Bandit Alley
REGIONAL FORUMS => UNITED KINGDOM/IRELAND => Topic started by: PeteSC on June 13, 2005, 11:03:28 AM
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Peer in attack on 'sociopath' bikers
Simon McGee
Political Editor
A LEADING peer has called who tear across rural Yorkshire at up to twice the speed limit "dangerous criminal sociopaths".
Earl Peel mounted an unprecedented tirade against bikers who indulge in "destination speeding" and claimed that too little was being done by the authorities on weekends and bank holidays to catch those using roads in the national parks like racetracks.
Motorcyclists are "becoming the bane of many people's lives in my part of the world in North Yorkshire", he said in a heated debate, and should be treated far more severely than other speeding motorists.
The Tory peer also claimed that there were stretches in the Dales and the Moors where riders boasted of reaching speeds of 180mph.
Grey-haired and grey-bearded bikers who congregate in places like Helmsley's town square also came in for criticism, with Earl Peel saying that although they may see their bikes as "a source of eternal youth... I am absolutely certain that is not how the residents regard them."
The comments – made during a House of Lords debate on the Government's Road Safety Bill, which proposes a sliding scale of speeding penalties – came as North Yorkshire Police continued their inquiries into the death of a motorcyclist killed by a hit-and-run biker on a notorious stretch of road, nicknamed the "Bilsdale TT Circuit", near the village of Chop Gate.
Ralph Snowdon, a 67-year-old grandfather, died when his red 1,000cc Honda Fireblade was in collision with another high-powered motorbike, whose rider sped away from the crash scene on the B1257 without stopping. The other rider had taken a racing line into a right-hand bend.
Denouncing the practice of "destination speeding", Earl Peel said: "It is deliberate, extreme speeding either by individuals or by packs of 15, 20 or even more.
"They travel large distances to race their super-powered machines across the county's roads as though they were at Brand's Hatch with little or no fear of being caught. They overtake on blind corners in order to keep up with the ones in front, or in the rare event when they are stuck behind a car, they seem to sit only a few inches from the vehicle's tail, which is very unnerving for the driver concerned."
He continued: "I am not in any way anti-biker, far from it, but those people – I use my words carefully, and I do not think I am exaggerating – are wanton criminals endangering not only their own lives but many others besides.
"It is simply unjust and unrealistic to bracket those dangerous criminal sociopaths in the same category as a driver out with his family who may have thoughtlessly driven at 68 miles an hour in a 60-mile-an-hour stretch or road."
Re-training courses proposed in the Road Safety Bill would have little effect on lunatic bikers. "Offering them retraining courses is like teaching good manners to a mugger," he said.
"He might learn the etiquette – he might even mug you more politely – but he is still a mugger."
Last night Inspector Ron Johnson of North Yorkshire Police said that the force had 6,000 miles of road to police and it was "impossible to be everywhere, all the time".
But he stressed that high-profile crackdowns with mobile speed cameras and information campaigns had slashes the death toll of motorcyclists on North Yorkshire's roads from 28 in 2003 to 17 in 2004 – and six in the first half of 2005.
British Motorcyclists Federation spokesman Jess Stone said most bikers rode their machines within the law and blamed a "few nutters" for the bad name.
13 June 2005
(You durn hooligans....) :motorsmile:
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Ok, lets get down to the nitty gritty. 1% of all vehicals on the road are bike's. And what the hell is a 67 year old doing on a Fireblade. Old people are a pain in the arse in cars. Being knock off his bike is down right wrong and the other biker, who as not been found yet should Hang. but he may not know he has done some thing wrong, if he was well over the speed limit. And as for Earl Peel phuck him! old out of date fools who know nothing of the real world. Yes the speeding fine's to a sliding scale, but the speed limits which are old and also out of date need to be change to National Limits to 80mph and 70mph for Duel and single carrigeways, Moterways to 80mph with a minumum limit of 50 in the slow left hand lane and 70 it the middle with 80mph for over taken on the right hand lane. :soapbox: :rant2: