Larry1096

Howdy from the Crossville(ish) area!

Larry

For what it's worth, as the OP I appreciate all the varying viewpoints. 

Larry

I drove a 5-Series BMW (auto) for years...and will never, ever, in a MILLION years, own another BMW product.

They could literally GIVE them away, and I would refuse to take one. Seriously one of the most infuriating companies to deal with I've ever encountered.

Larry

I've heard they upgraded the suspension and handling quite a bit, along with the 'gizmos'; is that not correct?

Larry

Right now, just looking at the '22 Tracer 9 GT. The other bikes look like great fun, but my FZ-1 has got the 'great fun' part covered...I'm looking more for an all-rounder at this point, with the hope of replacing both bikes.

Appreciate all the info-

Larry

2 hours ago, oregonian said:

The US will continue to have problems with law enforcement officers as long as it disqualifies the ones who test too HIGH on the IQ entrance exams.

Just think about how idiotic that is.  

There are many institutional ways to guarantee bad leadership but that one is exceptional.  

Documentation to support this? Every test I've ever taken was 'highest score wins', essentially. 

Edited to add: looks like there was one department doing it?  There are about 18,000 police departments in the US.

Larry

16 hours ago, 1moreroad said:

I don't think I've seen those studies.  Every study I've seen referenced shows that excessive speed causes higher rates of injuries which I understand.  But never that speed causes the accident.**  I know that MD state troopers used to say they focused on speed differentials - they were more interested in someone doing 80 when everyone else was doing 60 than everyone doing 65 or 70 in a 55.  There were PSAs when I was growing up that said that driving slow was almost as dangerous as driving fast.

 

** Within reason.  Years ago there was a bad wreck maybe 5 miles from my house where a moto was doing almost 100 mph in a 30 on a public road with a lot of pedestrian traffic.  Car pulled in front of the moto never expecting it to be doing 3x the limit.

https://www.wreckintoacheck.com/faqs/how-does-speed-contribute-to-car-accidents/#:~:text=Yes%2C speeding remains a contributing,speeding still causes numerous accidents.

https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa1304/Resources3/08 - The Relation Between Speed and Crashes.pdf

https://attorneyguss.com/fatal-speeding-accident-percent/

Many more, Google's full of them. 

"According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), speeding remains the number one factor in more than 25% of fatal accidents each year. Speeding while driving is a choice—a negligent choice that can result in thousands of preventable deaths each year." https://attorneyguss.com/fatal-speeding-accident-percent/

Again, most statistics focus on injuries, since the data is there to track (accidents with injuries get more documentation that minimal, property damage accidents) but you can tell just from the titles of these they're correlating more speed with higher incidence of accidents.

Larry

18 minutes ago, 1moreroad said:

I don't think I've seen those studies.  Every study I've seen referenced shows that excessive speed causes higher rates of injuries which I understand.  But never that speed causes the accident.**  I know that MD state troopers used to say they focused on speed differentials - they were more interested in someone doing 80 when everyone else was doing 60 than everyone doing 65 or 70 in a 55.  There were PSAs when I was growing up that said that driving slow was almost as dangerous as driving fast.

 

** Within reason.  Years ago there was a bad wreck maybe 5 miles from my house where a moto was doing almost 100 mph in a 30 on a public road with a lot of pedestrian traffic.  Car pulled in front of the moto never expecting it to be doing 3x the limit.

Having been an LEO and now in large fleet management, there are a number of studies tying excess speed (what the industry calls 'speeding') and higher accident rates. Most are representing as 'injury rates' since the metrics for that are far more robust; it's easy to count folks going to the hospital vs. a fender bender. 

That said, if they 'only' cause higher injury rates, and not accident rates (which I'm not conceding, BTW) would that really be an argument FOR speeding?


Larry

7 hours ago, bwringer said:

.....

If the cop had the slightest belief that you had actually run the stop sign, you would have received an actual ticket, no question. To put this another way, speeding is not dangerous, so there is room for leniency. But running stop signs, especially in situations like you describe, is extremely dangerous and leads to massive amounts of paperwork and standing around in the sun, so there is zero leniency. There's just no such thing as a warning if you're genuinely pulled over for running a stop sign or red light. (Plus, a lot of cop cars have video cameras.)

.....

I would have to contend this is inaccurate. There are myriad studies proving excessive speed contributes to a higher rate of accidents. 

Additionally, having been a police officer in the past,  your analysis of when and why citations are issued is, in my experience, not accurate. People have, and continue, to get warnings for stop or red light violations; most warnings are based on driving history, context and circumstances surrounding the incident. 

Larry

Howdy,

I'm currently riding an '09 FZ1 (modded, fast and adrenaline-pumping, but not super-comfortable, especially two-up) and an '08 Suzuki 650 V-Strom (incredibly comfortable mile-eater, but not alot of thrills) and I'm hoping to find a single, new bike that can replace both.

Seems like the Tracer should handle the sportier urges pretty well, but wondering about the long-distance comfort, especially for two-up; anyone able to compare it to a Wee or similar bike?

Thanks,

Larry