Slap on the wrist for nearly killing two motorcyclists

I'm hopping mad and downright disgusted and outraged.

Why? Because the traffic and court system is broken here in our country.

I've been following a story for 18 months now where a women crashed into two motorcyclists hospitalizing both of them. See the dash cam video below to see what happened.

So she has finally been to court and what happened? Sweet F*ck all is what happened.
She received a $1000 fine, a one month driving suspension and no driving conviction recorded.

WHY?

This is basically the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. The female driver was clearly in the wrong failing to give way to traffic. With the recent blow up in the media about the amount of deaths on the roads in 2017 and we see this and the driver basically gets nothing. She almost killed two innocent riders and got away with it.

Riders Steve Caruana, 43, suffered a broken pelvis and lost his left testicle(OMG) while riding partner Marc Logan, 38, a broken right leg, left foot and right hand.

Steve has lost his job and cannot work in the construction industry due to his injuries and says the fine is “absolute bullshit”. “I’ve copped more from speeding fines and didn’t endanger anyone’s life,” he says.

Following on from from my recent articles about licensing, speed limits and speeding fines in this country you can read about here and here. He is absolutely right too, Vicpol are more interested in hiding in the bushes trying to nab drivers doing less than 10km over the limit than actually doing something about people that drive like this women and put people in hospitals. You lose your license here for one month and a huge fine for just doing 25kmh over the speed limit on a remote country road with no one around, and I might add without hurting anyone, which makes the fine in this case an absolute joke.

Our court system really is broken if this is all you get for nearly killing two other motorists.

Revisiting the Past

This Christmas/New Year hasn't really gone to plan so far. Whilst I was hoping to get back into some sort of fitness after winter and get some riding done I've not done anything. Well why not you might ask and that would be a very good question.

Two days before christmas I managed to injure my left knee and I haven't been able to do anything since. The worst part is I don't know how I injured it. Stairs = nope, walking more than 100m = nope. After two x-rays, an Ultra sound and a CT scan and all coming back showing nothing wrong I've kind of giving up on modern medicine being anything reliable. Sitting around drinking beers and surfing the interweb for motorcycle content and cameras to add to my collection have been the order of the day. This certainly hasn't improved my fitness levels but my knee doesn't hurt after 6 beers and I have learned alot about DSLR cameras and how stupid some people on motorcycles can be, thanks youtube.

This has also meant no new content for the blog, oh well I have a ride coming up in February just hope my knee is sorted by then. So I delved into the past to look for something to do motorcycle related. One of the best ever rides was our 2014 New Zealand South Island trip and I thought I'd put together a time lapse video of the trip up of the Mount Cook road. Hope you enjoy.

Backroads to the West

I was travelling to my parents for Christmas this year and to meet up with the family who had travelled a day ahead of me. Because I was on my own I decided that I would rather travel on some back roads than the most direct route through Bathurst and Orange. So I devised a route via google maps and loaded up the ute and headed off. I've ridden some of the roads from Lithgow to Tarana and to O'Connell but beyond that to Blayney I'd not been before.

This route makes for a good bike road but some of it can be a bit rough even in the ute so you need to ride with caution.

Taking the Bells Line of road across the blue mountains is a good start to some great motorcycling roads out of Sydney, crossing at Mt Victoria or continuing into Lithgow. Take Magpie Hollow road out past Lake Lyell from Lithgow. The road continues to Tarana but be careful as the road is narrow with many bends and elevation changes, perfect biking country with rolling hills as far as the eye can see, but the road surface can be rough in places.

Through Tarana follow Mutton Falls Road on to O'Connell. There's a nice little pub at O'Connell that I've heard does good counter lunches, but I've not stopped there before so can't comment. Turn right at O'Connell and then after about 1 km take the next left turn onto Young St which become Ryan road. This will bring you out onto Rockley Rd turn right and head into Perthville then left again towards Newbridge and Blayney. From Blayney turn off at Mandurama onto the Belubula Way. From here the road will take you into Canowindra(pronounced Can-noun-dra)

Belubula Way to Canowindra is quite a nice bike ride through farming land but it is also very hilly countryside so you are constantly going over crests of hills with a blind curves. Be careful at dusk and dawn as this is Kangaroo country, with tree's lining right up to the sides of the road in places.

Canowindra is your typical small outback country town. I decided I'd stop for some lunch. There's about 5 pubs to choose from and an small RSL club. Typical pub food with most prices being under $20 is a bargin, washed down with a refreshing beer.

Following the Nangar Road out of town you head towards another small Town of Eugowra(U-Gow-Ra). Not much in Eugowra and you won't get any fuel after midday on Saturday so be careful. This little town shows its civic pride with a lot of the buildings being painted in Murals, If you've ever been to Sheffield in Tasmania you'll know what I mean. The road from Canowindra to Eugowra slowly straightens out and becomes less hilly and is not quite as good as the Belubula Way but still a good ride.

From Eugowra its' only a short trip to Parkes, Forbes or Cowra from here. These 3 towns are much larger around 8-10,000 population so accommodation and fuel options are much better. See map below for the route from Lithgow to Eugowra. The riding further west becomes flatter and much straighter. Best option here would be to head towards Cowra and out towards Wyangla Dam.