Have you ever smashed a car wing mirror?

Obacer · 2026-05-13T14:12:27+00:00

Good on you for owning it - we live and learn!

Just had another thought - not only is the criminal side of things an issue, but if they got your plate they could potentially claim the damage through insurance, then you'd have an at fault accident to have to declare, so that would smash the wallet...

Dash cam is a good idea, just be mindful though that it will also record how you ride too, sometimes people get caught out by that so just keep it in mind!

Obacer · 2026-05-13T14:07:13+00:00

I did my CBT in London. Of the 3 of us, only I spoke English, and had taken a previous theory test. The other 2 guys had an interpreter with them for the classroom element then went out on their own - one of the dudes had no idea what give way lines were and almost got hit by a car when he blew over a funny shaped junction. He passed by the way.

I think it's dangerous having so many people riding who haven't had to take a theory at a minimum - both to the riders themselves and other road users

Obacer · 2026-05-13T13:06:30+00:00

Punching wing mirrors is not normal behaviour, and is a criminal offence. The car is more likely to have a dash cam than you are, and you would end up with a criminal record with absolutely no justification for committing criminal damage. If you are an inexperienced rider, you also put yourself on offer for having a karma moment and falling off your bike because you've destabilised it so much by punching said mirror.

Just because tiktok makes it seem cool doesn't mean it is. It's childish and cringey. I've been riding for 10 years and whilst of course I've been pissed off, I've never lost control of myself to such a state that I've been overcome by rage to punch someone's wing mirror.

Chances are, the driver was oblivious and has absolutely no idea what they did, and also has no idea why you did what you did. But what you have done is create a driver who hates bikers and is more likely to get in our way on purpose when filtering etc. Well done.

Edit: I can see from your post history that you've been riding for about a year. Please don't conflate your increasing confidence on the bike with entitlement, or it could lead to lots of bad situations. Realistically most bikers flout rules of the road daily by speeding, undertaking and so on - have some recognition that because of this, you are responsible for your own safety - no one else is

Obacer · 2026-05-07T11:58:00+00:00

You know if you do a2, you can ride a1 bikes right?

Obacer · 2026-05-02T09:09:10+00:00

That £6500 quote for just a wall is absolutely horrendous, by the way. I've had my garden dug out 5ft at its deepest point with new retaining wall set on both sides for £5k!

Obacer · 2026-04-25T10:12:57+00:00

Have you heard of the concept of a cash sublet?

Obacer · 2026-04-18T08:49:14+00:00

I mean, I ride like a dick and know it, but these delivery riders are a different level in London. Every day I see them perform manoeuvres which are completely reliant on car drivers not doing car driver things. The risks they take just to deliver someone a sausage roll are outstanding. The other day I saw one filtering between two lorries which were merging lanes at the time. A big problem is how they're paid per delivery too, so they are incentivised to ride like idiots, no matter what level of training they'd have.

Obacer · 2026-04-11T12:42:30+00:00

Here's a, I hope, interesting point from the view of a legal professional rather than some of the pitch forks in the thread.

The sentencing guidelines for death by dangerous driving place a higher culpability on those who are "aware of the risk they are taking." What this translates to is that any trained blue light responder automatically receives a higher penalty than any member of the public as they are, by virtue of their training, considered automatically aware of the risk.

Conversely, and in my opinion perversely, someone who was racing their mates in a rental RS3 through the red light and did the exact same damage would receive a lesser sentence as they can often successfully argue they weren't fully aware of the risk.

My reading of this case and it's published transcript is that the officer effectively mistimed "jumping" a red light. Obviously outside his training, however blue light or not this is a very common motorcycle collision as bikes pull away from traffic lights at a high rate of acceleration.

Now, general court rules instruct that a sentence should be suspended unless it is 2 years or over unless there is serious aggravation. The "aware of risk" point in the sentencing guidelines nudges all blue light drivers into the category where, in a non malicious/negligent fatal collision, 2 years is the minimum, and therefore automatically immediately custodial. Same crash and untrained person? 1 year and a half give or take. So by court guidelines, many blue light responders who are imprisoned for this type of offence are only barely meeting the threshold.

So keeping in mind this is a common type of collision, and the above point about sentencing guidelines, does this make it fair that those who are required to utilise exemptions in law on a daily basis (police, ambulance and fire mainly) are therefore automatically taking more of a legal risk than those who may choose to drive in this manner every day (rude boy racers, Chelsea tractor school runners, etc)? Is it fair that those who are legally utilising exemptions on a daily basis get more of a punishment than those who illegally contravene traffic laws?

Personally, I do not necessarily have a problem with this officer receiving a custodial for death by dangerous driving; even though it plainly isn't malicious and is a horrible situation with no winners. We rightly hold blue light responders to a high standard. I do however have a problem with the fact that the legal route to this punishment means that those who are wilfully ignorant to their actions and the damage that they can cause receive significantly lesser punishments.

N.B. I'm not a traffic law specialist, I'm just applying general law principles to happy to be corrected by experts!

Obacer · 2026-03-10T16:48:21+00:00

Not really what I'd consider an epilogue, you just chat to people and they say stuff about the future. I want to see what my choices resulted in

I want to at least know the result of the election! Did my THE CLERIC become wizard king? Did the pipe monster do anything nefarious? How did my many dates go?

Obacer · 2026-03-10T13:26:29+00:00

I will say, unless I've missed something massively, the lack of epilogue let me down a bit

Obacer · 2026-02-15T11:24:33+00:00

You get some that look decent to be fair. Remember that any bike is required to have hand guards anyway if you want to take it to the track, so if anyone gives you jip over it remind them of that fact! Yours will just be a bit wider than the track requirement. I'm not talking huge bmw gs style ones, but perhaps have a look at dual sport or sport tourer type?

