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Coronaries and Landcruisers
GUIDO reckons you should fit a grenade-launcher to your scooter…
The bloke in the four-wheel-drive had been tailgating me for too long. That was it – enough. I pulled up at the next set of lights, backpedaled the Honda Lead 100 scooter so it was level with his window and offered to toss it into the car with him if he wanted it that badly. While the scoot was hardly threatening, I looked big and murderous enough to follow through. Plus a hot and bothered scooter, even if just a 100, is going to feel very uncomfortable when it’s on your lap -- so he decided to mumble something vaguely apologetic and back off.
This was a day or two before Ms M senior, on the same scoot (we were sharing the demo), came home complaining she’d been monstered by some grumpy dingbat in a Landcruiser. She too stopped for a chat at the lights, and in her case the driver complained she should be traveling in or near the gutter and that he’d report her. For what? Riding a scooter? Violating the Landcruiser-only lane? She gave up on the idiot but said, later, “I bet that never happens to you on the Valkyrie.” She had a point.
People mostly see the Mac the Valk, which is roughly the size and shape of Luna Park, but makes much angrier noises, and keep their distance. I suspect they think anyone mad enough to ride it is best left undisturbed. Which makes lane-splitting much easier.
Does having a presence on the road make you safer? Yep, and it’s got nothing to do with dayglo vests or any other twaddle along those lines. It has everything to do with perceived threat. The traffic gets noticeably closer when I’m on a scooter or the girls’ 250, than when I’m on Mac or Hannibal the Hayabusa.
Although I’ve also noticed that you can be outrageously assertive in traffic on the scoot and no-one really complains – scooters are somehow seen as less offensive than bikes and are allowed liberties that motorcycles are not.
When it comes to having safe working space in traffic, to me it seems a combination of assertiveness and perceived threat often works. By far my biggest nightmare in peak-hour is middle-aged suburban men in Landcruisers. They’ve become the apocryphal Volvo drivers of the new millennium, convinced they’re master of all they survey.
The irony is that several years ago, when Volvo was desperately trying to rid itself of the legendary “pot-plant in a Volvo” driver perception, Toyota cheekily ran a national metro newspaper ad picturing a Landcruiser with the tag line “the only thing that will protect you from a Volvo”. It proved to be all too perceptive. Now it’s the new city-bully four-wheel-drive, or sport utility vehicle in current-speak, that’s the menace.
A scooter can sometimes struggle in that environment. I’m tempted to bolt a used grenade-launcher on the rear luggage rack of the Lead and see if that gets their attention.
Not that I’m going to stop riding scoots. They’re far too convenient and huge fun when the peak-hour snarl grinds to an inevitable halt. I just sail past, singing, “I’ll be home before you, and smiling when I get there!” (It works best if sung to the chorus melody of Powderfinger’s My Happiness.)
Anyway, even Mac the Valk is not impervious to driver blindness. I’ve been cut off a few times over the years and delight in pulling up beside the wombat behind the wheel, looking down into their personal little cesspit and, after waiting patiently while they turn down the stereo, ask, “So, how big does it have to be before you see it?”
My favourite incident along these lines was narrowly avoiding being side-swiped by a middle-aged bloke who was on the phone. He was unbelievably cranky because I interrupted his call to complain. And what was he driving? A Landcruiser.
I draw comfort from the fact that, judging by his overall demeanor and somewhat florid complexion, he’ll be in the coronary ward of the local hospital long before me…
You’re always welcome to get in touch via the palatial Motorcycle Trader offices at locked bag 12, Oakleigh 3166; Or on the wire at guy.allen@traderclassifieds.com.au.
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