Question/concern for our Brit friends

[recycled64]

I keep up on a few British newspaper websites Leicester, Derby, Shropshire, etc, and it seems like there's a lot of reports of riders being killed on the road around the UK. Ride aware, mates!

[Grimly]

Nothing more than the usual eejits hitting the roads after a long lay-off and thinking they're on the TT. Ambition outweighing ability, as normal.

[jabcb]

Southern Germany has the same problem with some riders using the roads like its the track.
Sort of like the TT but with too many hills/turns to remember plus traffic & the occasional farm tractor.

[Johno]

Nothing more than the usual eejits hitting the roads after a long lay-off and thinking they're on the TT. Ambition outweighing ability, as normal.

Ditto here in Australia. Deaths last year 12 months to November 2013 were 200 but down from 226 the previous year.

The numbers would appear small by US standards but our population is only 22 million and overall road fatalities have been reduced by at least 60% since the 60s and 70s.

Unfortunately one of those deaths was a fellow VJMC member.

[Chromedome]

38 year old killed only 4 miles from here yesterday, a local to, lived about 5 miles in the other direction his name hasn't been officially released yet he would have known the roads but a 3 series BMW drove out a lane on the inside of a left hand bend doesn't matter to him who was wrong the motorcyclist came of worst.

[Devon bloke]

Nothing more than the usual eejit. hitting the roads after a long lay-off and thinking they're on the TT. Ambition outweighing ability, as normal.

If you lived in the uk you would know how wrong that is. The roads are packed with idiot car drivers who have no time for bikers and don't look out for them. I read about them all the time here in Devon UK. Off the top of my head the last half dozen I recall were regular guys riding to and from work as they have done for years. Sorry lost a mate a while back.

[earlfor]

If you give the cagers any opening to get you, it is a certainty that there will be someone to seize the opportunity. There are only two types of drivers, those that are deaf, dumb and blind and will never see you, and those that see you and are trying to get you. i ride accordingly.

[Grimly]

If you lived in the uk you would know how wrong that is. The roads are packed with idiot car drivers who have no time for bikers and don't look out for them. I read about them all the time here in Devon UK. Off the top of my head the last half dozen I recall were regular guys riding to and from work as they have done for years. Sorry lost a mate a while back.

I've lived here for 20 years, but spent the previous 40 years living and riding in the UK, and I stand by my observation that there's a peak of accidents to wallies who get back on the road in the Spring /early Summer and gas it without getting their eye back in.
It's just life and no point getting teary-eyed about it.
Sorry about your mate, especially if he was the victim of a dozy driver - that can happen to anyone.