Throttled

I agree" You should always be able to stop safely in the distance you can see to be clear." If they stop so should you be able to.....otherwise you are 100% to blame So the consensus is that you can stop wherever you want to, no matter what the circumstances are, the road conditions or anything.

What I have learned from this and other reports of roundabout madness on this forum are That roundabouts, of which there are many where I live are the most risky part of riding. That the brakes on my bike are no where near as good as the XJ6n I took lessons on. That I have an escape route by passing cars.

I've been up loads of Glens. Glen Coe is the most spectacular ride.

If I had crashed, it would have been my fault, I accept that. What I am pointing out is that at times the vehicle in front also has to take responsibility. You cannot come to a halt whenever you want to and hell mind what is going on behind you. In this instance I would say the car in front would also be to blame.

That 100% to blame has never sat well with me. Most accidents share blame. I am a police officer and I have charged someone with dangerous driving for stopping for no reason in front of another car and the driver was prosecuted. Then there are times when one car has pulled out infront of another which could not stop in time, where the driver who pulled out is to blame. Then check out this incident where someone stopped to chat to a friend and that caused a fatality http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... riend.html I have moved people on who have stopped on blind hill crests (to answer the phone), half way round tight corners (to take a photo of the view). You cannot just stop whereever and whenever you feel like it. Doing my bike lessons there was the three second rule for following vehicles and a mirror check every 10 to 15 seconds. So you are being encouraged to watch out for and show consideration for road user both infront and behind. I do think that anyone who comes to a halt at a time and place where there is no good reason for them to do so are at least partly to blame for any accident. Stopping a good 10 feet from the line at an empty round a bout is an example of that. There is also an optical illusion here. You just do not expect a vehilce on a motorway off ramp to stop there. My view of the car was partly obscured by a moving car infront of me. It did look like the front vehicle was moving even though it had stopped. I experienced that once before with a car abandoned on a motorway. The driver ran out of fuel and just left it in the middle of the lane with no hazard warning lights on. It looked like it was still moving until we realised it had stopped. Very frightening.

I was a good distance behind and if I had really gone for it I am sure I would have been able to stop. I just made the decision (and who knows if it was right or wrong, but there was no accident) to not risk locking up or skidding, but to ride past the stationary cars in the nice gap to the side onto a totally clear round a bout. As for blame, I do not believe for one moment that you would be allowed to pass a car or bike test if you suddenly come to a halt on the road blocking others for no apparent reason. That has to be considered driving without due care and attention or even dangerous driving. If you do not believe me out you go, wait until you have vehicles behind you, particularly where there is no space to pass and just stop. Better still do that to a police car and then act puzzled when they want a word with you!!! During both bike and car tests you are being constantly checked to make sure you are paying attention to what is behind you. Surely a reason for that is so that if you suddenly decide to do an unexpected manoveur you will know if you are going to get away with it or not, if it is safe or not to do so. If I had run into the back of that car, I would have accepted a share of the blame, but not all of it. You cannot absolve yourself of all responsibility for the safety of road users who are behind you. The main reason why I posted my experience is because a big pattern has appeared on the forum of people reporting near misses on round a bouts. I hope my cautionary tail helps others, as well as being a learning experience for myself.

Coming up to a round-a-bout, two cars in front of me. It had just rained and the road looked greasy. The first car suddenly stopped about 10 feet short of the round-a-bout, which was empty with no sign of any cars coming from any direction. The car behind got stopped, but I decided rather than slam on the brakes and risk a skid, I went down the side of the cars as there was lots of space. There was a couple in the front car who appeared to be deciding which way to go, which can be done as you drive round the round-a-bout. My one car crash was going into the back of a lorry that decided not to pay attention at a round-a-bout and stop when it was clear, as I wrongly assumed it would keep going, so so would I. I also see so many posts here about incidents on round-a-bouts that maybe they should just be banned!

Sorry to hear that. I did the same and crusied through a school zone that was a compulsory 20mph.

So basically it's a cop-out? Sorry, had to really In terms of accident reduction, the Police Service really do seem to have off-loaded their responsibility quite nicely. The Fire and Rescue Service is now charged with responsibility for accident reduction, hence the Fire bikes at shows etc. Couple that with the Safety Camera Partnerships and the Police are all but off the hook as far as accident prevention/reduction is concerned. That happens because of the lack of reports with sufficient witnesses for dangerous driving. Fire regulations making it harder to set things on fire such as furniture have been so successful that Fire and Rescue needed another role. I would rather police time is not spent administering speed cameras.

I like retro http://www.royal-enfield.com/images/zooms/woodsman-large.jpg

It is a brilliant feeling to pass What will your big bike be?

Overlooking Faslane Naval Base. http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6078/6072846833_a532b084cc_b.jpg Came back over Glen Douglas, a single track road covered in gravel and cow dung. Felt the bike slide about a lot.

That is a nightmare situation. Just outside the test centre at Sheildhall in Glasgow there is a round-a-bout where the sign suggests a different lane layout than the arrows on the road do. My instructors were adament that the sign was wrong and the arrows are correct. So I would go by the arrows and road markings and not the sign.

It is very difficult for the police to crackdown on dangerous driving as people behave when they are about. Such a crackdown would need the public to come forward with their experiences, of which on this forum we know there are many, sufficient witnesses to charge and people who are prepared to go to court over it. And suddenly the demand for a crackdown melts away. That is why the police concentrate on speeding, as you can catch them and no matter how bad the driving is, at lower speeds the consequences are less severe. The police concentrate on reducing the severity of accidents as it is their best tactic.

I failed my first attempt as well, but that gutted feeling makes the sweet feeling of success when you do pass all the better.

The Arrochar Alps http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6185/6058672164_8cf13a6083_b.jpg

Do a commentary in your head to remind yourself to do the lifesavers and indicator cancels etc or when the police do their driver training they have to commentate as they go and no one can hear you if you talk to yourself in your helmet.

I found it really odd at first and it felt as if there was no where near enough space between the peg and gear lever. After some practise it is no longer an issue.

I have found a discounted (£15 down to £10) Motrax aluminium tax disc holder which states it is waterproof. I have glued the plastic cover into the the frame to seal that. I'll report back after some wet days and a wash or two of the bike. http://89.206.185.119/images/product/product/mot_tax-hold-orig-cl.jpg

You need to take in account that speed rarely causes an accident, instead it determines how severe the accident is.

So that will be one day next May then

Two old bread bags or carrier bags over your boots will make putting on overtrousers easy. You can choose to keep the bags on if you want to look as cool as me. I decided that bags over the boots would risk being caught up in the pegs/controls and would likely rip. So I put them inside to keep my socks warm and dry.

Was he in a helicopter? It's a bit idealistic again though. Your idea of "safe" is quite likely to be different to his idea of "safe". So how do you reconcile the difference in opinion? How do you legislate for an ever changing speed limit that relies on an individual's opinion? You can't, which is why we have speed limits determined by traffic engineers that are applied universally. That way we all know where we are, and there's no room for confusion to catch us out. I disagree on that. You can do 70mph going to Dumbarton on a dual carriageway with direct access to people's driveways and a pavement running the length of it and 50mph going to Sirling on the M80 with no pedestrians, sliproad access only and a hard shoulder. Some villages in Argyll have 30mph speed limits, others 40 and others 60. There is no rhyme or reason to which village gets which. These huge inconsistences do cause problems.

I was out and about again today. I found plastic bags inside my boots worked really well.

I like that, a reward system. For every 5 years you drive with any convictions you get another point added to your total, so you go from 12 to 13 etc and so if you do make a mistake once in a blue moon it is harder for you to get banned than someone who commits traffic offences more often. So I would now need 16 points before I could be banned.