car vs bike at 155mph
December 6, 2005 10:40 AM   Subscribe

Photos of the outcome of a motorcycle merging with a car @ 155 miles per hour.
posted by jonson (109 comments total)
 
My jaw is agape.
posted by drezdn at 10:46 AM on December 6, 2005


Yow. Don't ride a donorcycle at 155mph, 'cause there won't be anything left to donate.
posted by killdevil at 10:47 AM on December 6, 2005


outcome - 3 dead people.
posted by the cuban at 10:47 AM on December 6, 2005


The motorcycle & the motorcycle rider are INSIDE the car with the passengers. Unbelievable...
posted by jonson at 10:48 AM on December 6, 2005


Christ. Almost as scary are the comments on that link, I didn't realise the world was so retarded.

Does anyone know the circumstances behind that? It's obvious the rider was a dickwad who deserved to die for riding so fast, but what about the car occupants? Had they run a red or something? Not that they deserved this.
posted by seanyseansean at 10:49 AM on December 6, 2005


No mention of who was at fault though I would guess the biker shouldn't have been going 155 miles per hour where there was traffic entering the road. But its just as likely that the VW made an illegal turn that resulted in the crash. Either way, there's a reason we have speed limits because there is just no time to react at that speed.

Thanks for the reminder that perhaps more speed is not always the best answer. ----> Planning on taking my time riding home this evening.
posted by fenriq at 10:51 AM on December 6, 2005


I'm feeling a mix of emotions: sadness and pity over the senseless, stupid loss of life; awe at the sheer carnage; snarkiness that makes me want to say, "Remember, kids! Even if you drive safely and do everything you're supposed to, a motorcycle can still come out of nowhere at 155 miles per hour and kill you!"

I'm also feeling irked by the use of "@" in the FPP. I mean, "@" and "at" both require two keystrokes! Seriously, what's the point?
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:52 AM on December 6, 2005


Why does it look like the car is on display in the middle of a mall?
posted by Gator at 10:52 AM on December 6, 2005


This thread is a train wreck waiting to happen.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:52 AM on December 6, 2005


omg, thats pretty crazy, id hate to be one of those peeps
posted by oxala at 10:53 AM on December 6, 2005


Geez, looking at the comments, that site's got more than their fair share of AOLers.

TO FAKE!!!!!!!! WHERE THE hell is the blood of this died people??? You can’t clean all of it….. maybe the car was wite!!! NO WAY FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE…….. And if he drived 250 KM the r1 would get out of the other side of the door!!! to fake!!!!!!!! CRAP SHIT FAKE SHIT!!!!!!!!!!

Yah, thanks for the insight.
posted by rolypolyman at 10:56 AM on December 6, 2005


Why does it look like the car is on display in the middle of a mall?

Because it is.
posted by DieHipsterDie at 10:57 AM on December 6, 2005


fenriq, I'm guessing the car pulling out wasn't expecting a motorbike to come out of nowhere. I wonder what the speed limit at the intersection was: if the driver expected the bike to be doing, say, 50mph they may have thought they had more time to pull out.

Gator, when I was at high school we had car wrecks brought in all the time to warn us against speeding or drunk driving or whatever they thought we might do. I imagine this is part of an anti-speeding campaign.
posted by tracicle at 10:58 AM on December 6, 2005


My jaw is agape.

My arms are akimbo.
posted by Witty at 10:59 AM on December 6, 2005


Here's a photo of the car at the scene of the accident.

From the link: The graphic display (below) was placed at the Stockholm Motorcycle Fair by the Swedish Police and Road Safety Department. The sign above the display noted that the rider had only recently obtained his license.
posted by tracicle at 11:00 AM on December 6, 2005


It's a reconstruction of the accident, put on display at a motorcycle faire in Stockholm (I've seen it before).

Unfortunately, a lot of new riders like to give the rest of us a bad name. Shit, my bike can't even do 150. It doesn't need to.
posted by Eideteker at 11:00 AM on December 6, 2005


It's a reconstruction of the accident

So, crap shit fake shit indeed.
posted by dgaicun at 11:03 AM on December 6, 2005



omg, thats pretty crazy, id hate to be one of those peeps


Smashed peeps
posted by caddis at 11:06 AM on December 6, 2005


I recently saw a similar accident (although at much lower speed). Tourist turning left into a motel could not possibly anticipate something approaching that fast, and biker going faster than his stopping ability. Biker just got on the brakes, yet still went from 60 to 0 mph within the distance of a large dent. Tourist not hurt; biker was a mess, but lived, thanks to a high-tech helmet.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:11 AM on December 6, 2005


Damn straight, Eideteker. Why would you want to ride a fat CBR or Hiyabusa or whatever? Those things are so uncomfortable. I can understand people who take them to the race track, certainly a better idea that what this asshole did. But even so, I find the tendency towards riding race bikes on the street to be more than a little rediculous. A comfortable street bike just makes so much more sense.
posted by Farengast at 11:11 AM on December 6, 2005


Stockholm. I wonder if this has anything to do with it?
posted by bonehead at 11:12 AM on December 6, 2005


Yeah, I need this pic when dumb riders say dumb shit like "Oh, it's ok if I go 150 MPH. Motorcycle accidents don't cause fatalities. Our mass is too low!"

