Seeing the nippers off outside the house a bit after seven this evening, heard the usual bangs and skidding noises as a scooter coming down the middle of the busy road like a bat out of hell glanced off the offside of a right-turning people carrier, crossed the road into the first of the parked cars where the rider departed from it, and skidded down the cycle lane past my house, being finally stopped after hitting the rear wheel of a Mercedes driven by a very respectable chap which fortunately had been able to turn into an empty parker. It suffered no damage.
The rider limped up to the scooter and picked it up. He started the engine but the scooter was all twisted and shattered, unrideable. He ran it into the residents' slot behind my car, propped it up leaving the engine running and scarpered on the back of another similar scooter also driven by a rather forbidding youngish guy with rough noli me tangere body language. Plod, who later took down what I had actually seen and could remember, told me the scooter had been stolen yesterday just round the corner in the Moroccan quarter.
It's an advantage in a way living where there's plenty of action, but it's a disadvantage too as your car is somewhat at risk from glancing blows and so forth. Indeed I had one written off once by an over-amitious Toyota Supra driver on a wet night.
Edited by PoloGirl on 16/11/2007 at 21:48
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By 'eck, and I complain about finding the odd chip wrapper in my back garden.
I do like living in the North West...
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excellent reporting there lud,i could almost feel im looking on from the corner or through my rather dingy net curtains (must get them dolly blued one day)
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>>It's an advantage in a way living where there's plenty of action
True Lud. Lived on main drag Stourbridge to Dudley for 30years. Three Public houses on the opposite side of the road. Cars parked on both sides plus on pavements. All with a nice bend served with an uphill slope. To add to the mix, street lights plus established trees at regular intervals. A rare week when nothing happened. Real downside was the radio chatter from the BiB in attendance which always seemed to be at full volume whilst the lads measured and chalked.
Happy Days- been down here in the West Country for 10 years now. Still live on main road - only been one accident so far when someone ran into the rear of a bus stopped at pedestrian crossing.
Phil I
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rough noli me tangere body language? Moroccan quarter?
Blimey Lud you make it sound like the dock area of Marseilles
------
< Ulla>
Edited by Webmaster on 15/11/2007 at 21:41
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No, it's the smoke all right. One of the better bits though.
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Volenti non fit injuria, as I always say.
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Sadly with the decline of the validity of that phrase the country has become a rather unsavoury place to live.
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How does one ride like a bat out of hell on a 50cc scooter which would struggle to hit 50mph with the wind behind it?
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How does one ride like a bat out of hell on a 50cc scooter
It was one of those fast modern ones, and coming downhill in late rush hour on a main central London road. Quite battish enough to fail to avoid the people carrier, hurtle diagonally across the road mercifully without hitting anything, ricochet off a parked car and send the scooter although not the rider another twenty or thirty yards dead straight down the cycle lane on the wrong side of the road, passing a foot away from my own carefully-foxed and invisible metropolitan chavmobile. The scooter shed copious quantities of brittle plastic of all colours in its wake causing much crunching for a minute or two.
On reflection I am slightly ashamed to say that my description of the rider's clothing was poor and I didn't recall the colour of his helmet, although having spoken to him to discourage him from trying to ride the wreck I noted his demeanour in some detail. He was in shock but obviously a very tough character and with something important - immediate departure - on his mind.
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How does one ride like a bat out of hell on a 50cc scooter >>
It's all relative to the surroundings - I used to ride 'like a bat out of hell' on my Phillips Gadabout when I was 16 ;-)
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.. Plod, who later took down what I had actually seen and could remember, told me the scooter had been stolen yesterday just round the corner in the Moroccan quarter.
I can't help thinking this is somewhat at odds (to say the least) with the laisseez-faire attitude taken in relation to the unlicensed female driver of another thread. Perhaps this young man was not all deserving of being subject of such a police witness statement? How do you know he didn't have perfectly good reason to be on 'stolen' scooter - like escaping from muggers or simply a victim of a false reporting of a stolen vehicle or disadvantaged, legally or socially in some other way? Not that that would be my opinion.
