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Stick it up your exhaust

Now if you like motorbikes and are easily offended, don't read on, because we're going to take a stick to motorcyclists.

Why? Well, they are making our road-toll figures look pretty messy at the moment with a huge surge in deaths.

The jump has the coppers rattled and they say they don't now why the increase has come.

Well, I can give them a few pointers.

Firstly - and foremost - motorbikes only have two wheels. This immediately gives them a bit of a disadvantage in the balance stakes.

Secondly, they are smaller than cars and therefore - for some of the appalling drivers on our roads - are harder to spot than a bus or road train.

Thirdly, they usually are travelling pretty quickly and that, combined with being harder to see, can often mean an inattentive car driver (and there are freeways full of them) does not see them until they hear the squeal of rubber.

Now while you think I'm being a bit hard on our cretinous car drivers out there (I'm not, but their turn is coming), wait until I've finished with motorcyclists.

According to the stats 60 per cent of motorbike fatalities and injuries have come from a collision with a vehicle.

But, and this is where you have to question the intelligence, 40 per cent of caes involved a motorbike hitting a stationary object. Now, even the most rabid helmet-head cannot tell me that it was the tree's fault, or the pole, or the parked car?

Their biggest problem - and no, it's not always the car driver's fault you two-wheel nongs - is that motorcyclists reckon it will never happen to them.

How many times have you been going down a road and then - whoooooosh, a two-wheeler comes flying by you at about 100kph over the limit. Usually it's on your blind side.

How many times have you seen motorbikes weaving in and out of traffic like madmen?

How many times have you seen a motorbike use its massive acceleration to squeeze through an almost-red light - while even moronic hoons in beat-up crap cars hit the brakes?

Too many times to count, in this chap's experience, and yet when it comes to the road toll or injuries motorcyclists always blame bad drivers.

I know it's difficult to understand through the helmet and noise of your damn contraptions, but motorbikes are exceptionally dangerous beasts.

One of the reasons you ride them is speed, another is not being closed in and both of those reasons are adding to the toll.

I would defy any rider to look me in the eyes and say they have never opened up the throttle and gone as fast as possible down a deserted road. After all, why buy a speed machine if you can't, every now and then, blow the cobwebs out of your braincell with a burst of adrenalin-producing speed?

Something needs to be done about motorbikes and while we would not suggest - yet - governmental action, bike riders should remember that people are getting sick to death of not only having to fork out loads of dosh for your hospital accommodation, but also listening to the blame always being directed away from your own actions.

Now where the hell did I leave my keys to the Vespa?

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com