Yeah. Your fat ass and your 1200 CC crotch rocket have all the mass of a fairy.
posted by loquacious at 11:14 AM on December 6, 2005


I mean, "@" and "at" both require two keystrokes!

@ is a chord, "at" is sequential.

Math time. 155MPH/60=2.5 miles per minute. One mile, 5280 ft, so 13,200 feet a minute. [1] Divide that by sixty, and we are at 220 feet a second.

Top drag racers train themselves to nail the four-tenths of a second between the yellow and green lights on a professional start tree. They practice this constantly, and they still mess up. Still, we'll call that a useful measure -- if you are in perfect form, with full control, you can react in .4 seconds.

220*.4= 88 feet. If something happens 88 feet in front of you, you will be able to do nothing to react to it. Period. You will run into it, at full throttle, with no brakes. Never mind the braking time for those speed -- you never even pulled the handle.

Now. Get up, drop something on the floor. Walk thirty paces away. Okay, you may want to go outside. Try it again. That's about 88 feet (depending on your stride.)

88 feet where, if something bad happens, you will just have enough time to think "Oh Fu.." before it pulps you -- and you pulp it.

Sucks when "it" was a living breathing human.

Fucking stupid. This is little short of murder. I'm all for people doing this on a track, but when airliners land -- and this is *faster* than they fly when they're landing, they stay miles apart for this reason.

Posit: The punishment for exceeding 150mph on a public road should involve you being made incapable of ever driving again. This means, of course, death, maiming, or life in prision.

Yeah, I'm fucking bitter. This is bringing back memories I don't want to remember. Too many fucking funerals because some asshole thinks fast=cool.

[1] Scale: A large majority of major commercial airports, including don't have a runway this long, and most of them that do only have an extra couple of hundred feet.
posted by eriko at 11:18 AM on December 6, 2005 [1 favorite]


Your fat ass and your 1200 CC crotch rocket have all the mass of a fairy.

Kinetic energy equals 1/2 mass * velocity2. Note that mass is halved, but velocity is squared. Note he had enough KE to do all that damage -- and flip the car.
posted by eriko at 11:21 AM on December 6, 2005


I would wholeheartedly support a law that makes it illegal to sell high powered motorcycles to riders with less than three or four years of riding experience. Its the same thing with teenagers getting given Corvettes for their first car, they will almost certainly stack it up because they just don't have enough experience to know how to operate them safely.

Its far too much power before they know what they're doing and the result, as these photos indicate, can be pretty horrific.
posted by fenriq at 11:21 AM on December 6, 2005


This reminds me of the recent Ghostrider video post. Several folks mentioned that at least a speeding biker won't kill anyone but themeselves, and loqaucious chimed into to say "nay."

This picture is quite the illustration of that. Yikes. I'm going to feel much, much less charitable the next time I see an 18-year-old crock-rocket jock going 150 mph on the highway.
posted by teece at 11:23 AM on December 6, 2005


fenriq, this isn't the result of someone not being able to handle a powerful bike. That results in spill outs on turns, when accelerating from a stop, possibly popping the front wheel and falling over. You don't drive 155 mph by accident, because you don't know how to handle a bike. You do that on purpose because you are an idiot and rational boundries of personal and community safety mean nothing to you.
posted by Farengast at 11:25 AM on December 6, 2005


Damn straight, Eideteker. Why would you want to ride a fat CBR or Hiyabusa or whatever? Those things are so uncomfortable. I can understand people who take them to the race track, certainly a better idea that what this asshole did. But even so, I find the tendency towards riding race bikes on the street to be more than a little rediculous. A comfortable street bike just makes so much more sense.

Well sure, why don't we all drive Tercels while we're at it? They're much more sensible than a big heavy truck or BMW. I find the tendency to ride those big wasteful machines to the grocery store a little ridiculous.

Snark aside, CBR and Hayabusa riders generally don't use more than a fraction of their machine's capabilities. I ride a motorcycle that can do about 180mph, supposedly.

We all make choices, and it was this rider's choice to drive 150mph, not his choice of machine, that killed three people.
posted by letitrain at 11:29 AM on December 6, 2005


superbikes don't kill people, people kill people
posted by caddis at 11:32 AM on December 6, 2005


CBR and Hayabusa riders generally don't use more than a fraction of their machine's capabilities
That's exactly my point. You still pay for all those capabilities that you don't use, and you still suffer the back ache of the racing bike posture when you aren't racing. I'm not saying riding racing bikes on the street is inherently dangerous, the rider carries the onus of that. I just think it's silly is all. When you can spend thousands less for a more comfortable bike and even get one that's about as powerful and with the same styling as the racing bikes.
posted by Farengast at 11:36 AM on December 6, 2005


Farengast, yeah, I know its not really an accident in the sense that he choose to go that fast but my point is that new riders don't know what they're doing at slower speeds and everything gets really, really fast above 120 mph. Maybe call it ignorance instead of an accident to be more precise.

My motorcycle can go 150 miles an hour but I don't go that fast because I know how incredibly dangerous it is. I might do it on a track but never on public roads. But I've been riding for close to 15 years now.

teece, just make sure you feel charitable to the responsible bikers who don't use the highway like a race track.
posted by fenriq at 11:36 AM on December 6, 2005


"DAMM I WONDER HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED IN THAT SHIT!"
posted by tpl1212 at 11:38 AM on December 6, 2005


TO FAKE!!!!!!!! WHERE THE hell is the blood of this died people??? You can’t clean all of it….. maybe the car was wite!!! NO WAY FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE…….. And if he drived 250 KM the r1 would get out of the other side of the door!!! to fake!!!!!!!! CRAP SHIT FAKE SHIT!!!!!!!!!!

For fuck's sake, man, leave me out of this! I didn't clean anything.
posted by fake at 11:41 AM on December 6, 2005


fenriq, I totally know what you mean, though. One of the biggest mistakes any new rider can make is to buy a bike that they can't handle yet. Thankfully most of those end with a scarred bike for sale and a frightened rider, but you are correct in that some of them do not end so nicely. Thankfully you usually can't kill 2 other people in those circumstances... but you're playing with fire none the less.
posted by Farengast at 11:43 AM on December 6, 2005


Thanks to the detectives upthread. The first thing I thought was 'Bullshit!'. Something like that, the Police and forensics workers would spend weeks investigating and measuring etc etc. No way the remains of the vehicles would have been left undisturbed, let alone sent as an exhibit to a mall. I haven't ridden a bike in years. This wouldn't stop me however.
posted by peacay at 11:45 AM on December 6, 2005


There should be a sniglet for the situation where someone's Metafilter login works as a joke in response to a comment someone has made.
posted by jonson at 11:45 AM on December 6, 2005


fenriq: I'd be interested to see tiered licensing instituted. Unfortunately, a lot of places will sell you a bike without really caring if you're licensed.
posted by Eideteker at 11:47 AM on December 6, 2005


teece, just make sure you feel charitable to the responsible bikers who don't use the highway like a race track.

Not to worry, fenriq, my dad is a biker (of the Harley variety, not crotch-rocket kind), so I've had the "respect bikers" meme put in my head since the first driving lesson my dad ever gave me. The one thing that bugs me, regarding cars vs bikes, is how car drivers tailgait bikes. The bike can stop much quicker than the average auto driver seems to realize, and such drivers may kill a biker one day.
posted by teece at 11:51 AM on December 6, 2005


People still ride motorcycles? Morons.
posted by xmutex at 11:51 AM on December 6, 2005


You don't drive 155 mph by accident, because you don't know how to handle a bike. You do that on purpose because you are an idiot and rational boundries of personal and community safety mean nothing to you. - Farengast

Yes, and you may mistakenly believe that if the worst happens you won't hurt anyone but yourself.
posted by raedyn at 11:51 AM on December 6, 2005


My jaw is agape.

My arms are akimbo.


My side impact bars are ascair'd.
posted by pmbuko at 11:55 AM on December 6, 2005


Raedyn, you'd have to be a special kind of idiot to think that. (which is not to say that they don't exist) My motorcycle is reletively small and it weighs 380 pounds. Do you know anybody who thinks they can throw a 400 pound weight at someone at 150 mph and not kill them? Ignorance is only excusable within certain limits. After that it's the same disregard for others that compels car drivers to go that fast
posted by Farengast at 11:58 AM on December 6, 2005


@ is a chord, "at" is sequential an arpeggio.
posted by quonsar at 11:59 AM on December 6, 2005


eriko: Yeah, I know. I'll call you when I need you to explain that to some doofus riding a superbike who doesn't understand the concept of kinetic energy. The fairy thing was a joke.
posted by loquacious at 12:00 PM on December 6, 2005


You can't drive until you're 15. You can't vote until you are 18. You can't drink until you're 21. You can't become president until you're 35. There are some things that are just too dangerous to be left for the young, inexperienced and hot-headed.

