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| From facebook.com/FilmingCops |
Look, sport-o, if it's so important, then pull your squidly ass over to the side of the road and send your text, otherwise, hang up and ride.
(And, seriously, texting? The ABSOLUTE BEST PART of riding a motorcycle is that idiots can't bother you when you're all by your lonesome and sealed up in a helmet. If you're the kind of gregarious monkey who has to constantly engage in mutual flea-picking with the rest of the troop, a bike may not be for you, because it is solitude on two wheels, dude.)
That said, I do not support making texting-while-riding illegal. Go to hell in your own way, but if you hurt somebody else on the way there, I fully support rushing your victim to the hospital and finishing you off in the bar ditch like a mad dog.
34 comments:
That is by far the best example I've seen so far of the stupidity of handsfree laws in the intertubez.
Remember what Heinlein wrote: "Never underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity."
I've also seen people texting on bicycles while riding in rush hour traffic.
Spotted a guy a couple of months ago texting on horseback, but at least he was only out moving some cattle.
Indian Larry would have thought that was stupid.
Gerry
They do make helmets set up to hold your earpiece/mic for your phone, but at least that's TALKING, not taking your hands off the bars to play keyboard...
Texting on horseback is nothing, you can be dead drunk and the horse will get you back to the stable with no further guidance.
As to texting while doing anything else... Sigh. reading a text is one thing if traffic is light and weather is decent etc...
Do they do example in Drivers ed? On simulators?
I'm coming to the conclusion that EVERYONE should go back to drivers ed every 10-15 years for a practical drivers test so that stupid habits can be noted - and beaten out of you with a 2x4.
Talk about a potential competitor for a Darwin Award....
I would be tempted to pull up alongside him - then stand on the horn. Does that make me a bad person?
Tam, I like that description.
Riding is about solitude.
Anyway, I think texting while riding is like a pedestrian putting on a blindfold before using a crosswalk.
Fools like this are why I bought an SUV instead of an economy/sporty car. I'm constantly diving for the right shoulder while BB brained cretins cross the center-line while babbling on their phones, texting, checking maps, farding, etc.
I won't even THINK about riding my bike out there; my bones won't heal as fast as they used to.
Sooner or later, Karma will catch him; you reap what you sow.
Here in CT, you can't use a phone unless it's hands' free. You aren't even supposed to press the "on" or "off" buttons. Not that that is as distracting as dealing with the radio...
However, ever since that law was passed, I've seen tons of police, both local and state, driving while holding a phone to their ear. Seriously? I've been driving a lot longer than they have, and the only "accident" I've caused was when I hit ice backing out of my driveway the morning after one of the big snowstorms in 2010/11 and slid into the neighbor's car which was parked on the street. I find it hard to believe that they can, by simple virtue of their uniform, drive that much more safely than I can. They can either use that two way radio thingy they supposedly have, or, if it's a personal call, they can pull over, just like the rest of us are supposed to.
Grrrr. I'm cranky this morning, and probably will be until the results are in tomorrow, or next month, depending on how many claims there are of vote fraud. Depending on who wins, I may continue to be cranky.
Just last week a guy blew through a four way stop while I was waiting to go while texting... on a bicycle. Part of me, and by part I mean my entire being, mind and soul, hoped for a similarly distracted cement or trash truck driver to meet that imbecile at the next 4-way, at 70mph.
The inside of some people's heads is such a bad place they need to spend a lot of time being somewhere else.
What's at least as bad, I think, are the computer terminals occupying the right front seat in cop cars these days.
I recall driving back from visiting dying Dad in the Hospice one night, somewhat shook, of course, and somehow attracting the attention of a deppity. He had trouble staying in his lane while typing. I reckon he was looking for some dirt on me he could use to pull me over.
Log off and drive, officer!
@Anon 10:37.
Driver's ED? You think Driver's ED is the solution?! Have you SEEN what they are teaching in this so called driver's education course? They don't even teach them to drive stick or parallel park anymore! Sending people back every 10 or 15 years will make them stupider.
The solution is to actually TEACH people how to drive to begin with. The teaching requirements and regulations in Finland/Scandinavia writ large come to mind as excellent examples of how to make good drivers.
I do like the beating with 2x4s as part of the solution though....
-Rob
Og,
"The inside of some people's heads is such a bad place they need to spend a lot of time being somewhere else."
Heh. I'm frequently on the far side of Louisville before I remember to turn on the iPod...
