Out West

[ToSlow]

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good news for the riders out west

Motorbiking during pandemic given green-light by authorities

With temperatures on the rise, motorcycle riders who want to hit the open roads are being given the green-light -- with some conditions.

www.citynews1130.com

 

[MacDoc]

Maybe need to send this to Dougie.

 

[timtune]

"Charbonneau says riders should also think about whether the trip is necessary."

 

[GreyGhost]

"Charbonneau says riders should also think about whether the trip is necessary."

It's all bs waffling. Nobody wants to put the hammer down. Most of the article is clearly focused on recreational riding, avoid large group rides etc and then they throw in "whether the trip is necessary". For 99.9% of the people in AB, there is not "necessary" motorcycle trip. They have at least one other vehicle that is statistically safer.

Crap like this just muddies the waters and has everybody pointing fingers. Either we should be doing whatever the f we want and avoiding contact with people or we should be doing nothing and avoiding contact with people. There is not really a middle ground. People trying to play the middle just end up with scenario one so you might as well call it that way instead of pretending we are in scenario two.

 

[Mad Mike]

Personally I think some guidance as to what people can do and can't do it appropriate. There are lots of middle ground activities that should be doable without steepening 'the curve'. If the public doesn't get guidance they set their own and it's rarely on common ground. How about making a list of acceptable activities with overarching restrictions? Soemthing like this

General Parameters:

• Maintain social distance
• Plan day trips (no overnight accommodations. Exception: wilderness camping)
• Partake outside urban areas
  

Activities

• Fishing - solo from a bank or boat - OK
• Riding - bicycles and motorcycles - OK
• Jogging - OK
• Walking/Hiking - OK
• Drives - OK
• Solo Sailing/boating - OK, with crew - No
• Camping - wilderness OK, Campgrounds No
• ... and so on.

 

[FullMotoJacket]

Effit. When some twatwaffle under a self imposed 23 day quarantine stands at his soapbox every day telling me to stay home, only go out for essential trips, and avoid moist talkers then crosses a provincial border that's closed to anything but essential travel/services to go to his cottage for the weekend, I'm going to do whatever the hell I deem reasonable.

 

[crankcall]

your smarter than him. act like it.

 

[regder]

Effit. When some twatwaffle under a self imposed 23 day quarantine stands at his soapbox every day telling me to stay home, only go out for essential trips, and avoid moist talkers then crosses a provincial border that's closed to anything but essential travel/services to go to his cottage for the weekend, I'm going to do whatever the hell I deem reasonable.

I'm not going to defend JT here, it was a stupid move in the current climate. For those curious, as I was, the cottage was 25km away from his home.

In other news, Trump has halted funding to the WHO.

 

[FullMotoJacket]

your smarter than him. act like it.

That's why I used the word reasonable.

Everyone who received a ticket for violating any Covid enacted bylaw should fight it in court using the PM's flagrant disregard of them as a defense (It is a fine-able offence to go the 27 km to Gatineau from Ottawa unless it's essential - ministerial order 2020-13 banning access to the Outaouais region, to be precise).

 

[AllistonGT]

Referencing someone else's actions is not a defence. You either broke the law or you didn't.

 

[GreyGhost]

Referencing someone else's actions is not a defence. You either broke the law or you didn't.

And Trudeau clearly did. As well as the people with tickets.

The major damage done by trudeau is the huge number of people that will say if trudeau went to the cottage, I will too. Going to the cottage is a bad idea but not against any current law. Basically both JT and scheer did a big one finger salute to avoiding non-essential travel.

 

[PrivatePilot]

The reality with some of these overbearing regulations and bans is that it's going to eventually wear thin.

Requests such as continuing strict social distancing, staying home if you're sick, and most of the other guidelines and such in place right now I can agree with in the short term. I get it.

Some of them however make me shake my head. Fishing? Backwoods camping on crown land? Walking a nature trail all alone or with your dog or your wife?

All closed or banned right now.

Why?

These sorts of things will increasingly breed resent in the weeks ahead and eventually will result in more and more people saying "screw it" and taking more risks than if these sorts of extreme low risk activities were allowed but with safe and easy to follow guidelines in place. Reality is you're allowed to go to a restaurant and pickup takeout as long as you don't eat it inside the store. You can go to a grocery store and stand in a lineup outdoors, then go through a door and handle a cart of potentially dubious sanitation, spend 15-20 minutes walking around shopping, cash out, and then drive home whilst getting gas. Factories are open producing entirely non essential products, all their employees doing their best (or not) to pretend they're social distancing (which is realistically impossible in most factories) and that's OK.

But I can't pack my camping gear and a cooler on my bike right now and go pitch a tent in the middle of a forest somewhere all alone for a day or three to clear my head? Or throw my fishing rod over my shoulder and walk down to the lake and toss in a line?

