Strangely enough, in 50 years of driving, I too have never been intimidated by a motorcyclist ... either a lone one or those in groups.

Having said thet though I don't live in the Peak District. I would imagine the sheer volume of motorcyclists in that area on a sunny Sunday or Bank Holiday could increase the odds of encountering such a thing. I've seen that sort of thing happening when they're uploaded onto Youtube - but most of the instances I recall have been abroad, not in the UK. But, as always, I stand to be corrected.

I do happen to live quite close to a route that IS used by motorcyclists on the weekend/bank holiday (it includes a part of Dartmoor that must a be a well known and favoured "route") and I will agree that the speed they manage to achieve on a particular straight stretch within earshot of my house (half a mile away) and the progress they make on the subsequent bendy bits are bordering on the breathtaking ... and quite a few have come to grief thereabouts. One finished up colliding with a vehicle and flying through the air and landing on the roof of an adjacent house. Now that has go to hurt - in fact that one died, as have plenty others. But they either know the risks and are prepared to take a chance ... or they don't know the risks, in which case Darwin's Rules kick in.

Edited by KB. on 11/10/2017 at 11:56

I must say that I don't see it as the car driver's obligation to arrange their vehicle to accommodate the filtering biker when sitting in a queue. If there's space for a bike to pass through then all well and good, and if I happen to see one approaching I'll move over where I can if need be, but it isn't my first consideration. I pull up in the 'natural' position, the queue ahead and behind being the main focus of my attentions when coming to a stop. The speed at which a small minority of bikers choose to pass through standing traffic, regardless of available space, is plainly stupid and leaves precious little margin to deal with their misjudgements or for others to see them. Most are intelligent enough to keep the speed down thankfully.

The 'tailgater' brigade worry me at times as well, sitting a few feet off your rear corner with a rapid trip through your rear windscreen beckoning if you have to hit the brakes. I quite often wouldn't fancy their chances.

Bikers are just like any other group of people, a whole cross section of society, so you will find decent well mannered gentlemen/women right through to nasty and unpleasant ill mannered louts...you'll find the same variety driving lorries buses and rolls royces and pushing perambulators, and in every job description you ca think of.

Unfortunately in a group bullies can do their thing due to weight of numbers where they would be entirely different on their own.

Edited by gordonbennet on 11/10/2017 at 18:53

Was going to say what GB just said, but for some reason lost the impetus to do so (I think I was called to fry the fish). But it's so true that some individuals who wouldn't say boo to a goose whilst on their own, become ogres when in a group. We all saw it at school and keep on seeing day to day the world over... and will keep seeing it until we die [will there be a single, polite, mourner or a group o thugs at the graveside? :-) ]

When at work there was a crew of blokes (yes, they were virtually all blokes in them days) at a paticular fire station that I had to do shifts at from time to time. As a group (or actually more like a gang) they had the capacity to make life an utter misery for anyone they didn't approve of ... and that included the officer in charge who they almost sent round the bend due to having to try to manage these thugs!. Others used to say that individually they were all "nice blokes" when you got them on their own ... however I never saw it that way: my view was that if they are thoroughly vicious, vindictive and downright unpleasant when gathered together in a group, then they are not what I would call a "nice bloke" as individuals and I had nothing to do with any of them.

There, I feel better for getting that off my chest :-)

You have just made me realise why (after nearly 25 years self-employment, 95% of which is working autonomously), I don't miss the "banter" of working in a "team".

On the face of it a reasonable observation to make.

In today's workplace climate it's an even better made point I'm sure.

But in 1974 things were different... like it or not.

I respectfully ask if you were there? Have you seen the combined influence that 20 hard nosed and time-served blokes - all of one mind - can exert on the one bloke in the postion of managing them - at a time when that "officer's" management structure had no inclination to support him.

At that time, people in the job lived with each other for 15 hour shifts ... ate and slept together (though not generally in the same bed), trained together, dealt with all sorts of taxing and odd (and sometimes hazardous) situations together, relaxed during down time together, socialised outside the job together. And if the pack mentality takes a hold (as it was allowed to do in those days) then one supervising officer has his hands full if the others take against hime(which they did).

I have to say that was a one off insofar as that particular bunch was the exception. Other watches on the same station weren't like that and I knew of no other station anywhere else that was so bad (but they might have existed for all I know).

The word we're looking for is "bullying" and you must know as well as I do that it went on despite all the protocols that were/are supposed to prevent it. It has gone on in every walk of life ... education, church, politics, sport, government ... absolutely everywhere. If your face doesn't fit, you're very often in trouble and whilst PC attitudes and Health and Safety and Equality legislation is now seemingly tighter than ever I bet it goes on behind closed doors as we speak.