Yep, stupidity... sigh... And they breed too!
Drivers here in Northern Tamaulipas, I mean South Texas, are so bad that I cannot bear the thought of riding a bike. My solitude solution is a Jeep with no windows or doors. Wind therapy is the goal, but being unable to hear the phone ring, let alone talk on it, is of greater benefit with each commute.
Or could it be that his GPS AP just told him to hang a sharp right turn? Probably not... But I've had one tell me to turn onto a road that hasn't been there for over thirty years!
Something I've never understood- why do motor cops wear 3/4 helmets and short sleeves without gloves? I get not wearing full face - but every credible helmet maker now produces a modular helmet that'll protect their would face at speed, and flip up to show their faces when they're talking to a car drivers. Short sleeves and no gloves? I couldn't get on base like that.
They can text and drive because they got trained in being the only ones competent enough back at the Academy when they were taught all the Kung Fu of the gun
Revolver Rob:
Is that anon. I hear you, believe or not my driver exam was WAIVED because I had a foreign license.
I'm all for Drivers Ed being MUCH more serious endeavour that are hard to pass.
( I know some Germans from pre-wall down Berlin, they tell passing the old Berlin DL exam scared them worse than Every university exam they wrote, put together. The instructors were uniformly sour, picky, OCD on rules German bureaucrats with a zero tolerance of student driver culture. Believe it or not I'd like to see more of that in ours.
Oh and taking the exam cost $$$, and many many would be drivers would fail more than once.)
(Of course I know a guy who was taught to drive 8x8 trucks by the Bundeswehr... he claims it's a combination of the above AND being yelled at by a drill sargeant while slithering sideways in mud at 70mph - and you only see intermittent flashes of daylight as the wipers clear off the mud.)
Joseph, the texting likely had little to do with the cyclist blowing through the 4-way stop.
As a cyclist, my fellow cyclists' overwhelming disregard for traffic laws is a major peeve and one of the main reasons I almost always ride solo.
I'm the only one on this highway professional enough to carry a Droid 4G....
BGM
"I'm the only one on this highway professional enough to carry a Droid 4G...."
Win!
I kept hitting "CTR +" to get a bigger picture. Odd. I do not see a plate/tag on that bike. I do not see a department name or anything like a number that would identify the motorcycle.
Can you say "Photoshop"?
Ed,
How 'bout the one at the link? Is that 'shopped, too?
"the kind of gregarious monkey who has to constantly engage in mutual flea-picking with the rest of the troop..."
Pure gold.
Thank you kindly for that little pick-me-up!
I'm with DJ.
My vocabulary expands every time I read your blog.
GAH!
As someone who also commutes via 2 wheels to and fro work in the tourist area of central FL daily I also am amazed at the stupidity in both those pics.
Now you got me working a blog post in my head about avoiding vs managing risk-behaviors.
And yes I've also wondered about the no face-shield helmets and short sleeves, but at least all our motocops wear gloves.
Personally I am an always helmet, mesh armor/jacket, gloves, wearing rider and am 99% on boots and long pants too. I average a hair under 1k miles/month all seasons.
As for riding a horse while plastered being a guarantee of returning to the barn on the horse, my Great-Grandfather was a bit of a drinker and literally (and not in the Joe Biden sense of that word) died falling off the wagon returning from his saloon one evening. His compatriots sat him on his wagon, and sent the horse back to his home. Said horse eager to get home, took a corner too fast, and returned to the barn with the wagon about 200 lbs lighter. The next morning my Grandfather saw the horse and wagon were back but not Pa, so he went to look for him. . .
One possible moral is that falling off the wagon indeed can be fatal!
If you liked that one, you'll *LOVE* this one.
http://cheezburger.com/6739890432
Really?
https://www.facebook.com/FilmingCops?sk=photos
https://www.facebook.com/FilmingCops/photos_stream
http://imgur.com/gallery/XnGDf
https://images.nonexiste.net/popular/2012/08/24/my-friend-took-this-yesterday-yes-that-is-a-police-officer-texting-while-driving-a-motorcycle/
Better resolution on this one:
http://www.imghut.com/image/police-officer-texting-while-driving-a-motorcycle-5081.html
http://pikdit.com/i/my-friend-took-this-yesterday-yes-that-is-a-police-officer-texting-while-driving-a-motorcycle/
An attempt to provide some information:
http://www.wwltv.com/home/Photo-appears-to-show-JP-motorcycle-officer-using-phone-will-driving-167378755.html
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