Rammy's Ramblings

[Rammy]

agree

its crazy if youre drivng down the highway here at night, and so many times you see the driver of another car who inexplicably has a glowing blue face
on my road theres a cross for a kid who died in a school bus crash.......driver was on pot, collided with a dump truck.

oh and I dont believe a word of the "car drivers brains are looking for other cars so they dont see them (bikers) because their brain filters them out"
do you go looking for roadkill whilst you drive? yet how often do you see someone go over a dead skunk rather than swerve around it. not see it, my foot.

I swerve when I can. Especially if its fresh.

 

[Bills Vs Beaks]

exactly.........

 

[Bruce]

My present ride is a Harley Road King Classic. I don't do wheelies

I bet it would be hard to get one of those up in a wheelie. Saw a couple of fools doing wheelies at 65 MPH last summer. Didn't hear of any deaths so I guess they survived their stupidity.

oh and I dont believe a word of the "car drivers brains are looking for other cars so they dont see them (bikers) because their brain filters them out"

Can't necessarily agree with that. I had a small (Honda 175) when I was in HS. I noticed motorcycles a lot more once I owned one. And I try to keep an eye out for them still. But there isn't anything you can do if they put their brains in the saddlebag and do stupid stuff "because they can".

 

[greybeard]

oh and I dont believe a word of the "car drivers brains are looking for other cars so they dont see them (bikers) because their brain filters them out"

Do you have an alternate explanation?

You are aware, that it is the motorcycle that is the striking vehicle in almost all fatal motorcycle collisions involving other vehicles?
It isn't just the car/truck driver that suffers from the phenomenon of Blindness While Paying Attention.....

 

[Latestarter]

In many (most?) of those cases GB it's because the rider had no choice but to hit the vehicle that cut them off or pulled out/turned in front of them... Have come very close a number of times in those situations. Not saying that there aren't bikers at fault and who create accidents. Just saying the vast majority are not the biker's fault.

 

[Bills Vs Beaks]

Do you have an alternate explanation?

You are aware, that it is the motorcycle that is the striking vehicle in almost all fatal motorcycle collisions involving other vehicles?
It isn't just the car/truck driver that suffers from the phenomenon of Blindness While Paying Attention....

I do indeed.........that^
the fact that they are more likely to drive crazy and therefore be involved in an accident.......but the "brain filters" is what they teach in motorcycle drivers ed here (being nerdy, I read the motorcycle part of the manual)
funny they didnt mention the phenomena in the car drivers section, think it would be useful for us car drivers to be aware of it too, dont you think?
I think its just an excuse.....

In many (most?) of those cases GB it's because the rider had no choice but to hit the vehicle that cut them off or pulled out/turned in front of them... Have come very close a number of times in those situations. Not saying that there aren't bikers at fault and who create accidents. Just saying the vast majority are not the biker's fault.

doesnt mean the driver of the car didnt see them......maybe just the car driver was a jerk (believe it or not, you get drivers who are jerks. I know, I wouldnt believe it myself but Ive seen them so......) and couple the fact that a motorcycle has no airbag makes the crash a little tougher on the driver of the motorcycle than an ordinary car
or possibly the driver could have been speeding and the car pulling out misjudged. I did that once.....big black ram flying down my road. Looked right, looked left, pulled out while looking right again and thats when I saw it. Oops. also my house is on a slope.....but still. I take responsibility for my misjudgment and I won't do it again but the other driver did have a part. There's a reduced speed sign by that hill for a reason...

 

[greybeard]

In many (most?) of those cases GB it's because the rider had no choice but to hit the vehicle that cut them off or pulled out/turned in front of them... Have come very close a number of times in those situations. Not saying that there aren't bikers at fault and who create accidents. Just saying the vast majority are not the biker's fault.

I would like to see the data that supports that, tho I do understand, that anyone that pulls out in front of any kind of vehicle is usually at fault.

I'll address both this and bills vs beaks comments...
The motorcycle drivers/rider's manual and the article are written for cycle riders specifically, which is why neither address the 4 wheeler's responsibilities.

