Kill Spills?....

[askew]

I fell quite ignorant asking this, and I'm still not sure why I have never come across, or acknoledged diesel on the road. However, I feel compelled to ask, what exactly is the Kill spills thing all about?

I don't understand why there should be diesel on the road, or the reasoning behind a lorry driver dumping a load of it in the middle of the motorway.

This will no doubt seem like such a retarded question to about 99.9% of everyone that reads this, but any insight would be quite helpful.

Cheers guys.
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[mchaggis]

https://www.killspills.org.uk/ have a fairly good description of what they are about. The problem is usually drivers who overfill their tanks, and/or don't put the cap on properly. They go round a roundabout/ corner and the centrifugal force pushes the fuel out of the filling hole so it spills across the road.

Diesel is a very slippery substance, it doesn't evaporate in the same way as petrol, so won't just disappear from the road when it is spilt. The diesel is usually visible as a rainbow streak on the road, particularly visible when wet as it floats on the water, and sometimes noticeable as a petroleum-like smell.

The contact patch which your bike tyre has on the road normally is about the size of a playing card. Tilt the bike over and it becomes even smaller. As a result, the area of crap/ slippery substance which is needed for the tyre to lose grip is not very large. Generally, when the front loses grip, the bike just falls over, sliding away down the road, with you following.

This is also a very good reason not to use the front brake on corners. (I'm 90% certain that both of my lowside incidents have been the result of front brake on crap surfaces). When the back loses grip and slides, the automatic thing for it to want to do is to swap places with the front. Hence if you're leant over and put too much power through the back, it will slide towards the outside of the corner and end up spinning on its side down the road, with you following closely behind.

You might not have seen much diesel perhaps due to where you live meaning that there is a lack of HGV traffic. I know I've only seen diesel once whilst riding, as I was passing the exit of a quarry. Other than that, I've noticed diesel at bus stops primarily, for obvious reasons (start, stop etc making the fuel slosh back and forth in the tank, overfilled tanks spilling over the road).

(An amusing insight to this is that according to a friend of mine, Bentley recommend diesel fuel for lubricating the door hinges on their cars.. )

Other crap surfaces to look out for are gravel, wet leaves, ice and farm muck. Gravel is usually fairly predictably spread at junctions, so with experience you get to know where it is, normally a trianglar shape. It also occurs around the outside of corners I find. Wet leaves where there are trees in autumn. Ice, when it's cold. Beware of shady spots under trees where there hasn't been any sun in the morning, as these have the potential to be icy for a lot longer time than the places where the sun can get to.

On the attachment, turning right into the minor road is how I came a cropper, the gravel was distributed almost exactly like shown in the picture. I have noticed this shape on other junctions too, though I learnt my lesson after the first gravel induced lowside.
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[askew]

Thanks so much, that's incredibly useful. I'm going to be looking down at the ground for entre journeys now searching for some diesel to moan about .

Crikey, you had a low-side going into a junction?! does that mean that you/your bike ended up in the middle of the road you were going towards? Nasty stuff if you ask me.

Thanks again!
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What's ya name? What av' ya taken? Chase the lasers, safe as f*ck!

[mchaggis]

[Ninja]

Locked up the front on farmer-giles type mudbath at a junction and carried on about 2 feet into the road...nothing coming at the time, but

yeah - leaves on the road! I've been steering clear (no pun intended) of them just-in-any-case....

touch wood etc now
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James
4 wheels transport the Body ... 2 wheels transport the SOUL

[pipnet11]

Iv been got by diesel before on a roundabout. Not good. unfortunately the only thing you can do is be careful, Bus/lorry etc drivers will never care because it doesnt effect them.
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[The Tot]

When it comes to diesel - PLEASE DONT DO ANY SUDDEN MOVEMENTS TO UPSET THE BIKE'S BALENCE. If you see diesel on a mini-roundabout at your exit, just overshoot it and do a U-turn as suggested by the PC on my bikesafe course. It's bloody slippery as hell and sticks to ur tyres for ages. Spot the signs and just ride smoothly. Try to find a dry-line if possible.
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[mchaggis]

Here is a good article about the causes, the effects and the ways in which to deal with diesel spills on the roads.

https://www.racfoundation.org/releases/110304rac.htm

[m99dws]

If you are ever needing to pass the bus depot next door to the Town Hall in Darlington, you would be wise to avoid the main road that runs passed the Dolphin Leisure Centre.
The idiots at Arriva seem to be having a competition with each other at the moment to see who can create bigger rainbows in the wet.