You do know, of course, that L-platers on motorcycles are not allowed to lane-split.<\/p>\n
I understand this applies in all the civilised states where lane-splitting is permissible by law to those with a full license.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m thinking this is just the latest act of criminal swinishness by state governments hell-bent on destroying motorcycling in their science-fiction quest for Vision Zero, ie. Zero fatalities on our roads.<\/p>\n
As it stands, the Learner Approved Motorcycle paradigm is utter shit, no matter what state you look at it in.<\/p>\n
None of the Learner courses offer anything resembling roadcraft and all of them are entirely geared to just getting the punter to pass his test.<\/p>\n
If I was cynical, I\u2019d think the state governments don\u2019t really want anyone to ride motorcycles at all, and subscribe to the view that if those queer bastards are dumb enough to want to do such a thing, then let\u2019s not actually teach them anything about staying alive and learning some motorcycle-riding skills. Let\u2019s just get them out there and watch the statistics reach a point where we can easily justify banning that motorcycle-riding bullshit once and for all.<\/p>\n
If you happen to be accursed enough live in Victoria and want your Ls, then not only are you taught nothing about riding, you must also wear one of those kill-me-now hi-viz vests as you steadily work your way towards getting those bone-grafts you\u2019ve doubtlessly always wanted for your 18th<\/sup> birthday.<\/p>\n The Victorian ruling class and its black-uniformed bouncers have mandated the wearing of hi-viz vests for Learners for no other reason than it makes the riding of bikes terribly uncool at a time in a person\u2019s life when cool is everything. There is no science behind this at all. In fact, there is science that categorically rejects the notion that wearing hi-viz clothing makes one more visible on a motorcycle. But since Victoria models itself on a medieval caliphate, it has no need for any of that science stuff. All that is required is compliance.<\/p>\n Wear the vest. Pass the test. Never mind the road-craft.<\/p>\n But as we scarred old bison know, roadcraft is what keeps you pretty for the ladies. Weaving through witch\u2019s hats and stopping in painted boxes is all well and good, but if you can\u2019t read traffic, and you don\u2019t know where you should be on the road, or how you need to behave when you\u2019re on it, then there\u2019s certainly a cannula in your future.<\/p>\n And a very big part of roadcraft is lane-splitting.<\/p>\n You can call it lane-filtering if you like, or you can refer to it as \u201cthreading the needle\u201d, which is a rather more apt description.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s just the act of riding your motorcycle between cars, both mobile and stationary.<\/p>\n This \u201cthreading\u201d accomplished several things\u2026<\/p>\n Firstly, it means you no longer sit in traffic, which is dangerous for you.<\/p>\n Secondly, you no longer travel at the same speed as the surrounding traffic, which dangerous for you.<\/p>\n Thirdly, you\u2019ll realise how many droolers are texting on their phones, which is dangerous for you.<\/p>\n And fourthly, you\u2019ll be able to see lots of pretty girls\u2019 legs in short skirts, which is probably the most dangerous thing of all for you.<\/p>\n But Learners are not allowed to thread the needle.<\/p>\n Which is strange, don\u2019t you think? Surely the label \u201cLearner\u201d indicates that a person is \u201clearning\u201d, does it not?<\/p>\n What exactly is the Learner learning as he sits in traffic waiting to be rear-ended by some killer blonde updating her Facebook status?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know, but it isn\u2019t roadcraft.<\/p>\n Maybe he is learning precisely what the government wants him to learn as it sails towards Vision Zero, ie. Motorcycling is a dangerous and stupid thing. There are no advantages to it at all. You sit in traffic with the rest of the mongs. It takes you just as long to get to work as it does that bloke in the S-Class Merc, and he has German air-conditioning and seats that massage his anus, so what kind of smelly loser must you be? Best you reconsider your life choices and buy a car. It\u2019s what all the cool kids are doing, you know. None of them have to wear a hi-viz vest. All of them can text to their heart\u2019s content (we really don\u2019t give a shit about that, because if we did we could stop it overnight) and thus stay socially viable. Those terrible motorcycle bastards with full licences you see zipping in between lines of cars? Don\u2019t you pay them no mind. We don\u2019t want you learning such things. Such things are not for you to learn.<\/p>\n What you must learn is that you are a \u201cvulnerable road user\u201d. You are a \u201ctemporary Australian\u201d and that \u201cspeed kills\u201d and that the police have you constantly \u201cin their sights\u201d. And while we\u2019re keen for you to be trained to kill people on command with a high-powered rifle, we\u2019re not going to let you learn any roadcraft. And we\u2019re certainly not going to permit you to ride motorcycles with superb suspension , brakes and handling because you need to learn your place in the general scheme of things first.<\/p>\n And the first thing, the super thing, the thing of all things is SAFETY.<\/p>\n Because Safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You do know, of course, that L-platers on motorcycles are not allowed to lane-split. I understand this applies in all the civilised states where lane-splitting is permissible by law to those with a full license. And I\u2019m thinking this is just the latest act of criminal swinishness by state governments hell-bent on destroying motorcycling in [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":97131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[201,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97115"}],"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=97115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97143,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97115\/revisions\/97143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}