I do think the 'filters out' thing is kind of accurate tho is a bit of a misnomer.
There is a term in AI/computing called prefetching. It is where images or files are brought into high speed memory before it is even fully processed. It's data that is loaded before it is required for use.

The human brain processes thoughts and images extremely fast, but not nearly fast enough to be considered to be 'in real time'. To offset this lag, our brains automatically tend to 'pre load' or 'pre fetch' images based upon the last thing it 'saw'.
You're driving down the road, there's an 18 wheeler, a few 4 wheelers in front of you, and you look in your rear view mirror for a second...look back forward and your brain has already presented to you the last image it saw from the front view....that is what you expect to see, but in a split second, it processes what your eyes actually see. A lot can happen in that split second, and it's not so much what you 'see' that causes the problem, but how how long it takes for the neurons to commit your muscles into acting on what is actually there.

You stop at a stop sign, see a 4 wheeler coming and nothing behind it. That's imprinted into high speed memory and prefetched the next time you look after the car passes. If something else has entered the real world picture in that time span, it doesn't register immediately..takes a split second for the new and real image to show up in your mind. Meanwhile, you're already out at least part way in the lane....disaster has happened.

This is especially true on roads and everyday situations you've encountered time after time. You (thru your brain) expect to see certain things simply because you have so many times. Throw something different into the paradigm and it takes your eye/brain/muscle trio a bit of time to understand it because of the form of 'prefetching' our brains do.

You can see an example of this when someone moves everything around in a room you are very accustomed to entering. Even before you open the door, your brain is already preparing an image based solely upon all the other times you walked into the room.

Change your wallpaper on your computer display or phone one night before retiring to bed. The next morning, when you first look at the display, you 'expect' to see the familiar old picture, and for a spit second, do. Your brain has already pulled that old familiar image from cache and presented it to you, but in the blink of an eye, you remember you changed it.

Lets say that tonight, while we are asleep, BYH thru admin, has totally changed it's appearance. We click on our bookmark, the page loads and we are fully expecting to see what we have always seen, and for a brief moment in time..do, til our brain fully processes that a visual change has taken place.

I got a good dose of this phenomenon last year when the flood came..several actually. The water came up overnight. Last thing I saw before dark was my cows on pasture, green grass, and the inside of my shop just as it always had been. At first light, I look out the window and my brain presented the usual image, for a split second until it processed the ocean. A little while later, as I waded in 3 ft of water to my shop to get a rope, 2 things came to mind.
1. If I open this door all this water is going to rush in, which was foolish because I know my shop is nowhere near waterproof.
2. But, when I did open the door, my brain had pre fetched the image of my shop, with it's dry cement floor and all my 'stuff' neatly arranged. Took but the blink of an eye for the real image of all my stuff submerged or floating around to register.
A LOT tho, can happen on a highway in the blink of an eye.

 

[Rammy]

Today, my neighbor and I, were running errands, and decided to stop and eat. I had been telling him about my Bollywood obsession, so we stopped at an Indian restaraunt for lunch. Got the buffet.
Not sure I liked it all that much. Little too spicey for me. I had been telling him about this tandoori chicken recipe I had seen on the internet, so stopping at this restaraunt, figured get a taste of the cuisine. I think if I visited India, Id be pretty hungry.
Checked out whether McDonalds sold actual beef hamburgers in India or not. Turns out no, they dont. Or pork, so a McRib is out, too.
Over the years, Ive tried foods from other cultures, but tend to stick with what Im used to. I dont know if Italian is considered another culture, since so
many of us have grown up with pizza( which technically was originally invented by the Chinese), spaghetti, lasagna, to name a few. So many of those dishes are so popular and familiar, can it really be considered un-American cuisine?My ex loved,Chinese, but Im not a big fan.
Guess Im just a good ol American foods person. Since I like Italian, maybe a trip there would be better.

 

[greybeard]

The wife and I ate at a Mediterranean/Asian/North African (not 'oriental asian) place and I made the mistake of ordering something called Volcano Chicken. It was not hot, it was more fiery than that...something akin to eating molten lava.

 

[Rammy]

Never had mediterranean, but I do also like Mexican. Maybe if I try Indian food after a few more times, maybe I might find something I like.