Unfortunately, age limits don't work universally -- some well considered highschool students should certainly be allowed to vote, and some monkey-like scions should never have been allowed to run for the presidency.

Still, they're a good compromise between considering every situation specifically (no one is willing to invest the time) and just allowing everyone to do anything (way too dangerous).

So, I'd be in favor of age limits on high-powered (above and beyond the call of necessity) vehicles.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:25 PM on December 6, 2005


I didn't realise the world was so retarded.

i did.
posted by 3.2.3 at 12:30 PM on December 6, 2005


As eriko pointed out, the bike was moving at 220 fps - the legal speed for a paintball is 300 fps (and many drop-in places have even lower allowed maximums).
posted by PurplePorpoise at 12:33 PM on December 6, 2005


"Photos of the outcome of a motorcycle merging with a car @ 155 miles per hour."

MetaOgrish!
posted by insomnia_lj at 12:40 PM on December 6, 2005


...or MeatFilter. Your choice.
posted by insomnia_lj at 12:41 PM on December 6, 2005


Here in fayettenam it seems that I am always picking up the paper and reading where yet another serviceman has assumed room temperature because of a motorcycle accident.

When I was a child my parents rode motorcycles all the time, and I rode with them. Now you couldn't pay me to get on one-at least in this town.
posted by konolia at 12:50 PM on December 6, 2005


This raises, of course, the obvious physics question of whether there would be as much tasty MetaFilter outrage at the motorcycle driver killing the other two accident victims, if the other car was an SUV. This would obviously change the equations of momentum. /sarcasm
posted by Rothko at 1:05 PM on December 6, 2005


Rothko, my point of view wouldn't change. The biker was riding like a moron and the tragedy here is that he killed two other people who had nothing to do with his moron-ness. I don't like people who drive ridiculously oversized SUV's but that doesn't mean I want them to die needlessly.

I think the bike would have still done major damage to a larger car, maybe not so catastrophic but it would have been pretty ugly still. I'm not sure what the terminal kinetic energy would be but I'd guess it would be plenty to mangle an SUV too.

PurplePorpoise, yeah the legal limit, doesn't mean there aren't wankers who play paintball who don't crank their megaguns up to around 450 fps. Those paintballs hurt one helluva lot more than a 300 fps hit.
posted by fenriq at 1:21 PM on December 6, 2005


We saw the aftermath of a similar accident in Germany 15 years or so ago. A car had come to a sudden stop and a motorcycle had driven into the read end of it. And by into, I mean, the motorcycle became a permanent part of the trunk and back seat of the car. The driver mostly became part of the car, too, though his helmet, which, it appeared, may have still contained his head was several meters down the road. These pictures are pretty consistent with what we saw as we passed that accident site, as well.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:24 PM on December 6, 2005


insomnia_lj - there's no blood or gore, just intermingled metal.
posted by jonson at 1:25 PM on December 6, 2005


This is so not fahrfignugen.
posted by bardic at 1:37 PM on December 6, 2005



My jaw is agape.

My arms are akimbo.

My side impact bars are ascair'd.


And the door is ajar.
posted by Kibbutz at 1:41 PM on December 6, 2005


I think this is a ridiculous FPP. The web is saturated with pictures of exciting car crashes.
posted by thirteenkiller at 1:46 PM on December 6, 2005


I think that the outcome is about the same whether the bike was going 60 or 160 at impact. Yes, I think the higher bike speed certainly increased the chances of the accident occuring but I also think the actual impact itself is fatal to all involved at speeds far lower than what is claimed in this example.
posted by bz at 1:50 PM on December 6, 2005


The punishment for exceeding 150mph on a public road should involve you being made incapable of ever driving again. This means, of course, death, maiming, or life in prision.

Meh. Straight, flat, controlled-access highway in broad daylight? I've done it a more than a dozen times, and I posit that my activity was far safer than that of the soccer mom who talks on the cell, applies makeup, drinks a latte, and slaps the kids around while driving 65 MPH in thick traffic at night. I sure as fuck was paying attention.
posted by Kwantsar at 1:56 PM on December 6, 2005


That's pretty nasty, but of course putting it on display won't persuade those inclined to drive at such speeds to slow down, because nobody ever thinks anything like that will happen to them.
I can't help but see Steve Coogan on The Day Today lay down in front of the car and shout "Is this cool? Is it? Is it really cool? Well is it? Is it?"
posted by chill at 1:58 PM on December 6, 2005


I'm also feeling irked by the use of "@" in the FPP. I mean, "@" and "at" both require two keystrokes! Seriously, what's the point?

Well, that "@" (amphora!) does, in my mind, suggest a specific sense of rate-relationship that is only one of the relationships that the literal "at" portrays. So "@ 155 mph" seems a bit more focused than "at 155 mph", all other questions aside.

