Gyeonsangnamdo (dickheads without helmets)

hej all and sundry. I’m going to start today with a wombat blog. Check out www.bonzotheweiguk.blogspot.com if you want anything about wacky and wonderful Corea that doesn’t refer to motorcycles. There’s not much to report at the moment actually. I had this kooky idea of coming down to Gimhae on my too-cool-for-school motorcycle and immediately finding myself in the presence of like-minded motorcycle enthusiasts and forming a club of community minded blokes who have a love of the wind in their helmets (not hair, I know I’m in the minority here, but I think helmets are excellent and I bloody-well wear one, not like the many dipshits out there that think that compulsory helmet laws are a top-down form of curtailment of the free will of the proletariat, or the others who are simply too lazy to put one on) but it just hasn’t happened that way at all. Maybe when spring warms up a bit they will pop out of the woodwork.



My main point was to be waxing lyrical about the pleasures of riding in Gyeongsangnamdo. But now I’m just annoyed with all of the twats here that ride without helmets. I’m amazed at the amount of wankers out there that believe that not wearing a helmet is cool. I’d love to get hold of these idiots and drag them back here and to make them look at the chunks that have disappeared from the back of my HJC that occurred as a result of a swan dive I performed after the big-arsed-taxi-T-bone experiment. I rode my busted arsed motorcycle home (with a fractured collarbone) after an accident that could have taken the back of my head off.

(mally's new bike, vrf 1000 looks great, sounds even better (hard to believe, i know). Wish Pookey would send me a pickie of his triumph, maybe (just maybe) the cream of the wombat crop, then I could post that too.
Corea is pretty average as far as traffic goes. Actually it’s not even average, it is factually the sphincter of the universe as far as road deaths per head of population goes, more so even than the ignominious South African or Turkish road fatality statistics go. There is, on average, 12 000 road deaths per year here, including pedestrian and all, from a base population of only 44 million. Let’s compare this with Australia which has a population of about half of Corea, and has a road fatality rate of (2004) 1598 people. So our 1598 to their 6000, or what could be our 3196 to their 12 000. Either way you look at it, Corea has a road fatality rate three and a half times higher than Australia, the highest on the planet, in fact, without exception.

You have to remember that South Corea is a newly wealthy country. It was only in the 1990’s that owning a family car started to become the norm here. Many of the older people have only been driving regularly for less than 20 years, and many of the young people don’t get their licence (or at least their own car) until they are in their late 20’s or 30’s. Combine those facts with lack of enforcement of any traffic law and you are left with the statistics you have just read. And to be honest, motorcycles make up for a reasonable proportion of those stats. But the worst of the bunch are the wankers that are bussing about the cities delivering food on their scooters wearing beanies. They are the reason that I can’t insure my person or cycle within this otherwise wonderful country. I have never met a devout wombat-style-cruising-motorcycle-devotee who wasn’t wearing a helmet.

I wonder if you divided the statistics on motorcycle death in this country into two groups -125cc and under and 126cc and up- if you wouldn’t see an explosion of the old myth that more powerful bikes are more dangerous. It is plain common sense that a more powerful bike is more dangerous if you are a dickhead, but it is my firm belief that the far greater percentage of dickheads ride the scooters and the 125cc aprillia look-alikes. I would bet my hat that the people who own the more powerful motorcycles in this country 1) Have a much better idea of how to ride a bike from the get-go 2) Have a lot more respect for the power harnessed between their legs (that sounds a bit rude, doesn’t it) 3) Spend most of their time riding up in the mountains, and not impressing their mates by weaving in and out of traffic 4) Always wear a bloody helmet and finally 5) Probably wouldn’t get out of single digits on a % headcount of people who get an early intro to the great big bike club in the sky from this country.

I am just irate at the fact that some people go out of their way to thoughtlessly get their heads caved in, die, bleeding from a head wound and in doing so make it impossible for the rest of us to get insurance. But of course they don’t need insurance, because the chances of them living through even a relatively minor bingle are small enough for them to have very little chance of ever being able to claim on it. I’m sure you will agree with me when I say that they are thoughtless, selfish dickheads.

This
is
not
a
wombat!