{"id":8726,"date":"2014-05-14T06:08:05","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T20:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bikeme.tv\/?p=8726"},"modified":"2014-06-26T11:05:19","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T01:05:19","slug":"congratulations-victoria-youve-murdered-motorcycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/congratulations-victoria-youve-murdered-motorcycling\/","title":{"rendered":"CONGRATULATIONS, VICTORIA. YOU\u2019VE MURDERED MOTORCYCLING"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>And so fluoro vests have become mandatory in Victoria.<\/p>\n<p>And thus comes the death of motorcycling in that state.<\/p>\n<p>The creepy Napthine, Premier of the only state as clinically insane as Queensland when it comes to saving us from ourselves (and the bikies), recently issued a press release entitled \u201cA safer start on the roads for motorcyclists\u201d to an utterly apathetic media.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8727\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8727\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8727\" alt=\"art-napthine-3-620x349\" src=\"http:\/\/bikeme.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/art-napthine-3-620x349.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/art-napthine-3-620x349.jpg 620w, https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/art-napthine-3-620x349-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/art-napthine-3-620x349-600x337.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-8727\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Smiling for safety<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It is utter shit, but you may view it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.premier.vic.gov.au\/media-centre\/media-releases\/9780-a-safer-start-on-the-roads-for-motorcyclists.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>Among a whole heap of banal assumptions and ignorant declamations based on zero scientific evidence, are the following new \u201cmusts\u201d for all learners:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ride with headlight on at all times (As if there&#8217;s a choice?)<\/li>\n<li>Wear a high visibility vest or jacket whilst riding (This is what will kill motorcycling, but that has always been the Victorian government&#8217;s goal.)<\/li>\n<li>Can only ride an automatic motorcycle if tested in an automatic motorcycle (Yeah. OK. What?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These have been added to the previous \u201cmusts&#8221;, which were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Must only ride a learner approved motorcycle<\/li>\n<li>Zero BAC<\/li>\n<li>No pillion passenger<\/li>\n<li>No mobile phone use<\/li>\n<li>No towing<\/li>\n<li>Must display L plates<\/li>\n<li>Compulsory carriage of permit<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And thus, with no consultation, and with reams of peer-reviewed scientific studies which state that flouro does not work in terms of making a rider more visible and hence safer, hi-visibility vests are now mandatory.<\/p>\n<p>Now, safety-mongs, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/define.php?term=ATGATT\" target=\"_blank\">ATGATT<\/a> turds and Flouro believers, just stop foaming at the mouth for a second. Fluoro does not work. Not for motorcyclists. Science backs me on this. Science does not back you in your belief. You&#8217;re like Christian zealots insisting there is a god, and demanding that atheists prove there isn&#8217;t one. It doesn&#8217;t work like that, knobbers. There is NO scientific evidence that wearing fluoro on a motorcycle (or indeed having a headlight hard-wired on, but we can discuss that rubbish some other time). None. No-one can provide any. Not even the government. There is none to provide.<\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s never stopped our rulers making laws, has it? Just look at the lies they tell us about the over-arching demon of &#8220;Speed&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>So next year, fluoro is mandatory for, for now, beginners.<\/p>\n<p>And once this happens, the Victorian government will be bathing in the blood of Learner riders who have imagined themselves to be more visible, hence safer, and ride accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>One can only imagine the look of shock on their smooth little faces as they are mowed down by some SMS-ing twat. And as their rich teenage blood spritzes all over their \u201csafe\u201d fluoro vest (or jacket), and the emergency crews arrive to sweep their bone-fragments into the gutter and hose their bile off the road, I\u2019m sure they will wonder how it was possible they were still invisible.<\/p>\n<p>How could the driver NOT see the fluoro? The government legislated it in, and therefore it must work, right? So why am I lying here looking at the dirty sump of this Toyota?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll tell you, mate.<\/p>\n<p>It is because your infantile piece-of-shit government, backed by its paid-for-and-funded pseudo-science-loving university at Monash, has subscribed to the Vision Zero Initiative.<\/p>\n<p>You can behold that inane rubbish <a href=\"http:\/\/www.visionzeroinitiative.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>: and then wonder why the rational, critical-thinking world isn\u2019t carpet-bombing seven shades of shit out of Sweden.<\/p>\n<p>But don\u2019t waste your time. There is no critical thought left when it comes to our rulers.<\/p>\n<p>After all, it is easier and more profitable for them to have these \u201cvisions\u201d of a zero road toll and enact thoughtless legislation that empowers those delusions.<\/p>\n<p>And I think the term \u201cvision\u201d is quite appropriate, since only someone who has swallowed a kilo of LSD could hallucinate such a thing as a Zero Road Toll.<\/p>\n<p>But that is where we are.<\/p>\n<p>And I guess we were always gonna get here at some stage.<\/p>\n<p>One only has to look at the quality, ignorance and shameful silence of our self-appointed rider representatives to see how this has come to pass. I am only amazed it hasn\u2019t happened sooner.<\/p>\n<p>I guess the fuckers at the \u201ccoal-face\u201d of motorcycle lobbying didn\u2019t really have the ears of the governments they have meetings with all the time, huh?<\/p>\n<p>This shit happened on their watch and it happened without them having a clue.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8728\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8728\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8728 \" alt=\"Nova-Vest_1\" src=\"http:\/\/bikeme.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Nova-Vest_1.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Nova-Vest_1.jpg 620w, https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Nova-Vest_1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Nova-Vest_1-466x350.jpg 466w, https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Nova-Vest_1-600x450.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-8728\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Something every L-plater can aspire to.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>All that coffee drunk, all those hands shaken, all those promises about \u201cconsultation\u201d made\u2026oh well. Never mind. Maybe some of them can get invited to some more meetings about road safety anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Just remember to thank them for all their hard work the next time you see them, yes?<\/p>\n<p>But I\u2019ll bet you\u2019re wondering how this safety vest shit is going to kill motorcycling, huh?<\/p>\n<p>Like this&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Go find a 16-year-old male who thinks he might want to ride a motorcycle. It\u2019s cool, it\u2019s thrilling, it gets the chicks, it offends his parents; it\u2019s an act of total rebellion and delight, and it\u2019s tailor-made for teenage males. So you shouldn\u2019t have to look very long.<\/p>\n<p>Now tell him that he can only ride one if he puts on one of these hi-viz numbers. And tell him it\u2019s to make him \u201csafer\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Then watch him look at you like you\u2019re something unpleasant he stepped in, and start thinking about how he doesn\u2019t have to wear that fluoro shit in a slammed and fat-tyred Suzuki Swift.<\/p>\n<p>If he doesn\u2019t look at you like that, then you\u2019ve found one of the ever-increasing number of teenagers who have swallowed the government\u2019s Kool-Aid.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, motorcycling in Victoria is doomed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is because your infantile piece-of-shit government, backed by its paid-for-and-funded pseudo-science-loving university at Monash has subscribed to the Vision Zero Initiative<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8726"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9575,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726\/revisions\/9575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}