*pages languagehat et al*
posted by cortex at 2:10 PM on December 6, 2005


I don't know about that bz, if the bike impales itself that much at 160mph, less than 1/2 the momentum is definitely going to reduce the depth of penetration. Maybe the car occupant closer to the impact would still die at less than half the speed, but probably not the passenger.

Anyway, as eriko points out, at 60mph there is a chance the guy might have pulled the brakes, maybe even burned off a little speed, before the impact.
posted by Chuckles at 2:14 PM on December 6, 2005


I guess I am actually just saying that I am skeptical that the bike was really going that fast in this case. I've seen several bike-car accidents and with destruction that appeared as severe but with far lower speeds.
posted by bz at 2:19 PM on December 6, 2005


I just did eriko's calculations for me on my bicycle and it just proved, again, how fucking stupid a lot of pedestrians are who act like it's okay, I'm not going to hurt them when they cross against the light. I've got about 14 feet to work with if I were a top drag racer. I'm not.
posted by Captaintripps at 2:39 PM on December 6, 2005


I think this is a ridiculous FPP. The web is saturated with pictures of exciting car crashes.

Then stop bitching and start linking.

Oh, and fuck Family Guy.
posted by dgaicun at 2:41 PM on December 6, 2005


My roommate is always arguing with me that speed isn't inherently dangerous, that speed limits are just a conspiracy, that you should keep up with the flow of traffic when it's 140 km/hour (about 80-90 miles), instead of driving the speed limit.

I think I should send her this picture.

You lose reaction time at high speeds. Even if cars were designed for impacts at high speeds (which they are not), you have that much more chance of having an accident, one which will probably kill someone.

I think this rider should have been charged with murder, even posthumously. Should similar egregious speeders be charged with attempted murder? I don't know, but I think it should be as serious as driving while drunk.
posted by jb at 3:03 PM on December 6, 2005


Speed isn't as dangerous on a limited access roadway--one without intersections--as it is on a roadway where there are intersections. Going three times the speed limit on an arterial is fairly stupid.
posted by bz at 3:11 PM on December 6, 2005


I think it should be as serious as driving while drunk.

Yes, I think I would rather share the road with a drunk driver than with someone who speeds through intersections at @ 150 mph, although that is a bit of a Hobson's choice.
posted by caddis at 3:24 PM on December 6, 2005


It's a reconstruction of the accident

So, crap shit fake shit indeed.


This isn't though and you can see that the motorcycle is actually deeper into the vehicle. He was right about the lack of blood though but probably because it ended up on the roof of the car or the ground.
posted by srboisvert at 3:47 PM on December 6, 2005


This is my site being linked to, and I've just stumbled across metafilter now for the first time... signed up... and paypaled some money :) Great site, and thanks for the link :D
posted by johnsee at 3:59 PM on December 6, 2005


My jaw is agape.

My arms are akimbo.

My side impact bars are ascair'd.

And the door is ajar.

But my thumb is aplomb.
posted by ozomatli at 4:04 PM on December 6, 2005


and my other hand's giving a peace sign
posted by surplus at 5:01 PM on December 6, 2005


There are bold bikers.
There are old bikers.
There are no old bold bikers.
posted by hortense at 5:40 PM on December 6, 2005


The game is afoot.
posted by Foosnark at 5:52 PM on December 6, 2005


My roommate is always arguing with me that speed isn't inherently dangerous, that speed limits are just a conspiracy, that you should keep up with the flow of traffic when it's 140 km/hour (about 80-90 miles), instead of driving the speed limit.

I think I should send her this picture.


A non-sequitur.
posted by Kwantsar at 5:59 PM on December 6, 2005


I would guess the biker shouldn't have been going 155 miles per hour

I'd say that's a fairly astute guess there, dude.
posted by Decani at 5:59 PM on December 6, 2005


that you should keep up with the flow of traffic when it's 140 km/hour (about 80-90 miles), instead of driving the speed limit

Speed limits are set by the engineers who design the roads, not by politicians and beaurocrats trying to line their town's coffers. Specifically, they are designed following the 85% rule--that 85% of people will drive the limits of the road design, irrespective of the speed limit. If you want a lower speed limit, you put in more turns, more variations in grade, etc.

Driving 20 mph. less than the flow of traffic just because it's the speed limit, goshdarnit! when everyone around you is going 80mph. makes you a road hazard. You are far more likely to get into an accident this way.

Also, there's a wide, gaping gulf of difference between a car going 80mph. and a bike going twice that.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:26 PM on December 6, 2005


Great post, Eriko.

And thanks for the info, Eideteker. I too was wondering how the frikk they removed the bodies and all the gore. But I wasn't quite at the CRAP SHIT FAKE SHIT stage. I actually thought they might have peeled the bodies out and then cleaned the gore with a high-pressure hose.