My sister is trying to get her 35' cruiser in the water in the coming weeks but the boat lift trailer guy can't work, the municipal boat launches are all closed, and the marina is also mandated closed. NONE of those things require anyone to be near anyone else and social distancing when you're effectively OUTSIDE is easy. We're being told it's fine for that matter.

The boat spends 99.9% of it's time on the water anchored out in the lake while they sit and relax aboard. It's an outside thing.

But the silly inclusions in the bans means she can't do it.

But there's still factories fully staffed and running like normal pumping out insanely non essential products. That's fine. Exempted. "Essential!".

This is going to be the problem in the weeks ahead. They are going to HAVE to relax things otherwise the high compliance we're seeing now will start to fall apart. Might as well relax it and tell people how to be as safe as possible doing more things instead of people just sneaking around doing stuff anyways but probably unsafely.

 

[ToSlow]

it seemed alot more busy today around town, i think people are just going to forget whats on tv and go anyways

 

[GreyGhost]

The reality with some of these overbearing regulations and bans is that it's going to eventually wear thin.

Requests such as continuing strict social distancing, staying home if you're sick, and most of the other guidelines and such in place right now I can agree with in the short term. I get it.

Some of them however make me shake my head. Fishing? Backwoods camping on crown land? Walking a nature trail all alone or with your dog or your wife?

All closed or banned right now.

Why?

These sorts of things will increasingly breed resent in the weeks ahead and eventually will result in more and more people saying "screw it" and taking more risks than if these sorts of extreme low risk activities were allowed but with safe and easy to follow guidelines in place. Reality is you're allowed to go to a restaurant and pickup takeout as long as you don't eat it inside the store. You can go to a grocery store and stand in a lineup outdoors, then go through a door and handle a cart of potentially dubious sanitation, spend 15-20 minutes walking around shopping, cash out, and then drive home whilst getting gas. Factories are open producing entirely non essential products, all their employees doing their best (or not) to pretend they're social distancing (which is realistically impossible in most factories) and that's OK.

But I can't pack my camping gear and a cooler on my bike right now and go pitch a tent in the middle of a forest somewhere all alone for a day or three to clear my head? Or throw my fishing rod over my shoulder and walk down to the lake and toss in a line?

My sister is trying to get her 35' cruiser in the water in the coming weeks but the boat lift trailer guy can't work, the municipal boat launches are all closed, and the marina is also mandated closed. NONE of those things require anyone to be near anyone else and social distancing when you're effectively OUTSIDE is easy. We're being told it's fine for that matter.

The boat spends 99.9% of it's time on the water anchored out in the lake while they sit and relax aboard. It's an outside thing.

But the silly inclusions in the bans means she can't do it.

But there's still factories fully staffed and running like normal pumping out insanely non essential products. That's fine. Exempted. "Essential!".

This is going to be the problem in the weeks ahead. They are going to HAVE to relax things otherwise the high compliance we're seeing now will start to fall apart. Might as well relax it and tell people how to be as safe as possible doing more things instead of people just sneaking around doing stuff anyways but probably unsafely.

I agree with most of your post.

Boat launches/marinas are pretty busy locations full of idiots on a good day. Once the boat is at anchor, you are fine, but it is hard to get there.

You are right, this half ass lockdown wont last long. The message should change to either "do what you want but maintain 6 feet" or "you are required by law to stay on your own property except for work, grocery, pharmacy or doctor". It's too early to tell which direction we are headed.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Boat launches/marinas are pretty busy locations full of idiots on a good day

But the (not entirely without merit) logic people are using however is that "It's OK for me to go to work at the dildo factory and work in close quarters with 500 others all day long because manufacturing is essential, but I can't do plunk my boat in the water at the public boat ramp after work even when it's a big open space where everyone could easily maintain 15-20 feet away from each other?".

There's so much that the government is saying is OK as long as you take precautions, but so much other silly stuff they've banned or closed that are FAR less risky even with NO protective gear.

 

[GreyGhost]

But the (not entirely without merit) logic people are using however is that "It's OK for me to go to work at the dildo factory and work in close quarters with 500 others all day long because manufacturing is essential, but I can't do plunk my boat in the water at the public boat ramp after work even when it's a big open space where everyone could easily maintain 15-20 feet away from each other?".

There's so much that the government is saying is OK as long as you take precautions, but so much other silly stuff they've banned or closed that are FAR less risky even with NO protective gear.

I completely agree with that. A clean line somewhere around "required to sustain life for the next month" would have made things a lot simpler. The list of exempt employers remains douggies biggest black eye (go on vacation was a close second but I think he learned from that, the list lives on and still includes dry cleaners).

 

[MacDoc]

I think you are correct in the push back...just bear in mind ....
500 miles to the south

2 days ago - New Yorkers continue to die of Covid-19 at a “terribly high rate,” with 758 more fatalities reported Sunday, but the trend shows that the epidemic

..that's in one day. New York is bigger but we are also a megalopolis and that would translate into circa 200-300 dying a day in the GTA.....every day.....
All of Ontario so far has been held to 274 total and a regrettably big chunk of those in nursing homes.

Sweden has kept its society fairly open - much more than ours.....we are 3 -4 x the population.

As of April 13, 899 people have died due to Covid-19 in Sweden where there are 10,483 positive cases.

Meanwhile their neighbors have locked up more

When it comes to its neighbouring countries, Norway, Denmark and Finland, the death toll is substantially lower than Sweden.
Each of these countries’ populations varies between 5.3 and 5.6 million.
In Norway, Denmark, and Finland there are 6,525, 6,174 and 2,974 Covid-19 positive cases, respectively.

When it comes to the death toll, 128 people have died in Norway, 273 in Denmark and 56 in Finland, according to data from John Hopkins University.

Is Sweden’s Covid-19 approach effective?

The country's low-level measures against the pandemic have come under global criticism as it continues to take a lenient approach despite having the highest death toll compared to its Scandinavian neighbours.

www.trtworld.com

The headache is when and how to release the restrictions ....this damn thing it too new, our hospital defences are still not ramped up entirely.

Australia is doing better than Canada with a much stricter lock down and looking for it to continue for 6 months.

One size never fits all in these draconian measures but at least we can ride for now and we are doing a good to middling job keeping the pandemic from killing a lot of citizens.
quicherbellyachin.

 

[killvino]

The reality with some of these overbearing regulations and bans is that it's going to eventually wear thin.

Requests such as continuing strict social distancing, staying home if you're sick, and most of the other guidelines and such in place right now I can agree with in the short term. I get it.

But the silly inclusions in the bans means she can't do it.

But there's still factories fully staffed and running like normal pumping out insanely non essential products. That's fine. Exempted. "Essential!".

This is going to be the problem in the weeks ahead. They are going to HAVE to relax things otherwise the high compliance we're seeing now will start to fall apart. Might as well relax it and tell people how to be as safe as possible doing more things instead of people just sneaking around doing stuff anyways but probably unsafely.

Might be a little harsh, and I am home unable to go visit friends and family. Yes, no one likes this situation and maybe you and your sister could be safe going out fishing, hiking, boating. But if you've ridden in GTA you know common sense isn't common and most people are f***ing stupid. IF they allowed any of those things, they would be crowded within the first weekend.

I am in a situation where I may miss the birth of my first child. I am now no longer allowed to go into appointments, so I sat in the car yesterday and watched as dumb people crowded into the vestibule for the sign-in line. Only 3 people out of ~30 waited outside the doors when they saw it was full. There was always 5-6 people in a 10 sqft area.

That wasn't the harsh part: boo-*******-hoo, you can't go fishing or go hike alone this year and can't get your boat into the water yet to relax in the summer.
Seriously? People are dying and this is your concern?

My grandparents are in a long term care home and I hope nothing happens to them because I wouldn't even be able to pull them out due to my pregnant wife. I know a physician living in a trailer in her driveway because her husband has immune system issues. I have friends in Italy and a cousin in NYC that have been stuck in a place the size of my living room for months now.
Go for a damn ride, wrench on your bike, build something at home, organize your garage or do a full house clean.

 

[Trials]

... "It's OK for me to go to work at the dildo factory ...

? might take most of today just to get that image out of my head.

Government is closing all the things that are easy for them to close, does not seem to matter if it makes sense or not at the moment.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Seriously? People are dying and this is your concern?

My POINT was that people in general are going to start to see the stupidity in the current bans as they are laid out, and adherence WILL fall.

Right now the non stupid ARE following the rules with few exceptions. Right now people get it.

But when word increasingly gets out that the exceptions being made right now effectively negate all their efforts, people WILL get tired of inconveniencing themselves while there's a perceived "business as usual" elsewhere.

Look only as far as the construction industry and the public outcry that came from that before the government relented and shuttered that as well.

Many people have yet to learn that there's tens of thousands of businesses and factories still operating "business as usual" right now.

When they do, watch out. THIS was my point.

And here's the other reality, like it or not. This isn't going away any time soon. Covid is here to stay until we either reach herd immunity or a vaccine is generated. This current path of quarantine is only a stopgap to "see what happens" and avoid our hospital system being overrun like has happened in NYC. We can't all just sit inside and continue like this for the forecasted 12+ months before either of those scenarios (herd immunity or vaccine) comes to fruition. We will have to get back to some semblance of normalcy...sooner or later.

The government is going to NEED to come up with a plan that moves us forward and gets the economy poking along again in the safest way possible. That's likely to come in the form of mandated mask usage in public to start, continuing to limit the size of public gatherings, and aggressive testing and contact tracing when someone does go positive.

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