Scooters and SOME of the riders.

[kasandrich]

I was out in my car the other day, and my path crossed with that of a young scooter rider (presumably 50cc from the speed he was going).

Now I was in the wilds of Sufflok, I spotted this scooter pull a fairly silly move, and I thought......I'd best keep my eye on you! What actually transpired I could not believe, we were in a 50mph limit, I was doing exactly 50mph, about 50m or so ahead, I can see the national speed limit sign, (its a single carriageway road so thats 60mph), I'm thinking, thats good, I'll be able to go 10mph faster, young scooter lad thinks, my scoot does 52mph, and this old git in this car is only doing 50mph so I'm going past, so he proceeds to try and overtake me SLOWLY, so when we reach the 60mph limit, am I supposed to hold off and see if he can get past me before an articulated lorry comes the other way and splatters him on the road, or do I go about my business and accelerate to 60mph once I reach the speed limit change, as if he weren't there?

......so 60mph it is then, and young fella is left out on the wrong side of the road with no one to overtake .....What a plonker, this guy is gonna become a statistic if he doesn't change his ways, I hope no one on here rides like that, but what does it take to make riders like him change their ways.

Incidentally, my Godson, had a scooter and managed to ride straight into the back of a PARKED articulated lorry........he claims he never saw it , either he wasn't looking or his visor was misted up bad or something........but that is inexcusable, that is riding blind, an articulated lorry traile is big enough to see
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Richard

CBR1000FM

[Marc_Buck]

You as a driver are supposed to look in your mirror before speeding up to 60mph, upon looking in your mirror you are looking to see if he is going to speed up, when he does try to overtake you are supposed to let him past.
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94 fzr600r

[instigator]

But if he remained at that same speed, then surely he would have been crushed i.e the scooter rider?

Rich would of had to slow down to let the scooter rider past. And then he'd need to overtake the guy once hitting the 60.

I'd have done the same just jammed on the power, so long as it wouldn't have killed the silly lad/lady

[kasandrich]

If you are suggesting that for 1 second I did not know where this kid was or what he was doing you are wrong. As an experienced driver, i know that my concentration should be on the most serious hazard in the vacinity, and that was him, I was watching him and his actions very closely.

No maybe you are misinterpreting the situation, this kid was struggling to get past me, I was observing the speed limit, he was flat out trying to get past me, he should NEVER have undertaken that overtake! .....Are you suggesting I should have slowed down to let him past because he did not have the power to pull off the overtake he had committed to, (even though approaching a higher speed limit) let him pass and then proceeded to overtake him as he would then be well into the 60mph, and still doing 51 or 52mph, and thus holding up my progress in the 60 limit.

I am a biker and a car driver with 25 years experience on the road, so I can see both points of view, this youngster (and you will notice I have not used the usual expleatives seen on here to describe him, he needs educating not abusing!) was out of order, he was an accident waiting to happen!, I have a 16 year old son with a moped, and if I'd seen him do the same thing, I would give him a serious talking to about his mortality, I would even consider confiscating his keys for a week, to make him think about his actions!

You seem to be of the "if theres a car and a bike, the biker must be in the right", school of thought, but this would have made no difference if I'd been on my bike, he still would be in the wrong.
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Richard

CBR1000FM

[kasandrich]

[Grubby]

You shoulda just knocked him off & saved the bus/lorry the job!

[TheShaggyDA]

[Ste]

You're not meant to try and overtake if you don't have the power to overtake, the person that they are trying to overtake is not meant to "let them past". If they can't overtake then they brake and go back behind you.

If you can go fast enough then you can overtake, if you can't then you don't overtake, you can't expect or say that "oh they shoudl let you past as they're going slower than you".

[Kickstart]

[Marc_Buck]

Obviously if theres noway they will make it in time and no signs of them slowing down then you slow down/speed up, whatervers safer.
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94 fzr600r

[Davo]

It sounds like a typical case of adolescence, combined with a complete lack of experience, e.g. a more experienced motorist would have anticipated the change in speed limit and known that the more powerful vehicle would accelerate.

Anyhow, why was he doing 50mph for, I thought 16 year olds were restricted to 31mph.

[lurker]

as a fellow driver and assuming that this is a very rare occurence(well its never been a situation ive been in in all the years ive been driving)would it have been too much to ask for you to touch the brakes and wipe 5mph off your speed to let him past.
assuming you have a motorcycle yourself, im sure youve also made wrong decisions at times (mibbee even just the once) where another road use has had to alter there speed to allow you past them.
thought that being that little bit more considerate to any bikers you may come across on your travels was all in the spirit of biking.

or mibee your just another typical cager?

[Rob W]

I don't see why he should have let him past though, as Ste said, dont overtake if you haven't got the power, yeah in a perfect world everyone would be considerate and let everyone do as they please, but it shows the kid's total lack of brain/experience to try and overtake when he was only doing 1mph more.
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'90 TS50 > '04 Senda 125 > '91 ZXR400 > '90 CB-1 > '04 GSX-R1000 > '96 Bandit 600 > '89 ZXR750 H1 > '96 GSX-R750 SRAD > '98 RR-W Fireblade > '98 T595 Daytona > '03 Hornet 900 > '04 Fireblade > '16 GSX-S1000F (x2) > '23 XSR900

[Ste]

I would expect people are quite happy on here to pull in a bit to let a bike past, but that is completly different to slowing down to let some ped overtake you as they don't have the power to overtake otherwise.

Overtaking is a very very simple thing, you go faster than whatever you want to overtake, if you can't go faster than then you have no need to overtake as they're going faster than you and so won't be presenting a problem. It was just the ped rider being stupid, trying to overtake when you don't have the power to do so isn't a good idea, and it's being very very narrow minded if you say "well, I want to be in front of you but I can't overtake you so you should slow down to let me past!!"

[JonB]

How can you say that it is only people on mopeds that do this, you get bikers on all size of bikes that do silly overtaking manoveures all of the fucking time.
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Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it?s worth.

[TheShaggyDA]

Who said it's only people on mopeds?
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Current: CB500 Previous: CB100N, CB250RS, XJ900F, GT550, GPZ750R/1000RX, AJS M16, R100RT, Enfield Bullet

[i:6e3bfc7581]But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman...[/i:6e3bfc7581]

[dodsi]

the title of the post is "scooters and some of their riders" and as the only bike i now own is a peugeot speedshite 100cc

i am a scooter rider (even though i cant ride it as i dont have insurance)

so i am backing the scooter revolution front....

[JonB]

Perhaps I shouldn't have put mopeds, but people are saying "if he didn't have the power so shouldn't overtake." I just though I would air my opinion that yes he did make a silly mistake and no it wasn't forgivable, but I have seen silly moves come from people of all ages. It comes down to rider judgement not the power. The rider should had known his bike wasn't going to have the power. Just like someone on a big bike should know that overtaking on a blind corner has it's risks too.
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Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it?s worth.

[Ste]

You do get bikers do dangerous overtakes as well, but not "oh, I don't have the power to overtake you so please let me past as I'm too slow to do it on my own".

No one is saying that it is all scooter riders that do things like that, it is just a minority (I could really wind the scooter riders on here up by saying its a minority which don't do things like that ) the same as some big bike riders overtake round blind corners.

Maybe this the ped rider will have his fame in the Darwin awards some time.

[Rob W]

Anyone who overtakes on a blind corner is as much of a tw@ as this bloke.

I used to work with a guy who did his Direct Access and went straight out ond bought an R6, he took me out on the back of it and within 5 minutes I was screaming at him to let me off. He would overtake ANYTHING no matter what the condition's were, and then overtook a row of cars, round a blind corner at about 100mph with me on the back. Suffice to say it wasn't long before he was lying in a heap with his bike.
____________________
'90 TS50 > '04 Senda 125 > '91 ZXR400 > '90 CB-1 > '04 GSX-R1000 > '96 Bandit 600 > '89 ZXR750 H1 > '96 GSX-R750 SRAD > '98 RR-W Fireblade > '98 T595 Daytona > '03 Hornet 900 > '04 Fireblade > '16 GSX-S1000F (x2) > '23 XSR900

[mchaggis]

It's people on bikes which are too slow to be overtaking at that speed. A larger bike can overtake quickly and shouldn't require the other driver to take avoiding action.

If I'm level with a car in a 30 and it's 2 lanes -> 1, I tend to accelerate in front of it and make several very deliberate long lifesavers to where I'm going to be going, as well as indicating to make sure they've got the point that I'm overtaking them. If they slow down to let me in front of them, then I'll acknowledge it with a wave or a nod.

If I'm level with a car in a 40 or 50 and it's 2 lanes -> 1, I'll tend to let it pull ahead of me. A quick wave on or something just to let them know I'm not going to try and overtake. Generally, drivers are grateful if you show politeness on the road and will return it. If they/ you do something stupid, then people get pissed off.

At the end of the day, like the Honda advert says, 'Aren't we all just trying to get somewhere?'. Also as T.C.'s sig says, it's better to be 30 seconds late in this life than 30 years early in the next.

(Personally I think being forced to ride a bike which won't go faster than the traffic but can keep up helps people learn consideration and road manners as they have to compete for space with the cars and behave sensibly as they can't just blast away.)
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Mmmm, Guinness
Discovering the delights of Hammerite and a 3/4" brush.

[mrchips]

I done that with a tractor on my moped going up hill. It was doing about 25 I was doing 28 thought I had the upper hand then the hill steepened and I ended up pulling into the right when a car approached.
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Northern Irish? www.nibikers.com

[Ste]

Sorry, but the hill didn't just suddenly steepen, you could have looked ahead and seen that and thought "ah, I can't overtake as there is a hill coming" and you then wouldn't have had to pull into the right to avoid hitting and oncoming car.

[neon]

kasandrich,

why didn't you just slow down a tad and let him in rather than being awkward and sitting there at 50 knowing that he is struggling to get past, the poor guy is only probably 16

[TheShaggyDA]

Aww bless, let's all drive at 30mph, coz there's 16 year olds on 50s out there.

Read the post again, they were approaching a 60mph section. Regardless of what you are driving/riding, you do not do so in a manner than makes other road users have to change speed or direction.
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Current: CB500 Previous: CB100N, CB250RS, XJ900F, GT550, GPZ750R/1000RX, AJS M16, R100RT, Enfield Bullet

[i:6e3bfc7581]But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman...[/i:6e3bfc7581]