Terry Fox forever continues in his quest
Category Archives: On the road
Stifling speed demons the easy way
(Updated below)
I’ve passed these signs a number of times now on the TransCanada highway in Northwestern Ontario. The first time, I was mildly impressed, since the sign was out in the middle of nowhere. At the time, I thought it a rather expensive way of controlling speeders, given the cost of aircraft flight time.
The second time I passed a similar sign, I counted the markers. There are only five — yes, that’s right, five! — daubs of orange paint that proceed beyond each one of these signs. Somehow, I find it hard to imagine that there will ever be an aircraft overhead.
Yes, I know, it only takes two marks, a stopwatch and a cruiser to catch a speeder via an aircraft, but still…
Ontario has this crazy “stunt driving” legislation, wherein all that’s required to seize a vehicle, take a driver’s license for seven days and haul the vehicle off to an impound lot is a police officer’s word that the driver was “driving stunted”.
Of course, one does get one’s day in court, but by then, guilty or innocent, the impound costs amount to several thousands of dollars, and the police are laughing up their collective sleeves at the innocent who still has to pay the costs.
Here’s a good one for you: a motorcyclist was proceeding down the curb lane past an extremely long lineup of vehicles. Obviously, motorcycles are capable of doing that to get around traffic jams. Even though the rider was proceeding safely well under the speed limit, police charged him with stunt driving. When it finally got to trial, the judge threw out the charge, but the driver was still out the thousands of dollars spent to re-claim his motorcycle from the impound lot.
It’s much easier to claim a speeder was “stunt driving” than to actually go out and do some speed enforcement with a cruiser and an actual police officer. After all, the stunt driving charge immediately nets a vehicle, a driver’s license, and a driver. A speeding ticket nets, at best, a couple of points and a fine that the speeder can mail in.
And if you’re not speeding, but rather driving sensibly to avoid delay, what better excuse for rounding up people than a trumped-up charge of stunt driving?
Update August 15, 2009: Here’s a link to a little justice that comes around every once in a while, just to bite police officers and others in the ass. What goes around, comes around, as they say.
Somewhere on the road
Waiting…
For the rain to end.
I have time.
Mexico bullshit, the true grit way
Author’s note: I tagged this with the Baja, but it’s about travel on mainland Mexico. Same dif, just a more diverse part of the country. And yes, I’ve ridden the mainland too – in fact, those very same roads that this guy whines and snivels about.
While I recognize the need for some to embellish their tales of motorcycle derring-do, it disappoints me greatly the length to which some will go to provide false and misleading information. Over the years I have ridden to Mexico many times, and have never encountered one problem. However, that’s not to say that there aren’t any.
For a most enjoyable read on wintering in Mexico, fast forward to this post.
* * * *
I’ve been reading about a bike trip some clown on a bagger took from Victoria, Canada to Mexico. It’s titled “Mexico Standoff”. Apparently this guy had been planning his ride to Ixtapa for years, but when he finally started his online research, everyone he contacted cautioned him against making the trip by motorcycle “with a lot of negative and scary reports”.
Oh mommy, don’t make me go.
By the third picture of his motorcycle, and the eighth paragraph of his sad tale, somewhere by Ely, Nevada, he’s complaining about strong wind threatening to throw him off of “his steed”, and rain showers. You pussy. Why not take the opportunity to vist one of the whorehouses in Ely – say, the Stardust – and relax with a beer while talking up the girls? You don’t have to sample the wares; you can just sit there and bullshit. But I digress.
By Nogales, he’s gotten himself checked into a sleazy motel right by the border. Yeah, shure. I’ve been through Nogales a time or two, and let me tell you, there are no sleazy motels right beside the border, chum. The border is completely denuded of anything for quite a distance. Those pesky coyotes and the illegals have seen to that.
While crossing into Mexico at a major port of entry can be a bit of an adventure, it usually entails riding on past the marker and watching the light. If it stays green, you keep right on going. Only when it turns red do you pull over for an inspection. Nogales is one of the more benign ports, believe me. It’s pretty much devoid of the traffic hassles that you can get riding into Mexicali or Tj. There’s not much chance you’ll get run over by an impatient truck or taxi at Nogales.
Naturally, once across the border, this guy’s paranoia factor is wound up to 10 because the poverty-stricken are watching him on his Harley-Davidson. Well shit, that’s a given. You get people staring at you in Bumfuck, America when you ride through town. Take a valium, dumbass, because almost everyone wants to look and listen when you ride by. It’s human nature for the great unwashed to want to fantasize about being out on the road and on their way to nowhere while riding a motorcycle loaded to the gills. Furthermore, in Mexico your fat ass is sitting on more dollars than most of those people will get their hands on in a lifetime.