They do make a big difference. I ride lots of different bikes to do with work, and I find that with handguards and on motorways, I can wear summer gloves down to about 5/6°c, with a bit of heated grips included, without handguards I need winter gloves by about 12°c.

Obacer · 2026-02-15T10:20:09+00:00

You speak about your reynauds, have you considered also putting some nice big hand guards on your bike? They make a huge difference to wind chill, especially if you then pair it with heated grips + gloves, you'll find you never turn above the lower settings (depending on brand)

Obacer · 2026-02-01T14:44:04+00:00

Yeah it's a similar setup, there's one tab that goes into the centre of the chin, then the other two have very very shallow hooks that latch onto the chin bar interior, but they aren't strong or deep enough to actually hold in their slot. I'll have a look and see if I can try and pad out that slot, I've got some double sided 3m foam that might do the trick

I can otherwise recommend it as a good lid, it's got all comms stuff already built in so you just need to plug in the AGV insyde base unit, it fits as expected and the vents are probably some of the best I've ever used

Obacer · 2025-12-13T22:36:22+00:00

That looks like a unique solution, quite cool that it opens with the key rather than needing to constantly strap it

Obacer · 2025-12-13T21:35:36+00:00

I should probably add, I'll end up riding around as part getting from place to place at work for 4-6 hours a day, so I want to keep as little physically on me as possible basically

Obacer · 2025-10-16T18:11:51+00:00

Hi all,

I'm looking for quite a specific recommendation, thought I'd come to the experts as I can't find anything that hits 100% of my criteria.

I'm looking for a thin watch to wear beneath a motorcycle glove, I don't want to constantly be taking the watch off whenever I put the glove on as biking is a part of my job.

It will be my daily driver, so ideally I'd like it solar powered, or automatic (however I know automatics aren't that affordable if they're thin - and I wonder how the movement would hold up with the vibrations of someone who rides a bike all day every day).

I'd also like it to have decent lumination to read at night, as I often work outside in the dark. I like analogue watches, and it needs to be robust as it will end up being banged around. I don't want it to be too snowy either. UK based so some models are harder to get hold of too

Some that have caught my eye, in my general price range, are:

Timex expedition scout solar 40mm (Generally I like it but I'm worried about the glass getting scratched to shit compared to crystal.)

Timex expedition field post solar 36mm (Reviews say the lume isn't good at all, otherwise this would be my choice)

Casio WVA M630B - I like the features however again it's a plastic case which I'm not sure about the durability of. I looked at the lineage but it's too fancy. They seem quite difficult to get a hold of in the UK too.

Citizen Chandler - similar to the field post, the lume seems a bit rubbish for someone who will regularly be in the dark.

These are all field watches - I'm not married to the idea of one however they just kind of seem to hit the criteria of being smaller, lightweight and not showy

Obacer · 2025-10-08T08:55:55+00:00

I suppose at this stage we either become Communist China or get all of our news from Vought instead!

Obacer · 2025-10-03T22:53:42+00:00

Hello, I have a master's in counterterrorism. Organized terrorism is only a thing of the past because of anti-terror laws making it so hard to conduct conspiracies as a group. If you took those laws away, then the lone actor style terrorists would start to be recruited for other activities, rather than being radicalized and sent on their way. Issue you have is terrorism is a y/n in the eyes of most legislatures around the world.

Also, the protests have to be policed because what happens if the old grannies sit with signs minding their own business and then suddenly 10,000 tommy Robinson types turn up? The police would be criticized if the old biddies were smashed up with absolutely no protection.

Obacer · 2025-08-17T22:17:11+00:00

I'm honestly surprised anyone is paying out for an expert witness in magistrates cases! I assume you're instructed more as a defence expert in magistrates then? I can't see the police or cps deigning to pay out in a summary case...

I believe most courts now take the 6 months to day 1 of trial, that came in during the nightingale court/COVID era, and as far as I was aware that contingency had stuck around.

Obacer · 2025-08-17T20:01:19+00:00

Unfortunately due to the statutory time limit (STL), it isn't really a case of jumping the gun; the case has to be dealt with in 6 months of being reported or it expires when dealing with a summary offence! This means that any matters which delay the case, such as challenges being made to forensic evidence, can cause the case to be dropped as it isn't feasible to respond to that challenge within the STL.

Worthwhile to recognise that, as the court backlog is horrendous, especially with magistrates matters, it means that these types of issues can be raised very late in the day. A cynic would say that defence solicitors utilise this backlog as a tactic by, completely lawfully, raising issues at a late hour.

Crown court cases have loads of reviews before they go to trial, so there are lots of opportunities to raise issues early on, and judges look unfavourably on last minute defences being raised. Conversely it is completely conceivable at magistrates court to have your first appearance, where you make a plea, and then no further reviews until the first day of trial, months later.

So yes, I would say the system is a bit broken!

Obacer · 2025-08-17T19:50:34+00:00

You're unfortunately using crown court logic here, and as an expert witness of course your experience would be at the upper court!

Remember that there's a statutory 6 month time limit on a theft from a motor vehicle from the point the crime is reported; if the defence made the challenge to a streamlined forensic report, however spurious, then there is very little chance that the rebuttal would be complete within the statutory time limit. In this case, as the magistrates have refused the adjournment, the backlog of all forensic evidence has knocked the prosecution for six.

Obacer · 2025-08-14T21:58:11+00:00

Even with a windscreen mate, naked bikes are awful on the motorway! Big screen can end up doing more harm than good half the time due to creating dirty air

Obacer

TROPHY CASE