Yet another idiot driver causes yet another accident.

A few days ago I was driving home when I came across an odd sight. At one particular set of traffic lights with two lanes each way and a turn lane, all the traffic in the outside lane was standing still at a green light. The inside lane was completely clear. Figuring it was the usual inattentiveness of the driver at the front (who hadn't noticed the green light), both me and the car in front went down the inside lane which was clear. Sadly, it was a trap. The driver at the front of the other lane was in fact attempting to turn right from the left turn lane. He did this just as the driver in front of me got to the front of the queue. The driver in front of me hit the guy who was turning broadside and shoved the entire wreckage into the middle of the intersection. I was able to stop in time for it not to become a three-car pile-up. Once again I found myself filing yet another accident witness statement to the police. I made sure it was crystal clear in my statement that the guy who caused the accident was the idiot who turned right from the left lane. I'd like to think he'd get some sort of punishment for being such a retard, but in my heart I know he'll get a small fine and be left to go on with his life, probably to cause more accidents in future.

Helmet shopping

From time to time (and when the funk in my current helmet is too much to bear) I find myself shopping for motorcycle helmets. It's a strange world though. From the alphabet-soup manufacturers (HJC and the like) to the high-end Japanese jobs (Shoei, Arai), there's a gigantic amount of choice, and a similarly gigantic amount of variation. The key to a helmet of course is that it must protect your noggin in the event of a spill, and to that end, most helmets are DOT, SNELL or BSA approved nowadays. Given that metric, a $70 helmet ought to protect as much as a $700 helmet. And they do. So it then comes down to style - the way it looks - solid colours or graphics, and fit and build quality. Sadly for me, I have a Shoei shaped head. I don't mind - I like Shoei helmets because they fit well and are built well, but I say 'sadly' because that puts me in the $350 range for a new lid. I've never been able to fit into Arai helmets because they always seem to be too oval for me but this time around I was able to try on a lot more manufacturers products than normal. I must have had my head in 40 helmets trying them for fit and it ultimately came down to three. The HJC CL-15 actually fit really nicely once I took the noseguard out. It had some funky graphics options but felt a little 'cheap'. The Scorpion Exo 700 was similar - a nice fit although a little tight across the forehead. The whole feel of the helmet was more polished although it did have a lot of vents on it which makes me wonder how noisy it would be. Ultimately, as always seems to be the case though, I got to Shoei and popped on a TZ-R and it fit like a glove first time out. Typical. Questionable personal taste in graphics aside, this is what I ended up with then: