Toronto police bike accident in Toronto today. Formation riding at fault?

MacDoc said:
yeah gas guzzlers on the public purse. Most other jurisdictions go with not Harley.

I can just see a Harley patrolling the Auto-bahn

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or the Brit highways

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I'm not sure using the ST1300 in the case of the Brits is such a great argument ... I'm pretty sure those things have killed a few Brit officers due to severe instability at speed.
 
bigpoppa said:
I refuse to let my taxes go to cops joyriding.
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Would rather see my tax dollars going to this, than to canceling gas plants, or supplying Liberal party supporters exorbitant rates for windmill power. I can assure you the police bike budget is MUCH smaller.

While were cutting budgets let's do away with OLG, teacher aides, doctor recruiting schemes, etc, etc.
 
Guys, I am driving a schoolbus (full of special needs students) these days, and let me tell you...
The roads are simply SICK with witless drivers. They haven't a clue!
The way they drive, the things they do are beyond belief - and I'm not easily shocked, heheh.

Every second car contains a driver who's focussed on his smartphone. I kid you not.
Clearly TEXTING! Looking down, I can see their thumbs working furiously, Omigawd...
It's disgusting. And (like so many other areas) there is no enforcement. Tough gig for constables anyway I s'pose.

So you might ask:
How is it possible, that a car could drive into an intersection and strike a fleet of Police motorcycles travelling through in formation?
LoL, heheh - oh it's very possible these days!
Though pretty unbelievable to old-timers like myself... it's just plain scary.

The roads today are a battlefield populated by the retarded!
I'd never have survived forty years of motorcycling (a half-million kilometres) if it did not begin way back in the early seventies.
The world today is simply fooked up my friends, in oh so many different ways...
And going forward, I weep for the future because things can only become worse and worse.

Declining to "criminalize" smartphone usage within moving vehicles was the dumbest thing ever, that the government could do.
Perpetuating a fine and long tradition of looking the other way from 'real' problems, and coddling the clueless.
Hey, Canada is a great place (wouldn't want to be anywhere else) but it seriously needs to grow a backbone...
Because it's just too insanely dangerous - life threatening! - to ride a motorcycle on the public roads these days.
 
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Gryphon said:
The roads today are a battlefield populated by the retarded!
I'd never have survived forty years of motorcycling (a half-million kilometres) if it did not begin way back in the early seventies.
The world today is simply fooked up my friends, in oh so many different ways...
And going forward, I weep for the future because things can only become worse and worse.

Declining to "criminalize" smartphone usage within moving vehicles was the dumbest thing ever, that the government could do.
Perpetuating a fine and long tradition of looking the other way from 'real' problems, and coddling the clueless.
Hey, Canada is a great place (wouldn't want to be anywhere else) but it seriously needs to grow a backbone...
Because it's just too insanely dangerous - life threatening! - to ride a motorcycle on the public roads these days.
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Increased population density increases all related problems. Doesn't look like anyone is volunteering to keep their sexy piston in their pants though. Smartphone revenues generate too much tax revenue for the government for the government to ignore, which leads to a conflict of interest when passing legislation. Ideally, Inreb should be suing Just-In Tru-dough at the Supreme Court Of Canada, but he's too busy wrangling GTAMers.

Riding a motorcycle has always been dangerous in Ontario, but not insanely so. It's true that pedestrians, cyclists and drivers are about as intelligent as a gobble of turkeys, but that's expected. It's been pretty rare that they don't telegraph their intentions due to impatience. Fighting my own is probably the biggest challenge of riding in a "world class" city.

Canada IS a great place but it's best to temper that idea with the words of Stuart Keate: "In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations - its cold, half French, and difficult to stir."
 
Gryphon said:
How is it possible, that a car could drive into an intersection and strike a fleet of Police motorcycles travelling through in formation?
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Reportedly (once again, just based on what I've been able to find online) the light was green for the direction of travel the offending car was driving, so it appears the police practice session included blocking intersections and proceeding through red lights as well.

