Bikes fallen off carrier then gone walkies

TanukiRider

Herb I agree, and honestly, Im not trying to say for certain that someone has stolen them...... Im really trying to hold on to the hope that someone has done as you have described. I, like you, would move them out of the road. Probably not much hope getting hold of the local plod at that time of day, no one on front desk in our station till 10am on Saturday, and thats Dyfed Powys Northern Divisional HQ!!

I really hope you are right, and maybe a farmer has moved them or something, but we have contacted most of the farmers there, and they all said they would ask around, and we have heard nothing as yet. The locals we have spoken to have been amazing, very helpful. One even fed my daughter who insisted on coming to help me look hot chocolate while I went out to search the fields....... they said it was far too cold and wet for her. So, my faith in human decency isnt totally destroyed.....

TanukiRider

I think if the wheel had detatched itself, its likely to have rolled or bounced onto the verge and hidden itself in the grass. Easier to see from a slower moving bike than a car I guess.

Escadrille Ecosse

Happened to me on a bizarrely empty stretch of the A1 on a very dark winter evening near Doncaster about 20 years ago. I had stopped not long before to check the bike and all was OK. Then thought I heard something but couldn't see in the dark as no-one behind me. Pulled in and sure enough bike and rack had come off the car.

Ran back up the side of the road about 1/4 mile. Artic pulled in at the side of the road, driver not best pleased. "if that was your bike, no point looking for it" says he, "it was wreaked when the coach went over it, my lorry just finished it off and I threw it all into the field". All I found was the front light lying in the gutter, still worked too.

Maybe they didn't get stolen, maybe some poor sod ran over them.

TanukiRider

3 bikes, not one, not ONE, bit of wreckage. Trust me, no one hit them.

pauldavid

TanukiRider wrote:

3 bikes, not one, not ONE, bit of wreckage. Trust me, no one hit them.

He's right, the only damage was the previously mentioned wheel we left behind.

Can someone let me know when he's calmed down and stopped looking cos' I want to get them on ebay

cooldad

Should do you for fly tipping.

TanukiRider

pauldavid wrote:

TanukiRider wrote:

3 bikes, not one, not ONE, bit of wreckage. Trust me, no one hit them.

He's right, the only damage was the previously mentioned wheel we left behind.

Can someone let me know when he's calmed down and stopped looking cos' I want to get them on ebay

Trust me, you'll have a very long wait.

dhobiwallah

TanukiRider wrote:

I can describe my bike down to the last little scratch...

Bet you can't - if they fell off the back of the car there will be a fair few you haven't seen before!

natrix

You're lucky that the police didn't do you for an unsecure load, even luckier that your actions didn't cause an accident, you could have killed people. http://www.soe.org.uk/discussion-forum/ ... thread=185

IMHO you don't deserve to get your bike back :x

TanukiRider

To do that they would have to prove the bikes came off in the first place, and by doing so, they would prove that they have then been removed front he scene of an accident, proving that they have been stolen if not reported.......

Please, read the opening post again.

gezebo

Have you gone back and actually walked the stretch of road you lost them? It sounds daft but I know people who lost canoes and kayaks in similar circumstances and it was not until they walked the route did they find it. It's amazing where these things can end up... Apart from people's cars and sheds!

Cleat Eastwood

natrix wrote:

You're lucky that the police didn't do you for an unsecure load, even luckier that your actions didn't cause an accident, you could have killed people. http://www.soe.org.uk/discussion-forum/ ... thread=185

IMHO you don't deserve to get your bike back :x

Good point - there was a guy injured when a bit of metal came off a lorry, twanged off a following car and smashed into a car in the next lane.

natrix

TanukiRider wrote:

Please, read the opening post again.

I have, the OP said "We werent given a crime number ", implying that they'd told the police what had happened. i.e. they walked into a police station and admitted to driving with an insecure load.

natrix

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

Good point - there was a guy injured when a bit of metal came off a lorry, twanged off a following car and smashed into a car in the next lane.

There's a lot worse happened:

15th December 1995 Cornwall, the unrestrained back actor on a 180 digger that was being transported swung into the path of oncoming traffic. 5 people killed.

