Originally Posted by
B2N2
Instead of microanalysis of a single lesson/event if we look from a little further away:
- Have you ever skidded and fallen off a bicycle ?
I must surely have done so as a child, but I can't remember a particular example. I certainly achieved an understanding of the difference between a rear wheel skid (best achieved by braking as the rear tyre pass over a piece of cardboard) and a front wheel skid.
Originally Posted by
B2N2
- Have you ever skidded with a motor bike?
This is the one which prompted me to reply. 44 years ago in my first three months of riding, on a Honda 125cc road bike, in wet weather, I recognised rather too late that I was slowing down for the red light on the far side of an offset junction and I was about to careen into the intersection. I have a clear memory of hauling on the brakes in a straight line, seeing the front wheel stop turning, easing off the front brake so it turned, and repeating the process several times. I slithered to a halt with a newfound appreciation of the need to really pay attention to the road ahead, and of the fact that locking the front wheel was *sometimes* not a disaster.
I'm still riding 44 years later; I've only once skidded and fallen off, about 43 years ago.
Originally Posted by
B2N2
- Have you ever skidded with a car on a wet road?
I live in Australia. I often drive on rural dirt roads. Enough said. Haven't hit anything though.
Originally Posted by
B2N2
- Why do you think that happened?
A) The coefficient of friction between cardboard and road is dramatically less than between tyre and road.
B) The bike was upright and straight. I knew I had been very lucky, but I also learnt something.
C) Picking one random event at a constant speed of about 50mph on a straight wet clay road about 15 years ago, to this day I'm still not sure why I was suddenly traveling in the same direction but facing 45deg to the left, but I had no difficulty getting the car facing the right direction again without deviating from moving in a straight line in the right direction. Probably relevant here was the lack of much startle factor; sure I was surprised, but the "wetware" took over as required. I'd been sideways on slippery roads before.
Originally Posted by
B2N2
- Why do we have posted speed limits on off ramps ?
Legally? So they can book us for doing freeway speeds on urban streets.
Practically? To remind us to slow down. We're human. None of us are perfect all the time, many of us aren't perfect very often at all...
Originally Posted by
B2N2
- Why do bridges have slippery when freezing signs?
Now this one actually IS interesting. I had never seen such signs in Australia. My first was at 42yo and driving on the wrong side of the road in Ohio, the first time in my life that I'd driven in a place where ice on roads really is a thing. I looked at the sign (in July) and turned to my friend and said "is that because the underside of the bridge is cold too?". See also often not perfect, need for reminders...