/sheepish look of chagrin
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:32 PM on December 6, 2005


I saw this happen in the street down below our balcony when I was a kid. Except it was a van. What I can't figure out about these photos is how they got all the blood out of the upholstery and everything else before putting it on display. I remember watching men carry sand over from the shoulder and scattering it into the pooling blood in the pavement. They seemed to do this out of a sense that pools of blood were un-viewable horrors that simply had to be dealt with somehow.

This is a shocking portrait of a violent death, and yet oddly sanitized. I wonder. As is it borders close to titillating our desire to see violence without actually bringing home the true horror of violent death. Questionable as a PSA.
posted by scarabic at 6:53 PM on December 6, 2005


eriko, your estimate may be off. According to one page I found, "For about 120 years, the accepted figures for mean simple reaction times for college-age individuals have been about 190 ms (0.19 sec) for light stimuli and about 160 ms for sound stimuli." I suspect the 0.4 second figure is due to the fact that drag racers must attempt not to react too early or too late. But I haven't read enough of my link to know what "simple" reaction time means. Is there a neurologist in the house?

Which is not at all to say that going 155 isn't a horrendously stupid idea, of course.
posted by undecided at 7:32 PM on December 6, 2005


**can't not look**
posted by spock at 7:39 PM on December 6, 2005


First result on Google images for "motorcycle wreck".
posted by dgaicun at 8:00 PM on December 6, 2005


Whoof. That's a mess. This is what can happen when you don't pay attention in physics class... stupid.

My bike will do over 150, but I've never done it, and unless there's a tornado chasing me, or maybe a helicopter gunship chasing and strafing me, I never will either.

I have taken it over 100 on the freeway in daytime (the 210, if you're still here fenriq), for a few seconds, when I chanced to be in a stretch empty of traffic. 100 mph is bloody hell fast, I can't even imagine doing 155.

The statistic they gave us at the MSF RiderCourse was that new street bike riders who do not take the MSF RiderCourse have an 87% chance of a serious/fatal injury accident in their first year of riding. Guess this guy missed that memo.

.

for the three dead people.
posted by zoogleplex at 8:17 PM on December 6, 2005


I agree with undecided - eriko's math is off. 0.4 seconds is the time between the yellow and the green lights, and the drag racers' challenge is to *estimate* that 0.4 seconds. As a drag-racing friend of mine is fond of saying, if they see the green light, they've lost. They need to decide when to release their brake based on the light timing and their reaction time, although in some drag classes, using a manually-triggered electronic delay switch is allowed.

In short, drag racers aren't taking 0.4 seconds to react to a changing light: they're trying to guess how long the 0.4 seconds is, so they can be moving as soon as the light changes. It's an entirely different challenge.
posted by pocams at 8:20 PM on December 6, 2005


Which is not at all to say that going 155 isn't a horrendously stupid idea, of course.

It's not just going 150 mph, that is dangerous in itself, but perhaps not so much so under the right circumstances, but going 150 mph through an intersection is pure lunacy. This is not someone who opened up their machine on a long stretch of deserted and limited access road. No, this sort of behavior, speeding through intersections at 150 mph with little or no regard for your fellow man, is basically psychopathic.
posted by caddis at 8:21 PM on December 6, 2005


Faint of Butt : "I'm also feeling irked by the use of '@' in the FPP. I mean, '@' and 'at' both require two keystrokes! Seriously, what's the point?"

Depends on what kind of keyboard you're using. Mine has an "@" key to the right of the "P" key, and requires no shift.
posted by Bugbread at 10:41 PM on December 6, 2005



posted by Bugbread at 10:57 PM on December 6, 2005


I'm fairly sure that's a VFR400, and it cannot go at 250 kph. Not a particularly powerful bike. Whatever, it can go fast enough to do that.

The statistic they gave us at the MSF RiderCourse was that new street bike riders who do not take the MSF RiderCourse have an 87% chance of a serious/fatal injury accident in their first year of riding. Guess this guy missed that memo.

They aren't trying to boost themselves somewhat? MSF Rider courses don't exist in my country, and we don't have an 87% casualty rate for road bikers. I read a statistic (which I can't find naturally) that once you screen out all riders with less than 3 years experience, being a road rider is no more dangerous than an average cage driver (which still includes young yahoos of course).

I used to ride a high powered sports bike (ah youth where did you go?) and I found it hard to not exceed the speed limit most of the time.

But 250kph on a public road is still inexcusable.
posted by wilful at 11:00 PM on December 6, 2005


@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

It was a fine symbol prior to email. Use it, love it, don't fear it.
posted by caddis at 11:06 PM on December 6, 2005


Listen bitches:

When you cagers all start fucking checking your goddamn rear view fucking mirrors before you fucking cut lanes in front of us without fucking signaling, and stop running stop signs and stop lights in front of us cyclists I'll fucking listen to you bitch about the few of us motorcycle riders that fucking ride fast enough to endanger your myopic, narcissistic lives.

You have signals and rear view mirrors for a fucking reason. Wake the fuck up you dumbasses. Just because you have a cage around you doesn't mean you can drive like you are in a fucking lazyboy.

I ride the speed limit on my daily 60 mile commute, and the next motherfucker that almost kills me due to his/her inattentiveness and/or shitty driving skillz is gonna wish he/she had. (Yeah this means you: You cell-phone-blabbin, SUV-drivin, no signaling, speeding, no-rear-view-looking, red-light-running motherfuckers).

BTW: You have no idea how much we bikers appreciate the few good car drivers there are out there. All we want to know is that you are paying attention to more than yourself.

/sore spot
posted by HyperBlue at 11:12 PM on December 6, 2005


HyperBlue, I saw a funny T-shirt being offered for sale in a motorbike magazine.

A motorcyclist is stopped at the lights next to a car, kicking off one of the side mirrors, and he's saying, "well, since you don't use it, you won't be fucking needing it, then." *thwack*

Or something like that.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 12:43 AM on December 7, 2005


I remember watching men carry sand over from the shoulder and scattering it into the pooling blood in the pavement. They seemed to do this out of a sense that pools of blood were un-viewable horrors that simply had to be dealt with somehow.

That's more likely to deal with the gasoline spill which eats through asphalt. In Canada at least blood is often left alone but gasoline always gets the sand/sawdust/absorbent pellet treatment.
posted by srboisvert at 1:24 AM on December 7, 2005


Chill out HyperBlue, the odds that anyone here has ever cut you up are pretty slim so your rant at us is kind of mis-directed, no?
posted by chill at 1:52 AM on December 7, 2005


Thankfully willful and HyperBlue have covered this at the end for me.

That looks like a VFR 400 or a RVF 400, either way I went out riding with a friend on a VFR 400 and there is no way his bike can hit 155mph. It might sh*t on me round country lanes but on the straight I was killing him on my 599.

Hyperblue, thanks for venting the biker spleen. Always needs to be said when a load of cagers are around.

(not taking anything away from the tragedy of this accident though. The rider was obviously an idiot)
posted by Frasermoo at 2:26 AM on December 7, 2005


Let's not let this thread get as obscene as the comments in the link. A classic being:
Sad that the people in the car were killed. Wish it was only the asshat motorbiker
As a cager married to a biker I can see both sides. Personally I have seen some pretty stupid riding and equally stupid driving. If a rider OR a biker makes ANY assumptions about what fellow road users might or might not do in the next 5 seconds then he is in trouble. I recommend driving defensively, especially in UK now, which means anticipating the worst (including un-signalled manouevres and lack of mirror use).
posted by magpie68 at 3:16 AM on December 7, 2005


Oops I meant driver OR a rider.
posted by magpie68 at 3:17 AM on December 7, 2005


Metafilter: id hate to be one of those peeps
posted by wfrgms at 4:59 AM on December 7, 2005


To take the earlier bait. I don't think the type of car really matters that much. SUVs due to a historic quirk are classified as light trucks rather than passenger vehicles and immune to much of the regulation affecting passenger vehicles. As a result, many are constructed as a box with bling, bolted to a frame with an engine, lacking many of the designed features that attempt to direct and dissipate kinetic energy away from the passengers in the event of an accident.

And I don't think that anybody outside of the military designs side panels to take that much punishment.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:37 AM on December 7, 2005


I'll fucking listen to you bitch about the few of us motorcycle riders that fucking ride fast enough to endanger your myopic, narcissistic lives.

I've got no problem with most riders. You think you have problems? At least you have a fucking motor. They pull the same shit on me without one.

But there's a world of difference between Joe Rider and asswipe doing 150mph in a city. You deserve to ride again. They don't. What this fuck did is indefensible. Period. 150mph *ANYWHERE* but on a track is wrong, period. "But it's a clear highway". Sure. And you hit that rock you can't see, and you tumble into the oncoming lane and suddenly, you're into a minivan at a combined, oh, 120 mph.

You die.

The driver dies.

Her kids fucking die.

Because the road was fucking clear -- except that once you lose control, you don't get a vote on where the bike or the rider goes, and you'd be amazed at how fast a 'clear lane' isn't.

You want to ride responsibly? Go for it. You want to ride like this? Get thee to the track, and let it roar. You want to ride like this on a public highway? Please, do me a favor, and JUST DIE ALONE.