11th June 2003 M1 north near Leicester, 3 Army tracked vehicles were thrown from a semi deck transporter, as the driver attempted to avoid another vehicle in front of him. 5 people killed,

rolf_f

natrix wrote:

You're lucky that the police didn't do you for an unsecure load, even luckier that your actions didn't cause an accident, you could have killed people. http://www.soe.org.uk/discussion-forum/ ... thread=185

IMHO you don't deserve to get your bike back :x

You really ought to be a bit less 'holier than thou'. One day, something might not work out for you and you might be thinking a bit of sympathy would be nice rather than folk being all superior at you.

Who knows what happened. Maybe the load was insecure, maybe there was a manufacturing fault in the rack or a design flaw. All sorts of stuff happens in the world and 99.9% of the time it doesn't hurt anyone and we can learn from the experience. Sometimes it does hurt someone and the law has to sort itself out.

I daresay the OP will probably be pretty OCD about bike racks ever more now - and that's all that is needed. Not a load of crap about 'you could have killed people'. Or have you never, ever for example, had your car MOT'd only to be told that your tyres were under legal limit or your brakes past the minimum wear thickness (ie before the MOT the car had actually been non roadworthy and technically illegal)? That's no different yet there are 10s of thousands of cars on the road that need work to pass an MOT. If you don't want to be potentially hurt or killed by someone not complying with the letter of the law 100% of the time, then get off the roads.

dodgy

+1
He was carrying bicycles, not 15 ton JCBs

bompington

Rolf, there is a bit of a difference between a tyre that is nominally under a legal limit that contains a wide safety margin - and a bike rack that has actually fallen off. You are right that natrix's post had a less than generous attitude, but the fact remains that it is against the law to have an unsafe load, and the responsibility rests squarely on the driver.
I am or have been at some time a cyclist, climber, canoeist, skier, caravanner, teacher and outdoor instructor*, so I have spent quite a lot of time attaching valuable things to the outside of cars: and yes, an OCD attitude is the only way to go.
I am also, perhaps, a bit pre-loaded against load-shedders ever since a very hairy incident many years back travelling along a very busy M5 near Birmingham: 2 canoes lifted off the roof of a car coming the other way and landed on the road in front of me. It wasn't so much the canoes that were dangerous, it was the cars swerving all over to avoid them - no actual collisions happened, I think mainly due to a few drivers opting to run straight over the canoes rather than swerve. I only just got away with it when the car directly in front of me did a full emergency stop, and the car behind me similarly only just stopped short of me.

*not to mention teenage years helping on a farm, when I did manage to tip a trailer load of hay bales once :oops:

natrix

Rolf F wrote:

a bit of sympathy would be nice

Having watched somebody take half an hour to die after a road traffic accident (it's nothing like the 'clean' deaths on TV, they're covered in puke, shit, piss and their own guts; there's precious little a first aid kit can do for them), I have very little sympathy with somebody who seems more concerned about his bike (not that he could be bothered to look for it on foot) than the fact that his carelessness could well have caused a serious accident.

GiantMike

My wife was watching me race earlier this year when a bike fell off the roofrack of a passing service car (travelling at an estimated 70mph) and very nearly hit her. She didn't have any sympathy for the driver either, having stared in horror at a bike breaking up in front of her while she swerved her bike to avoid it.

In the pits after the race my wife and a 'chat' with the driver and he was more concerned that he faced a bill for replacing the Cervelo and his insurance wouldn't cover it. He never saw that his actions could have actually killed somebody.

TanukiRider

natrix wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

a bit of sympathy would be nice

Having watched somebody take half an hour to die after a road traffic accident (it's nothing like the 'clean' deaths on TV, they're covered in puke, shoot, wee-wee and their own guts; there's precious little a first aid kit can do for them), I have very little sympathy with somebody who seems more concerned about his bike (not that he could be bothered to look for it on foot) than the fact that his carelessness could well have caused a serious accident.

You really do need to learn to read....... if you could be arsed, you would see I spent the whole of Sunday afternoon searching the area where my wheel was found. I walked 2 miles in each direction searching the hedge and verge, to find remains of the carrier and one of our back lights but nothing else. Before that Sunday, I had no idea where they had come off so wouldnt even know where to start searching.

