Pride Cometh ...

click pic to embigulate

Before a fall ...

Temptations ...

I had a flirtation with motorbikes when I was a teenage hoon.

I had a thumping great AJS for a while.

I gave up my fascination for them while airborne after hitting a small flock of sheep.

I was doing some prodigious speed on the way to the pub and was wearing summer clothes and sandals.

I hurtled into a corner after a long straight and there were half a dozen romney ewes huddled in the middle of the road.

I missed the first couple, but the third & fourth sent me airborne.

While in the air I realized the landing was going to seriously hurt. I also decided that if I survived I would give up motorbikes .

Then I landed.

I skidded across the corner leaving quite a bit of skin on the road and ended up in the verge, bleeding and stunned.

I was lucky. A few stitches and bruises were the outcome.

I put motorbikes into the heroin category.

Don't try them, you might like them too much...


The other day a mate gave me a motorbike.

I have to get it going, but as he says it is a screamer.

It looks as if it's doing a ton standing still.

Get thee behind me Satan ...

Soggy Saturday

Saturday is usually a cruisy, uneventful day.
I trundle the highway picking up rubbish from the rest areas

Not today though.
It all went wrong from the start.

I came around a corner a couple of kilometres from home in steady rain to find a motorbike on the road and the rider lying there very still.
Fortunately he was alive and lucid, and a passerby got through to the ambulance on a cell phone.

It was in a nasty spot, but I had some cones and lots of flashing lights.
It is often the fact that unusual activity will slow traffic better than signs.
A furiously waving figure in a fluro vest, with a steely look in his eye, slows most.

The cop and I waited in the rain after the ambulance left, eyeing the crumpled bike and mentally figuring how long it would take for a salvage truck to recover it.
The local towie is having truck problems, and they are never keen to drive miles to pick up a motor bike anyway.

We can do it, but there are obvious issues with storing, any recovery damage, etc.
So we don't.

But I did.

I dropped it at the police station thereby saving the owner a heap, and two people getting very wet.

But not before a small slip on Mt. Messenger, on a dodgy corner, with the potential to cause chaos.
We ripped into it and had it cleaned up as the police arrived.
He didn't get wet either.

But I did ....

A Morning After.

Last Night, this was a scene of flashing lights and tragedy.
In daylight, this is now just an unremarkable bit of road.
Just a few paint marks where the Police Serious Crash Unit have highlighted marks showing scuff & skid marks, and seal features.

On the back of my truck are about eight rubbish bags, containing shards of plastic and the shrapnel that is left after a crash. A fair bit of what was a nice BMW.

The Crash Unit are thorough. Every inch of the scene is photographed, and surveyed. It is treated like a crime scene, and so the road is closed.
This obviously frustrates motorists, who usually don't understand what is going on. Crucial evidence may be obliterated by passing traffic, and there is their own safety to consider.
We cop the flak here. We are the ones stopping traffic and detouring them.
It is always complicated by the fact that nobody can give a precise estimate of how long the delay will be, every accident is different.
The crash unit also has to arrive at the scene and that means a long but high speed dash from (in this case) Hamilton.
Most people are philosophical about the delay. There is always the odd arsehole.
I used to be quite polite and grit my teeth when they railed on about how important their trip is.
Not anymore.
None of us want to be there.
I give them heaps.

A Fateful Night.

Just back home after being called out to an accident within a kilometre of home.
Alas, a fatal one, a motor cyclist killed, and a car driver injured.
We have had to close the road and detour traffic, then clean up.

It's good to be able to do something, but always disturbing to say the least.

"The bow is bent, the arrow flies, The winged shaft of fate."
(Ira Frederick Aldridge, On William Tell)