the fink
In lieu of…
Bikers Corner
Bike Torque – a series of chats
on the motorcycle world by
Gavin Foster
When Automotive Business Review’s since-fired and
unlamented journalist Thegandra Naidoo brought the wrath
of South Africa’s motorcycling population down upon this
publication with his offensive comment trivialising the tragic
death of biker Douglas Pearce he drove a wedge into a
fault-line that already existed, on a minor scale, between
motorcyclists and car drivers.
P
earce, aged 39,was shot twice
by motorist Meekahaefele
Masooa, a 43-year-old labour
law consultant, in a road-rage incident
after an altercation in Randburg.
Naidoo, in an ill-conceived act of puerile
petulance, then posted on Facebook
and Twitter that he could not wait for the
day when he would open his car door to
make a motorcyclist “fly off his bike and,
hopefully, break his neck.”
Automotive Business Review,
having hired Naidoo largely as an
act of kindness because editor and
publisher Graham Erasmus hoped the
opinionated, abrasive and controversial
scribe could be rehabilitated, summarily
dismissed the journo, leaving him free
to cause mayhem and incite murderous
thoughts elsewhere in the publishing
community.
Anybody who’s travelled to Malaysia,
Nigeria, China, Singapore, Brazil or a
score of other fast-developing nations
can bear witness to how two-wheeled
commuters and motorists co-exist in
peace amidst a seemingly impossible
state of chaos. The system works,
despite giving the impression of
warfare on a minor scale, because
everybody treats all the other road
users with respect. This is largely, I
believe, because the bikers, although
immensely vulnerable, are very much
in a majority. Car, taxi,
bus and truck drivers
are all intensely aware
of and respect them
all the time. Bikers are,
as everywhere in the
world, always aware of the four-wheeled
traffic amidst which they operate with
due respect – if they weren’t they
wouldn’t survive for long.
I have to place on admit here that my
colours are firmly nailed to the mast of
the bikers. I’ve been passionate about
motorcycles and enjoyed the company
of motorcyclists socially for 43 years,
but as a motoring journalist I spend a
fair amount of time on the road in cars
and see both side of the coin.
I too have had my heart end up in my
throat after some clown on a superbike
with a full-race Akrapovic exhaust slices
past me inches away on the N2 doing
110 km/h faster than I am in the Hyundai
Atoz or whatever else I happen to be
driving at the time.
And I too have been passed on my
motorcycle by an idiot in a car who,
failing to realise how vulnerable I feel on
my bike, suddenly appears under my
right elbow as he feels I don’t need a
whole lane to myself.
Whenever people come up with that
trite old comment that motorcycles are
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may 2014
dangerous because it’s not yourself you
have to worry about, but “the idiots in the
cars” I always fire back that I don’t agree
altogether with that. Many experienced
bikers agree that on two wheels you’re
better off travelling faster than the
surrounding traffic than going slower.
Why? Because then you don’t have so
many cars approaching you from the
rear to worry about. But if you’re going to
travel faster than the traffic flow it’s very
much your responsibility to be defensive
at all times when there are cars around.
And if you’re one of those people who
buy a 150kW superbike and insist on
riding it as fast as it’ll go on a public road,
please bear in mind that at 300 km/h you
are covering 83 metres per second and
reeling in the 120 km/h car ahead of you
by 50 metres per second – that’s half the
length of a rugby field. And you in the
car ( 266WBF