I went to farms, houses, spoke to alot of very helpful people, their attitude was a sight better than yours.

natrix

TanukiRider wrote:

You really do need to learn to read....... if you could be arsed, you would see I spent the whole of Sunday afternoon searching the area where my wheel was found. I walked 2 miles in each direction

You need to get your story straight, your post 17 Dec 2012 16:00 contradicts what you have just posted.

rolf_f

natrix wrote:

I have very little sympathy with somebody who seems more concerned about his bike (not that he could be bothered to look for it on foot) than the fact that his carelessness could well have caused a serious accident.

I would agree with you on that but I don't think we know what his attitude was at the time (that wasn't the purpose of the thread - though to be fair, the OP doesn't do himself any favours here) and we don't really know if it was down to carelessness.

Innocent til proven guilty and all that.

bompington wrote:

Rolf, there is a bit of a difference between a tyre that is nominally under a legal limit that contains a wide safety margin - and a bike rack that has actually fallen off. You are right that natrix's post had a less than generous attitude, but the fact remains that it is against the law to have an unsafe load, and the responsibility rests squarely on the driver.

I'm not talking about a tyre nominally below a legal limit. I think the police find a lot of really bad tyres if they do roadside checks. It's just that with the bike rack a) we ought to be more careful about something we presumably do infrequently enough to have to really think about how it all goes together and b) it's a bit more obvious what went wrong when something went wrong!

TanukiRider

natrix wrote:

TanukiRider wrote:

You really do need to learn to read....... if you could be arsed, you would see I spent the whole of Sunday afternoon searching the area where my wheel was found. I walked 2 miles in each direction

You need to get your story straight, your post 17 Dec 2012 16:00 contradicts what you have just posted.

Er, no, you need to wind your neck in, because I didn't say I walked two miles in either direction on Sunday, did I?? On Sunday I walked half a mile either way looking with a fine tooth comb. On Monday I went back again and looked fitter but less thoroughly, and spoke to more locals. I'm not here for sympathy, but I'm not here to take shit from numpties either. I have already said I'm very well aware of the possible consequences and am very glad that didn't happen, so your repeated efforts to push a moot point are a waste of your own time.

natrix

TanukiRider wrote:

take shoot from numpties

Numpty yourself, I'm not the one who's just lost 3 bikes. Anyway if it's going to degenerate into name calling then I'm off...........

rookieroadie

What an asshole.You make it sound like he just loosely hung 3 bikes on a carrier and drove around waiting for them to fall off.

TanukiRider

No, you are Mr holier than thou who never makes a mistake....... until the day you do, becuase no ones perfect. And hen you do, sorry, but I'll piss myself laughing callous as that sounds. To anyone else, my heart goes out. But not you.

I;d like to say I'll miss you.... but.......

No :evil:

pauldavid

Lot of anger in here at the mo! :?

Can I suggest we all have a little listen to a CD of whale sounds to soothe and settle the nerves, then start again.

For those who haven't got a copy I have some that I am selling cheap.







Careful who you tell about them though, they fell off the back of a lorry!

Flexisurfer

I read the first page, skipped the second to find all out war on page 3 :shock: so I don't know if it has already been said but as you know the rough area it would be worth asking the police if they had any reports of items in the road and wether they dispatched someone to have a look as it may be that the police have collected them.

Sorry if this has been suggested but I can't really be bothered to read through the bitching, I hope you get your bikes back and find out how they came away from the car.

tiredofwhiners

rookieroadie wrote:

You make it sound like he just loosely hung 3 bikes on a carrier

which is what he did - he didn't secure the load and/or the carrier well enough obviously

rookieroadie wrote:

and drove around waiting for them to fall off.

Well he managed to drive for an hour apparently without noticing they weren't there. I can only speak from experience but I find that bit pretty unusual - every time I used my brakes, the bike reflected back in the rear view mirror. Thats the bit I struggle with - not the falling off bit, but not noticing. Did nobody else in the car really not even look back for an hour ?

rookieroadie

Update on this ...........

Bikes where found early Saturday on the roadside by a local on his way to work,he then put them in the back of his pick up and took them home after work.He then informed the police and after a few phone calls and a few anxious days waiting all is now well.

We now have our bikes back and bar a couple of damaged shifters and a couple of pinged spokes all appears well.

So so glad there are some decent people in this world at least.

So would like to say thanks to the few posters who wished us well and to say UP YOURS to the holier than thou assholes who told us so for our school boy error.

We will learn from this and move on.