For someone not paying 100% attention to the road it would seem easy enough for the car to see a green light, not see the motorcycle blocking the intersection against the green (again, perhaps not the best choice of vehicle for blocking roads given light placement being much lower vs a car, lack of visibility over surrounding vehicles, etc), and the rest is history.

Hedo does bring up some interesting and valid points for where bikes are more useful than cars for enforcement purposes, but in the grand scheme of things one is left wondering if bikes continue to be a suitable tool in the chest, honestly.
 
Hedo might know (depending on his former Force) but the TPS used to have sidecars for those Harleys during colder months. Not really an argument for or against, just a tidbit for GTAM.
 
yodude said:
dunno what went down here, i doubt cops are concerned about their formation riding,

otoh, some folks seem preoccupied with it
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Yep, really, who cares? Why would people want to make this explicitly illegal? Just so cops have another reason to pull you over when youre riding with a friend and pass him in the same lane? "Oh you guys were side by side for a second when you passed, thats illegal, you accelerated hard so now its a stunting charge, both bikes impounded, enjoy your walk home, have fun getting insurance".

The real problem here is someone was paying so little attention that they drove into a formation of 20 bikes with 2 cops blocking an intersection. Thats the guy we should be worried about. Drivers in this city are a ****ing joke and its only getting worse. 10 years ago it was a very rare occurrence to see someone blow a red light, or a stop sign, or drive down the wrong side of the road, now I see this once a day at minimum, and I'm only commuting for like 40-50 minutes total in off-peak hours and mostly on side streets. The lack of traffic enforcement beyond speed traps on roads with ridiculously low speed limits and expired tags is the real problem in this city, people dont give a **** anymore because the cops dont give a **** anymore.
 
yodude said:
ya sure, refuse taxes lol, like you decide where it goes..
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Actually we do decide where it goes, every year the canadian govt publishes its budget, (But i wouldnt expect you to know that)


Id rather get drugs, guns and criminals off the street rather than as someone put it pay a bunch of useless motorcycle cops to escort a rich dead dude, or rich foreign dignitary dude (Japanese emperor?)
and be having 'fun' at the job whilest riding motorcycle
 
I was getting a coffee on spadina as the ambulance was being escorted by, I presume the same motorcycle cops. The formation was first one stops traffic while the rest go through then he jumps back on the back and then it repeats next intersection. You would have to be a witless idiot to not see a Harley in the middle of an intersection. Then again this is the same roads I commute on with a loud ass dirt bike and still get merged into. I use my horn at least once a day.
 
It is my understanding that the Toronto Police Traffic unit no longer uses motorcycles for everyday enforcement.
They have a group called the Winged Wheels for special events, but this is precision riding.
It would appear this group was practising formation riding for when VIPs come to town.
It's unusual to have 30 of them on the road as special VIP groups are only made up of 6 riders.
 
They should go back to horses and do some precision clomping and there would be less $H1t on the road to boot. How much of this do we need to endure? Cancel another gas plant already.
 
Cops shouldnt be assigned a vehicle where it is easy to hurt them. Cash all the cop motorcycles in and buy a helicopter that can be shared by police services and EMS as an air ambulance. Hard to run when there's a police chopper on your back. California proves that. And air ambulances would save countless people who's injuries are lethal / time-sensitive. They can be on the surgery table within minutes of an accident. Cop bikes in general are a laughable waste of tax dollars. I've only seen one incident where a motorcycle cop went toe-to-toe with another / other motorcycles. The Hayabusa experiment in England. That bike just being talked about in the crowd as being "out there" was intimidation enough to slow down the weekend BSB / TT wannabes. First ever effective deployment of a motorcycle that netted impressive results. Even then, this motorcycle should only be used on weekends and sporadic weekdays. And still, a helicopter would trump this busa cop. This video looks so old now!

https://youtu.be/DRW-0W3PpSE

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
 
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