INCOMING!

Summat to say? Send your comments, hints, tips, tales of woe and derring-don’t to: RCHQ@RealClassic.net

ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDERS

Members’ Enclosure with RC220 was a very interesting read and I agreed with all of it. Risks are probably greater than ever, not just because of traffic density, but also it appears that there are significant numbers of illegal vehicles on the road: cloned plates, no VED paid, uninsured, etc. Those drivers don’t care and are the ones who ‘hit and run’, so frequently reported these days.

I am more careful, observant and courteous now than I have ever been, deliberately. I find that being fastidious with road manners increases my own sharpness and observation, definitely helpful in protecting my own safety concerns. Previously, I have too often experienced drivers approaching side roads, looking straight at me and pulling out anyway, clearly looking but not seeing. Sadly, I now assume that’s what they are going to do anyway, so try to allow for that.

Fortunately there are still many that do respond and return the compliment. It gives you a nice feeling when they do! Makes me feel that perhaps the world isn’t such a bad place, after all!

Colin Leighfield, member

Rowena’s right about not getting steamed up. No doubt she had in mind Proverbs 15:1 ‘A soft word turns away wrath’! The best example of this I’ve experienced was when I saw an elderly motorcyclist almost knocked off by a car driver reversing out of his drive and obviously not seeing the bike. Fortunately after a squeal of brakes there was no collision. The biker dismounted and went over to the car – which now contained a rather white faced driver – and said ‘You’ve just ruined a perfectly good pair of underpants!’

With that he smiled at the driver, remounted and rode off.

Mike Daly, member 2771

Another inspirational Members’ Enclosure. Several times I’ve picked myself up off the road to the words ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you.’ Last week I experienced a variation when a van driver who had just reversed over me and my bike while my horn was blaring said ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you.’ To cap it all, a driver who had witnessed me being reversed over said it was my fault for being too near the van, in its blind spot.

It began to dawn on me how many drivers are anti-motorcyclist and perhaps we have a part to play