Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Thunder and Lightning, Super Blackbird, Road Rage

Its all happening over here!

Sorry for not posting last couple of days.
Transferring servers for this site followed by a lightning strike taking out my ADSL router on my other server are my excuses. I haven't had connectivity for 2 days (felt like I was blind!)
Back online now!
Full story on the tech site.

Still in the middle of all that business I found some time to play games with the kids, take some cool photos of my girls, and even play some multiplayer Sacred with my wife and a friend.




I took my CBR1100XX for a spin tonight to the city and back for a client's Christmas party. On the road home I met some inconsiderate road users. We have a rule here that you cannot stay in the outside lane (the fast lane) if there's nothing in the inside lane. Althought its not technically illegal to undertake (pass on the inside) it can be dangerous (particularly on a bike) if the other driver suddenlly decides to pull over just as you are in their blind spot (even worse on a bike). So like most bike riders as I come up behind a driver camped in the right hand lane (take your tent pegs when you leave please!) I give them a few seconds courtesy time to check their mirrors and the inside lane and politely pull over. When they don't (and he didn't) I flick my high beam pass button.. I waited 5 seconds or so. I knew he had seen me cos he was looking at the mirror when i flicked it a second time. He refused to pull over so i decided to turn my high beams on full. This is VERY bright on the Super Blackbird even from 20 metres back. After 10 seconds or so of him ignoring me I indicated for 2-3 seconds and then passed on the inside. He had the gall to flip me the bird!

The second driver was the opposite. A driver who was going 60kms in a 70kms zone pulled over to the inside lane when a single lane became two. He was good. I had only been behind him for a couple hundred metres as he had turned onto the road from a side street. As I passed him I then indicated and turned into his lane to take an exit on the next intersection. He decided to put his high beams on.
So when I got to the exit I stopped. Completely. I was in the right to do this because the road markings required me to give way to any other traffic. There was none, but I made sure there was none for about the 30 seconds or so it took him to turn his high beams off. I drove off and within about 200 metres he had them back on again, though well behind me this time.

Some people!