than a result of a reckless driver, which implies driver fault.

[ozpacman]

[QUOTE=Roostercam;6104984]

Originally Posted by Jack91

I love how you immediately point the blame straight to the other party though, like its never the riders fault.

Where did I say that? I said I hoped it was just an accident, which implies rider fault, rather than a result of a reckless driver, which implies driver fault.

I just re-read the original post and unless I'm missing the obvious, I can't see anything resembling blame placed on the other party.

Can you enlighten us Jack91?

[au350hp]

Originally Posted by leesa

I don't, I was poking fun at your sentence because it sounded like you were talking about taking yourself out for a bit of a spin. (Sorry, I have a pretty bad and inappropriate sense of humour)
I'm also sorry to hear about your friend, that sounds horrific.

No offence taken. I do not know the individual involved in the MB accident. There has been some illness & a death in my wife & I's family's of late and that tends to make me think about life & puts things in a different light.

[au350hp]

Originally Posted by CoupeKing

A five year old girl died of liver cancer today, stop whining like a bitch.

So the people who died in my family recently don't count? Please come around and say that in front of my family, big man.

[Burnout]

It's tough out there:
https://fordforums.com.au/showthread...orious+monster

[CoupeKing]

Originally Posted by Roostercam

So the people who died in my family recently don't count?

Well if you had of put that in your original post then my reply would have been somewhat different.

Yeah it's tragic, but regardless who was at fault, riding a motorbike on today's roads is risky as *&^& - maybe not so on some back-streets or rural areas etc.

You could be Mick Doohan, but if you're on a bike and someone makes a mistake driving a car at 40 kph, chances are it won't end well for the person on the bike. If I'm in a car under similar circumstances (unless I'm in the passenger seat holding a 20 litre pot of hot soup with no lid), more times than not the only thing that would be broken is my pride/wallet.

I feel the same way when someone dies while rock-climbing, parachuting, or spear-fishing at night dressed as a seal and then getting eaten in half by a Great White - what did you expect? Enjoy your life, live your passion, but when it doesn't end well don't be shocked when some people are not that surprised.



HAHAHA I should have just posted this first, live and learn.

Originally Posted by CoupeKing

Well if you had of put that in your original post then my reply would have been somewhat different.

But most people are going through something in their life that others know nothing about.
Do you really need other peoples' tragedies laid out in order for you to not reply such a way?

[ozpacman]

1. Take the time to recount a story relating to a terrible traffic crash.
2. Mention that life can be cruel and that we need to be thankful for what we have.
3. Offer kind thoughts and well wishes to the crash victim.
4. Ponder the cause and hope it wasn't simply the result of stupidity.
5. Have your post ridiculed and be told to 'stop whining like a bitch.'

I would suggest that those of you who contributed to the last point really need to sit down and have a think about what's appropriate, as far as civilised responses are concerned.

[Junkyard-Dog]

I'm just here for the banter.

[Jack91]

Sorry roostercam, I guess I just read it that way. My brain just made a connection that wasn't 100% accurate, Im used to hearing all about the war on cars. Although, this isn't really a good topic. There are way more unfair ways to go, and as I said in my post, no matter who's at fault, its somewhat self inflicted. And if it was me as the rider, which could have happened a million times, I'd still own that, as would my family who hated whenever I'd take the bike out for a fang, but they knew that I knew what could happen, but made the choice to take the risk.

[NTF6]

Originally Posted by Jack91

As riders, we know that its a dangerous game. The fun outweighs the risk, until something happens. And accidents do happen, all the leathers and high vis in the world is no match for a truck tyre or fixed barrier.
I love how you immediately point the blame straight to the other party though, like its never the riders fault. Ive seen riders put themselves in some down right dumb situations on the road. Yeah it sucks, but you full well know the risk when you don the jacket and pants, and if you dont, you're gonna find out really quick.

Dress for the slide not the ride!

[NTF6]

Originally Posted by Jack91

As riders, we know that its a dangerous game. The fun outweighs the risk, until something happens. And accidents do happen, all the leathers and high vis in the world is no match for a truck tyre or fixed barrier.
I love how you immediately point the blame straight to the other party though, like its never the riders fault. Ive seen riders put themselves in some down right dumb situations on the road. Yeah it sucks, but you full well know the risk when you don the jacket and pants, and if you dont, you're gonna find out really quick.

Actually true accidents are very rare!

An accident by definition is where the outcome was not reasonably foreseeable by an ordinary person. The greater majority of "accidents" are the result of some degree of negligence, inattention, speeding, failing to keep left, failing to ensure the lane next to you is clear and the list could go on for ever. All of these things, an ordinary person could reasonably foresee the outcome from failing to keep left, inattention, and the endless list above.

An accident would be that you are walking along the footpath minding your own business and the wheel from a truck travelling in the opposite direction 400 meters and 6 lanes away has a wheel that separates from the vehicle just at that time and it just happens to take you out.