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>>somewhat at odds
Not necessarily - although I'm sure Lud would respond with more style and panache than I can muster.
The ex-scooter pilot has shown himself to be a "screaming carp hound" by scarpering on the back of another scooter. Whether he possesed all the required documentation or not, he has shown his true colours by absenting himself from the aftermath of his actions, and by riding a stolen scooter. His beauraucratic compliance or non-compliance is incidental.
Number_Cruncher
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Lud
Where do you you live Lud? I realise that it is in our beautiful capital city, but roughly whereabouts?
I am not sure if I want to go there, or stay away!
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good thread this but I keep having to google the latin bits and that's with having had compulsory Latin for two years at high school!
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good thread this but I keep having to google the latin bits and that's with having had compulsory Latin for two years at high school!
I thought it was street slang. Oh well.
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>> Where do you you live Lud? I realise that it is in our beautiful capital city but roughly whereabouts?
He did provide a clue - it's just around the corner from the Moroccan quarter.
It's a million miles away from my own dear home. The worst accident I can recall outside was when a cow ate the top of a hollyhock in the front garden.
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"thought it was street slang"
Probably was in certain areas of the Roman Empire.
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"Where do you you live Lud?"
Dunno where the Moroccan Quarter is but I'd have Lud penned as a W11 boy. Westbourne Grove or Ladbroke Grove. Failing that, somewhere along the Holloway Road.
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'On the route of the Notting Hill Carnival' covers it without being too specific. You could describe the Moroccan quarter, which used to be Portuguese and still is a bit, as being 'just round the corner' from two of the main roads on the route.
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woodbines haven't you forgiven me for being a bit slow to thank you the other day?
And do you see me as a confused person who simply thinks it's wrong to grass on anyone?
The difference between the two examples is, put simply, a question of before and after the carp (so to speak) hits the fan. Reporting someone for a technical infringement of the law makes the carp hit the fan, or should. My case where the unlicensed lady was concerned was that on the information given she may not have really deserved that, given the complexity of life in this country today and the difficult time some people have.
The accident outside my house was an example of the carp actually hitting the fan with some violence in front of my very eyes. Whatever the circumstances of the incident, plod in the pursuit of his duty is certainly entitled to an accurate account of what has happened from all witnesses. And that is also in the best interests of all (innocent) parties.
Or should be.
Edited by Lud on 16/11/2007 at 19:00
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woodbines haven't you forgiven me for being a bit slow to thank you the other day?
Yes, it contributed, I must admit, an added zest to my counter argument - I'm fallibly human.
My case where the unlicensed lady was concerned was that on the information given she may not have really deserved that, given the complexity of life in this country today and the difficult time some people have.
But what information (or lack of) did you have about the scooterist? Some 'difficulties' may have attached to his life also. Not that I know the personal stories of either the woman or scooterist of course, but I would have supported reporting (or sanction) of both on the evidence.
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"Sadly with the decline of the validity of that phrase (volenti non fit injuria) the country has become a rather unsavoury place to live."
Hear, hear, PU. But I often wonder why the judiciary have gone this way: negligence is still based on case-law and I'm not sure that one can blame the Government this time.
More judges should be unafraid to say 'you took the risk - you've only yourself to blame' - or at least calculate a percentage of contributory negligence.
Edited by Avant on 16/11/2007 at 23:05
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>>More judges should be unafraid to say 'you took the risk - you've only yourself to blame' - or at least calculate a percentage of contributory negligence.
I'm not taking a pop at anyone, but what about today's report of a woman involved in a motorbike accident, as a pillion passenger (not wearing a helmet, despite the laws of the country she was in) receiving a four million payout, without a reduction for "contributory negligence"?
It was quoted that she would not have received the injuries if she'd been wearing a helmet.
Edited by bathtub tom on 16/11/2007 at 23:14
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Hear hear PU. But I often wonder why the judiciary have gone this way: negligence is still based on case-law and I'm not sure that one can blame the Government this time.
Good Lord, that's a first in the BR. I thought the Government was to blame for everything...LOL!
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