So, personally, you can take my myopic, narcissistic life and shove it up your ass. I've been to the goddamn funerals. I'm not even willing to be rational about this. Frankly, I'm with the cop above -- I'd much rather kill the SOB myself than have to hose them out of the back of the minivan along with the rest of the soccer team.

You want to be reasonable in traffic? I'll do anything to let you be. You want to be unreasonable? I'm all for that as well -- And I speak as a cager, a biker and a cyclist.
posted by eriko at 5:40 AM on December 7, 2005



Listen bitches:


I smell alcohol. I hope you don't ride while drunk.
posted by caddis at 6:42 AM on December 7, 2005


My jaw is agape.

My arms are akimbo.

My side impact bars are ascair'd.

And the door is ajar.

But my thumb is aplomb.

The game is afoot.



This post has gone amuck.
posted by debralee at 6:50 AM on December 7, 2005


caddis: You shouldn't ride after having any alcohol. It's enough to mess with your judgement, which means you can't adequately gauge your reaction time.
posted by Eideteker at 7:29 AM on December 7, 2005


There is an old story about how the UK speed limit was fixed as a result of someone taking out an AC Cobra on the M1 and hitting 185mph back in 1963 - I was digging around to find out and found this article which apparently disproves that little legend.

Still. I'd have loved to have given that a try...
posted by longbaugh at 7:50 AM on December 7, 2005


I myself am a plain-skin cager.
posted by dgaicun at 10:38 AM on December 7, 2005


Hyperblue: great rant. I generally find motorcyclists to be probably the safest road users. Maybe because most of them are very well aware of their relative vulnerability. At least you guys don't imagine the rules of the road don't apply to you, unlike FUCKING CYCLISTS.

Tee hee.
posted by Decani at 1:49 PM on December 7, 2005


Hyperblue, I know where you're coming from. I have a reasonably short commute (17 miles each way) but not a day goes by when some numbnuts is gabbing on their phone and swerves into the center line.

What I love is when some moron cuts you off and then proceeds to give you the finger, try to tailgate you and flips their high beams at you as if its your fault they drive like they're the only ones on the road.

And I'd love to have a sign that I could mash into people's faces that read "There's a fucking reason its called the passing lane, you stupid bastard who can't seem to go the speed limit!". That or I just want to kick their damned mirror clean off.

What I hate more than anything else though are the assholes, who seem to usually be in big white pickup trucks, who "accidentally" cruise into the center lane and block you off or even come close to mashing you. It happens far too often to be a mistake on their part. Especially when I start to recognize the truck before they do it.
posted by fenriq at 3:18 PM on December 7, 2005


Ok Ok:

it was a rant and my intended sarcasm in imitating the linked posts was clear as mud. It was, however, directed at bitches, not the whole of Mefi. Just seemed that the pile-on in this thread was directed too much towards motorcyclists when logic would suggest we suffer more at the hands of inattentive, low-skilled drivers than conversely. I mean come-on, people were calling for "death, maiming, or life in prison for speeding 150mph on a public road". I think you can see from the links I posted that the sentiment doesn't go both ways. Classic case of the moron majority jumping on a bandwagon and failing to identify, or empathize with the minority.

Like fenriq, not a single day goes by that there isn't at least one ID10T that casually almost kills me. Many times the driver isn't even aware that there was a close call. Minor fender-bender for a car, but life/death moment for a biker. A buddy witnessed a driver last week who cut across three lanes of traffic (without so much as a signal or mirror check) in front of a biker who had to lay it down to avoid her. He spun to a stop on his back and rolled to his feet right next to her window. She punched it and left the scene, running a red light in the process-the nerve. I had a really close call recently, and had to low-slide at about 30mph,-so my nerve was raw last nite, and the emotion (fueling my excessive, but IMHO appropriately emphatic profanity) was real..

BTW: caddis was extremely perceptive, and no, I never imbibe before/during riding. I wear leather jacket/pants with CE armor, riding boots, and fullface helmet-even for a trip to the corner store.
posted by HyperBlue at 4:38 PM on December 7, 2005


My jaw is agape.

My arms are akimbo.

My side impact bars are ascair'd.

And the door is ajar.

But my thumb is aplomb.

The game is afoot.

This post has gone amuck.



My balls are sore.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 7:39 PM on December 7, 2005


I ride a 2004 Suzuki Bandit 1200s which is a cross between what you call a "crotch rocket" and a touring bike. (same engine, more upright and comfortable riding position) Just for the interested here is a video demo of the same bike (14.3 Meg wmv Geddy Lee warning). The bike speedo goes to 170 MPH/270 KPH and 12 o'clock is about 85 MPH/135 KPH. I would not ride as this rider does unless on a track, but I can definitely state that I understand why he does.
posted by HyperBlue at 9:47 PM on December 8, 2005


« Older Forough Farrokhzad, 1935-1967   |   An Unlikely Friendship Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments