Tag: Surrey

Random Act of Idiocy…

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This picture is of a Toyota Corolla, registration number M381 HPG. I took it at about 11:40pm last night, 26th April 2006. The reason I took it (Toyotas being not, by and large, objects of desire) was that the prize git driving it had just overtaken me on the A287 in Wey Hill in a 30mph limit, whilst doing, at a rough guess, 70mph. To make the overtake, he used the oncoming right turn lane to the Midhurst Road. I felt particularly sorry for the poor sod who was entirely reasonably occupying that lane at the time, waiting for me to pass before turning right. Quite how the situation didn’t become an expensive and painful snooker shot, I really don’t know. And if the driver of the oncoming vehicle (I think a Vauxhall Omega estate) happens to read this and wishes to contact me, I’ll very happily join him or her in making a statement to the constabulary. Whether that would serve any purpose or not is another matter altogether…

Surrey Traffic Calming, Another of the Many…

Here’s another example of good intentions gone wrong through ill-considered design and lousy implementation — the traffic calming in the Surrey village of Dockenfield. It’s a pleasant place, but the one road through the village had, until recently, a national (60mph) speed limit. It’s also a straight road, so it’s been crying out for both a speed limit and some form of traffic restriction. And a couple of years ago, it got first one, and then the other. I’ve no problem with that — they’re long overdue — but unfortunately, the speed calming measures that have been adopted are blatantly bloody dangerous for anyone on two wheels. Look at the picture — they’ve put into place an angled restriction, and then made it look even narrower by extending smooth raised kerbs further into the road. Now the idea of ‘perceptual restriction’ is fine and dandy, but here they’ve managed to create an arrangement that’s going to be completely lethal to the first motorcyclist or cyclist who hits one of those kerbs in the wet at night. Not to mentioned the large metal manhole cover that covers the approach. Not only that, but the quality of the work is so poor that the surface is breaking up and the kerbs themselves have moved out of alignment. So let’s add this one to the ever-lengthening list of Surrey’s Bad Ideas Poorly Done.

The Marmite Machine

Sometimes, just sometimes, there is no middle ground of opinion, no equivocation and no compromise possible for those times, places, events or objects which excite lust, disgust, incomprehension, inspiration or apoplexy — anything but apathy. As with Marmite (that’s Vegemite to the antipodally-challenged) itself, you either love it or hate it, and, if you’ve enough confidence in your product, you can even make an advertising campaign out of it. To be a tad more specific, if you are a motorcyclist and have ever seen a Ducati Multistrada, you have an opinion. You will either consider it an abomination, to be consigned to the pit whence it came, preferably as the headstone of its designer, Pierre Terreblanche, or as a bold and unconstrained leap into the future of what a motorcycle should be.

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(Un)Shiny Toy

In Southern England, an only moderate spring and summer have suddenly sequed into a classical Indian Summer – it hasn’t rained at all for over two months. Today, it is absolutely pissing down. So guess when my new bike arrived?? Very nearly right – I actually picked it up yesterday afternoon, and managed the first 60 miles in the glow of a glorious Autumn evening, presumably running on residual kharmic credit. It’s been damply downhill ever since.

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