Before I conclude my whining about this loser’s life, let me explain one more thing that he goes negative on, and that’s the military checkpoints. He makes a point of disparaging the young soldiers and their commanding officers that man these checkpoints by suggesting that they might want bribes. In my entire riding life down Mexico way, never — and I repeat, never! — have I ever been asked for money from anyone at these checkpoints. That is complete and utter bullshit, and to even suggest that it might occur is beyond the pale, in my opinion.
There’s much crying about bad roads, bad roadblocks, bad policia, bad military checkpoints ad nauseam. To top it all off, a day and a half from this guy’s destination, the dumbass turns tail and rides back home.
Oh mommy, I miss you.
Now that’s true grit.
Road signs, revisited
I know I’ve said this before, but entering Ontario via Buffalo and the Peace Bridge is a pain in the ass when you’re trying to cover new ground and there are no signs directing you. The Buffalo side has plenty of signs to point you to the border. The Canadian side continues to be a mystery, and finding your way – especially if you’re new to the area (or visiting after decades of absence) – is a royal pain.
The monolithic tourist information center visible across the way was a nice touch, but I never saw a sign pointing towards it from the convoluted road system, either. Thus, I was unable to discover Ontario in the fashion and manner to which, I’m certain, Ontario would desire.
The absence of meaningful directional signs until 20 miles past the border, on some road, is ridiculous. But of course, it’s Ontario the good, isn’t it? Idiots.
Here’s a Wikipedia explanation of concession roads in southern Ontario. After reading it, there is no doubt that southern Ontario has got to have one of the most convoluted and stupid highway naming conventions in North America. And I haven’t even begun to talk about those miniscule white on dark blue county road signs that are hidden on electrical posts and lighting standards. Try following those through a city some day.
Put up a series of meaningful directional signs, you morons. I’d prefer a variety that is plainly visible, of standard dimension and color, and that actually point me in a direction that I choose to proceed. Of course, that’s only me. I’m sure local yokels who never travel out of the valley and other miscreants are quite happy the way it is.
Otherwise, don’t bother – which appears to be the direction that Ontario chooses to follow.
Travel adventure
It seemed like a good plan, too, since I’ve not been to Going to the Sun and Glacier National Park in over a decade. It used to be a quaint little ride through the middle of Nowhere, Montana, across Logan Pass and back down the other side. The road was a slow ride populated by queasy car drivers fearful of falling off of the edge of the earth. Some even kept two tires across the yellow line, obviously unaware of their own lack of driving skills.
It was mostly a good show to watch all of the city slickers stop in the middle of the road, heedless of traffic behind them, to take pictures through their vehicle windows. When they got back home I’m certain they proudly displayed each photograph and exclaimed how they braved the experience.
So, off I went, in search of adventure one more time. Instead, I found construction. Ten years worth of construction. And 2008 is only year two, according to a flagman on a segment of single-lane-only narrow park road. I figure that – and the price of gas – will doom this place to a long and lingering death.
But that’s all right, because it will keep traffic down, and afford those who can the opportunity to tour this magnificent piece of real estate in relative isolation. For now, the turnouts and pullouts are packed with cars, tour buses and people, all trying to take pictures of the same thing.
Should you enter this place from the east, you can get as far as the Weeping Wall with relative ease (in 2008) and then turn around there if you want to miss the construction delays, which can amount to three or four hours. You might have to wrestle for a spot in the parking area to turn around. The crowds seem to be drawn to this thing like a fly over a cesspool.
On the other hand, if you’re in a hurry to get through this thing, feel free to tailgate, or to pass everything in sight on blind corners. I experienced a lot of that. Mostly, it made me laugh. I had both sides of my lane to maneuver in, while cars have only a few feet to juggle. It particularly amuses me in situations like that, as cars pass in a hurry, only to be held up by the next 20 cars ahead. So funny. I find it my prerogative to ride behind the hurry-upper and let him see my shit-eating grin as he fumes away behind the next vehicle in a long line.
My question: If you’re here to see it, why would you be in such a hurry to get through it? Are you late for a court date on the other side?
My crowning achievement in four hours of constant amusement was watching drivers who poked cameras out of the sunroof and snapped away while either stopped in the middle of the road, or never stopped at all. Their heads were invisible as a detached arm with a camera attached poked its way up and forward, appearing much like one of the automatons in the original War of the Worlds.
Now that’s adventure.