Motorway Horror Stories

[threaded]

My first ever motorbike was a Yamaha DT250MX and I had quite a few problems with it initially. One day while riding through Chelmsford I stopped at a junction and suddenly the engine started revving at full revs. I hit the killswitch, nothing. Turned the ignition of, nada. Ripped the plug cap off, still not a sausage. A guy jumper out of his car and rammed his jacket up the exhaust piped, still continued running. At this point I was considering dropping it and running like hell until it blew up. Instead we turned the petrol off and it eventually stopped. Never worked that one out.

Not unusual with 2 strokes. Odd coincidence: one of my guys had exactly that same problem with a brand new chainsaw at the weekend. (Which went straight back to the shop and he returned with the Hasquavarna I'd originally recommended)

You basically were running the engine too lean.

So, the trick is to pull the choke full out.

I always modify my carbs on 2 strokes so there is no fuel at idle, i.e. remove the idle circuit in the carb(s), downside is you have to keep blipping the throttle to keep the engine turning over when stood. You do get people looking odd at you at the lights, but hey, who cares, I feel it is far safer.

[threaded]

No you're not - and that's reminded me that I had a wheel fall off a car once - and it was my own fault.

Oh, in one of my forthcoming cycling movies I'm there on the cycle path going along Roskildevej when you see I'm overtaken by a lone truck wheel shooting down the cycle path and disappearing into the far distance.

I've seen a wheel fall off a car at the Brough 'roundabout' (it's actually kidney shaped but hey) in Nottingham. Car crashed into a bus-stop. I nearly fell off my bike laughing as I'd tried to tell the driver at a previous set of lights that he only had one nut holding the wheel on, and he'd been particularly rude in reply.

[threaded]

Good one this morning. Was on the cycle-path just about to cross the slip road to the motorway. So it is just thread relevant.

Well, there are some car drivers who when turning into a junction just have to beat the cyclist to it. They're supposed to wait you see. This often means they turn in to the junction too fast, run wide, and end up crossing into the incoming lane.

This isn't so bad, it is rare anyone is coming in the other direction at that precise time, so they get back into their lane OK. There's the occasional head on, but usually it's a glancing blow, lots of glass and shouting, no one hurt.

The fun thing from this morning is this junction, being a motorway slip road, has armco down the middle.

You can see what is going to happen.

So car, in a rush to get past, runs wide, and as this is a start, there's a nice ramp up of armco.

I stopped, turned back to look, saw the driver opening their door and looking down. Laughed, carried on to work.

If the car is still up in the air there when I go home, I'm going to take some pictures.

[fullyautomatix]

Good one this morning. Was on the cycle-path just about to cross the slip road to the motorway. So it is just thread relevant.

Well, there are some car drivers who when turning into a junction just have to beat the cyclist to it. They're supposed to wait you see. This often means they turn in to the junction too fast, run wide, and end up crossing into the incoming lane.

This isn't so bad, it is rare anyone is coming in the other direction at that precise time, so they get back into their lane OK. There's the occasional head on, but usually it's a glancing blow, lots of glass and shouting, no one hurt.

The fun thing from this morning is this junction, being a motorway slip road, has armco down the middle.

You can see what is going to happen.

So car, in a rush to get past, runs wide, and as this is a start, there's a nice ramp up of armco.

I stopped, turned back to look, saw the driver opening their door and looking down. Laughed, carried on to work.

If the car is still up in the air there when I go home, I'm going to take some pictures.

Its still there

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/o...re/8618414.stm

[Paddy]

Good one this morning. Was on the cycle-path just about to cross the slip road to the motorway. So it is just thread relevant.

Well, there are some car drivers who when turning into a junction just have to beat the cyclist to it. They're supposed to wait you see. This often means they turn in to the junction too fast, run wide, and end up crossing into the incoming lane.

This isn't so bad, it is rare anyone is coming in the other direction at that precise time, so they get back into their lane OK. There's the occasional head on, but usually it's a glancing blow, lots of glass and shouting, no one hurt.

The fun thing from this morning is this junction, being a motorway slip road, has armco down the middle.

You can see what is going to happen.

So car, in a rush to get past, runs wide, and as this is a start, there's a nice ramp up of armco.

I stopped, turned back to look, saw the driver opening their door and looking down. Laughed, carried on to work.

If the car is still up in the air there when I go home, I'm going to take some pictures.

A learner driver taking her second lesson managed to flip her instructor's car on to its roof in Oxford.

[Pogle]

I almost had an accident on my weekly commute on Monday, pootling along and CEL comes on accompanied by a loss of power - eek!
It continued to do it on and off til i got to work.
RAC stopped it by cleaning the sparks, Mazda garage are now charging a kings ransom to get it all sorted out.....
I'll be out drinking tonight

[darmstadt]

Not unusual with 2 strokes. Odd coincidence: one of my guys had exactly that same problem with a brand new chainsaw at the weekend. (Which went straight back to the shop and he returned with the Hasquavarna I'd originally recommended)

You basically were running the engine too lean.

So, the trick is to pull the choke full out.

Did that as well. Actually its a carbon build up in the cylinder head so you have to de-coke it.

[Olly]

Just did a 14 hour journey from Munich to Oxford.
Drivers on Autobahn are dangerous fools. Only reason they don't have massive casualties is because they're fairly empty roads in good condition and they're driving good cars. As far as anticipation and appropriate seppd for conditions....forget it!

Belgian motorways are the worst roads I've seen anywhere in the world! (I've been to about 50 countries)
If I'd been riding my motorbike at the very least there'd be serious rim damage but more likley I'd have been off!

[thunderlizard]

What's the most dangerous thing you've ever seen on a Motorway ?

Probably this

[d000hg]

I've had somebody keel over in front of me and exhibit no pulse and no respiration

He wasn't dead by the time I'd finished with him. Even better, one of the paramedics turned out to be an old friend he hadn't seen in years. As they were carting him off to the ambulance he was mumbling something about "Do you still go in the Red Lion?"

Nick, are you sure you are not Threaded's sockie?