Rant on....

My second day out on the bike after the test the other day - surprised it took two whole days - some dozy cow in an estate car pulled out of Tescos going left and, of course, looking left, not right. She was about 30 feet in front of me. After slamming on the anchors and feeling the back wheel skid a bit from over-zealous braking (when my sphincter locks up, so does my brake foot), I beeped the pathetic horn a few times (Betty has one that sounds like a kid blowing a toy trumpet) then drew up beside her at the roundabout 50 yards down the road and gave her a sarcastic wave while shouting "see me now, do you, you f***ing tw*t?" at the top of my voice. She actually smiled in a "do I know you?" way, waved hesitantly, and serenely drove on, no doubt to actually maim or kill someone one of these days. She hadn't heard the horn or the swearing, and had certainly not seen me, despite the gleaming chrome and the headlight.

You know, if I were in slightly more vigilante-esque mood and had the time/money, I'd fit a DV recorder to the bike along with front and rear-mounted bullet cameras and ride around all day taping the tossers doing this, then hand the tape over to the police.

Why don't the BMF/MAG/whoever - the groups people pay money to join and who spend all their time campaigning - spend some of their dosh on camera bikes that can be used to catch cagers who tail-gate and pull out at junctions without looking?

I can't remember who it is on this forum who has a sig saying "loud pipes save lives" but I definitely agree and I'm getting some! They don't have to be looking at you to hear you coming because the ear is an amazingly accurate 360 degree passive detector. It's either that or ride down the road with twin 50cal MGs blazing away with a loudhailer screaming "get the f*ck out of my way" at 250dB.

Rant off....



Other than the usual stuff like that, I'm having a blast.

PS: I'm serious. The police aren't going to do this unless someone does it right in front of one of their cars, so as we are all so concerned about the issues why don't the motorcycling organisations start fighting back in a proactive, legal and effective way by catching them at it and having them booked? I bet you'd be amazed how effective it would be in your local area for the local paper to carry one or two headline front page stories about motorists being done by secret camera bikes. They might not like it, but they'd stay off your arris on the A-road. Next time someone does that I'll take down their number plate and report them. I was too witless and angry to do it last time, but not the next.

Glad to see you're fitting right in . Nothing a couple of stinger missles wouldn't cure!

You are right about the loud cans.

I found that after I fitted mine, since then cagers are much more aware that I´m coming and they move away, specially while filtering.

but hey...we can´t rely on the cans or cagers, we have to rely only on us and expect the unexpected!

if tapes could be submitted, and *repeat* offenders caught, then I'd get a cam!

Had mine fitted on Saturdey . 3 Mortar tubes of noise. KarenZXR complains that she needs ear plugs when I blip the throttle

Anyone have any recommendations for cans on a Virago 535 or just generally good manufacturers? There are a lot of them around, but they never advertise them with decibel ratings or sound samples.

Also, I heard that if three different people complain about a driver's actions then the police will at least have a word. I reckon this is way over-optimistic, but it sounds promising.

There are some helmet mount video cameras available which apparently feed directly to a memory chip which you can upload to your pc. I've no idea of the cost at the moment but I suspect the police would only use the recordings as evidence if the time and date was displayed on the image. Still worth looking at though.

Ninja Boys.

Last year I met this guy who use to strap his cam to the tank and go out somewhere near Rickmansworth/GerardsX and video Knee downers stunts on a certain Roundabout with his wife and mates, "bet ya never though you could get three in a packet" if I can remember he had a website.


Just one question: WHY? If that’s you let me know.

Some of the boys on the Fireblade site have posted up vids of 'on-bike' cameras, problem is you wouldn't be wanting the police to see many of them!!!

I video a lot of my rides. Why? Cos I want to. Also have "starred" on somebody elses videos, and it helped me analyze my riding.
Do have a clip of one cagers attempt at wiping me out somewhere....

I wouldn't mind to have one.

I wouldn't like to have to tape the road in front of me though, don't see much point in that except if going on tour and keep a record where I have been.

But as sparks says I wouldn't mind someone riding behind me recording my ride, that would be pretty cool to check out later my ride and the wrong things done.

One of the instructors on the school I did my license had front and rear bullet cams on his bike, he said he used it in advanced training to show later to the students the points they need to improve and what they have done wrong.

However, I have heard of a guy who was done by police because of his camera, they reviewed the tape and saw all the over the speed limit riding he was doing...better evidence than that they couldn't find.

On the other hand there's that video of the girl who was thrown of her bike by a car spinning in front of her when he braked....
If she hadn't the helmet cam she could be in a lot of trouble to prove it wasn't her fault......
in the video you can hear the bloke saying to the other people around I don't know what happened she just came from nowhere and hit me!

Rather then getting mounted cameras, may I suggest that all bikes are fitted out like 80's crime fighter streethawk, because not only did that have machine guns and rocket launchers, but could also use it's turbo to do 200mph down the highstreet and not once did a car pull out in front of it....

I don't know if one's own 'home videos' are submissible as evidence in court or anything. I seem to recall being told this by someone who does PACE interviews as part of their job (Trading Standards perhaps?).

I think it's to do with the fact that as a private citizen you need permission from the subject(s) to record them, otherwise your footage is illegal or somesuch. Perhaps StevePJ can help?

In order to be submissible anyway, you'd probably need a time/date stamp displayed on the footage, along with ancillary info, like your vehicle speed and so on, like the Stop Police and COPS type footage.

Also, I guess you'd need a camera with a remote record switch to avoid taping hours of endless road afore getting to the crucial 10 seconds of footage. This'd save the possibility of your battery/tape/memory running out before the incident. The switch would have to be voice activated or something, because in the event of an incident, you'd be too busy trying to avoid it to push a button. But then, you have the issue of something happening too fast for you to even react, whereby you'd need the machine to have been recording in the first place. Quite a complex logistical and functional dilemna, it seems.

Finally, you'd need a way of protecting the tape/memory in the event of a crash. How'd you feel if you were involved in an incident, 100% the other person's fault, but the courts ruled in their favour because all your evidence was smashed up in the crash?

Very good idea with some fantastic potential benefits, but a nightmare to realise.

It's no nightmare to realise.

Camera mountings go on the top of the tank, so they record behind the fairing, showing the road and the bike clocks, therefore the speed you were doing.
If for some other reason the police tells you to stop and they play the tape back they can see what you have been doing...

and usually most of the camera recorders have the time and date displayed.

It's a relatively simple thing to record both the speedo on your bike and the road ahead using timecoded tape (the police do it). It must also be possible to take a feed from a GPS unit and record that alongside the video. I don't speed either in the car or in the bike unless it's a straight piece of A road with plenty of open space in front of me (and even then only 5-10mph over the usual). Never have been a racy driver, never will, because I'm a wuss and not afraid to admit it. Apart from anything else, I ain't sitting that test again (no f'kin way!) which means I can't afford any points in any vehicle for two years.

Helmet or bike mounted mini-cams are about £100 for the 380 lines colour version, but for "black box" apps you'd only need B&W and so could go for higher res at the same cost. Throw in a DV camera that records to HD or memory card and you have a compact, lightweight unit that would fit somewhere deep in the bike and so be invisible and difficult to tamper with.

This could easily prove a driver (or rider, for that matter) was driving without due care and attention, especially if GPS data is also stored as this has to be harder to throw out of court (those satellites are kinda hard to tamper with). You could also build in an automated SMS that operates on a handlebar button as this would give you further verification of an incident's time and rough location based on the mobile phone network records.

Hand that to the police, especially if you do it as soon as possible afterwards and then, if they don't act, wait until you have a few more incidents on tape and get the local paper and regional radio and TV interested.

This is ALL very doable. Similar technology is being used against bikers by the police right now on their unmarked bikes and they are talking about GPS-tracking black boxes to automatically book bikers for speeding. They obiously think they can make this kind of system stand up in court, so why not use it for our own purposes?

Think I'll e-mail the motorcycling organisations about this. They campaign all the time without actually taking direct action - maybe it's time that changed? I still reckon that a few motorists caught this way, with enough local publicity about it, would at the very least make some of them think twice (as in, think once, think twice - think bike that's gonna get you banned if you pull out in front of it).

<sigh> maybe the twin 50 calibre MGs are the best bet after all.....

The technology to record exsists, how about a Tivo style?

Records in 10min chunks to a flash disk (Hard drives are too fragile in the even of a crash), with a handlebar mounted button.

If you have a crash, hit the button and that 10min clip is saved.
You can go for ages, and if you don't have a crash for 5hours but end up a cropper as you pull into your street then you've only got 10mins of footage to trudge through.

But they are the LEO, whereas we're private citizens without the powers they have.

That aside, there's still the issue of the data surviving the crash and also the cost of all this fancy stuff.
I can't even afford £500 to do my DAS right now, let alone get a bike and all the goodies. How much will this 'Accident Evidence Support kit' cost??


Forgive me sounding negative, I do quite like the idea of all this. Just playing Devil's Avocado


Actually, if it was up to me and there were no repercussions, I would indeed be joining the others in cruising around with my Broadsword holstered and a Morningstar to hand!!!

One problem with all this, how do you prove its real?

I think the police have an "evidence chain" (or is that an american thing?) where any court evidence has to be recorded exactly who'se hands it has gone through and depending on who those hands belong to can make it inadmissable in court.

Say I happened to have a grudge against someone, and a bit of money to spend. It wouldnt be difficult to fake up a bit of footage showing their car "pulling out on me". Even from a low tech point of view of simply getting an identical make & model of car of the same colour, going to one of these back alley lic plate places and recording some footage of it being sure to get the number plate in there.

Okay its unlikely but any evidence you hand over to the cops they cant prove you havent done this.

It would work to clarify independent witness testimony in the case of a prang (I think) but I doubt you would be able use it as sole evidence especially in something that didint involve an actual collision. (Simply becuase they wouldnt see it as a "high priority").

I'm pretty sure that the police equipment has independent calbrations and means to ensure the footage hasnt been tampered with.

The misses bought me the T-Shirt the other week in recognition on my new race can

Only problem was that it turned my jeans pink when i first washed it

thats Karma for you commenting on my pink t-shirt at Fox's?!!

Lol, i'd completely forgot about that pink T-Shirt of yours!

You want a pair of pink jeans to go with it?