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by NTF6

Actually true accidents are very rare!

An accident by definition is where the outcome was not reasonably foreseeable by an ordinary person. The greater majority of "accidents" are the result of some degree of negligence, inattention, speeding, failing to keep left, failing to ensure the lane next to you is clear and the list could go on for ever. All of these things, an ordinary person could reasonably foresee the outcome from failing to keep left, inattention, and the endless list above.

An accident would be that you are walking along the footpath minding your own business and the wheel from a truck travelling in the opposite direction 400 meters and 6 lanes away has a wheel that separates from the vehicle just at that time and it just happens to take you out.

There is no such thing as an accident.Every incident can be attributed to someones negligence.Even the example you cited would have been caused by someone not checking,fixing,or relacing a faulty part.

[NTF6]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

There is no such thing as an accident.Every incident can be attributed to someones negligence.Even the example you cited would have been caused by someone not checking,fixing,or relacing a faulty part.

No, because the wheel coming off is not something that is reasonably foreseeable to an ordinary person unless they one put one wheel nut on and only did it finger tight, then the wheel coming off would as a result would be reasonably foreseeable.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by NTF6

Actually true accidents are very rare!

An accident by definition is where the outcome was not reasonably foreseeable by an ordinary person. The greater majority of "accidents" are the result of some degree of negligence, inattention, speeding, failing to keep left, failing to ensure the lane next to you is clear and the list could go on for ever. All of these things, an ordinary person could reasonably foresee the outcome from failing to keep left, inattention, and the endless list above.

An accident would be that you are walking along the footpath minding your own business and the wheel from a truck travelling in the opposite direction 400 meters and 6 lanes away has a wheel that separates from the vehicle just at that time and it just happens to take you out.

Agreed. I know a few Ambo's and all agree that they don't attend many accidents, but go to a lot of crashes.

[commodorenutt]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

There is no such thing as an accident.Every incident can be attributed to someones negligence.Even the example you cited would have been caused by someone not checking,fixing,or relacing a faulty part.

Roddy's example above of a tree falling on the road and the car not being able to stop in time??

Perfect definition of an accident.

Where is their negligence? Failing to keep safe distance from falling tree? Was the tree negligent?

This is exactly right:

Originally Posted by NTF6

No, because the wheel coming off is not something that is reasonably foreseeable to an ordinary person unless they one put one wheel nut on and only did it finger tight, then the wheel coming off would as a result would be reasonably foreseeable.

Similar situations exist when truck tyres shed their tread on the freeway, despite being correctly inflated, and not worn out. Do you not drive beside a truck because you might be blamed for the accident because it was negligent of you to pass the truck that has a slight risk of losing a tread?

There are so many factors and variables that can contribute to a true accident. Yes, there are crashes, caused by neglect or stupidity, from one or more parties, but there are plenty of examples that are true accidents, not caused by negligence, and not able to be anticipated & avoided by a driver with reasonable skill and reflexes.

[roddy1960]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

There is no such thing as an accident.Every incident can be attributed to someones negligence.Even the example you cited would have been caused by someone not checking,fixing,or relacing a faulty part.

Go and tell my boss that . I'm sure he'd agree !!!!!!!!!!!!!!. They had just cleaned up one small tree and some debris that fell after 80 mm of rain and nearly 100 kmh winds last weekend . The crews had just re opened the road . St Marys Pass is the only real access between the Fingal Valley and the East Coast of Tasmania other than a long detour via Elephant Pass and the Link Road . It is also needed for some of the school buses . to avoid a double distance plus school bus trip along the Link Road on the coast and Elephant Pass .

In December 2006 devastating bushfires destroyed a lot of St Marys Pass banktop understory and tree roots structure that was crucial to bind the high banks together. This has caused periodical mud slips and the odd tree fall from time to time, especially after rain or high winds . They have constant monitoring of it though and lots of remedial work has been done to minimize damage to this absolutely essential 5.8 km road .
The crew had cleared the road for normal traffic on Monday morning . The second tree came down as my boss passed through and it crashed right in front of him without any warning . Thankfully low speed but he hit it just after it hit the roadway. Pure luck it didn't crush the Jeep and him.

He's aggravated a previous neck injury from whiplash and spent two days in the LGH being assessed and he will be off work for a little while yet apparently..

How is this not an accident . Are we supposed to be superior to civil engineers , road experts , experienced crews that assessed the road and allowing traffic or are we supposed to be clairvoyant to be able to predict a falling tree in a couple of seconds.

If it happens outside of our control after due care has taken place it's a bloody accident .. Re negligence :: There are thousands of trees on the high side of St Marys Pass , physically impossible to check every tree for likelyhood of falling . Reasonable assessment is all that they can do , not negligence .

Maybe you should open your mind to that fact .

[Trevor 57]

sold my bike years ago for the same reason, I don't have the confidence to get back on one now, too many idiots on the road. I have had lots of corrective surgeries to fix the issues caused by riding due to other peanuts