Modern Vespa

My problem with the horn is. I'm usually so focused on staying out of the trouble someone is causing me, I can't find the horn button!

The previous owner of the RT put a truck horn on the bike and LED running and so far only my neighbour has pulled out in front of me.

Same. It's usually after I've extracted myself from risk that i go for the horn

A possible good use for AI would be the automatic horn for obviously dickish moves!

We have ABS, maybe it's time for AHS?

When your 58 second video takes 16 mins to render

We had a shot at winning the multiple roll over £££ at the pub quiz last night..

Name the latest 5 Batman movie actors

Got Clooney, Affleck, Pattinson, Bale and then picked Keaton over Kilmer

The instructors would say you should cover the horn every time you see a potential hazard. Actually, after a week or so doing that, you gain the muscle memory and can find it every time even when surprised! A bit like adding a bleeper to the turn signals - after a week you never forget, even on a different bike with no bleeper.

That muscle memory thing is weird. I find that I do lifesavers continually on the Vespa, even though I am generally pretty observant of what is going on around me!

Indeed, I still go for the back brake pedal on my GTS from time to time and only yesterday started to put it on the centre stand from the wrong side.

It's been nearly 4 years since I swapped out my PX200 for the GTS

Although not muscle memory I still sometimes get a signal from my brain to change down the gears when slowing down.

sounds rational

but for me with the way I normally have my hands positioned, shuffling my hands to the horn to be ready is less useful than good control
Hands on bars position

Perhaps change hand position when riding in traffic/in town? Sounding your horn to alert others to your presence is a fundamental safety measure - it's why it's there!

trying to decide between dealertool and tuneecu. the choice was obvious before the latter decided to charge annually.

also there's plenty of cops out there willing to make you fight a citation for "improper horn use" because of their egos in this country to not use it as just a "hey i'm here". good ol' cali cops lol. my favorite one from them so far has been "you have to have a california driver's license to drive in california, so i'm arresting you and impounding your car." (this after he realized a person visiting the state for the weekend didn't have to comply with CARB hilarity)

Adopted Californian here. I'd like to point out that a single anecdote of a single LEO's transgression is not exactly an indictment of the entire state. There are literally thousands of these anecdotes from all over the United States -- and the rest of the world, too. I hardly see how any of them are representative of an entire state.

I got a minor fault on my first riding test on my Vespa GT 125 for not using my horn on the Harold Wood one way. "Improper use of signals" or something.

I hurt my shoulder lifting weights last week.

Sadly, it's my good shoulder.

What if it was hundreds of them from dozens of agencies across the state, not limited to one geographical area?

loads upon loads upon loads of YT videos over the years of LEOs from all over the state doing and saying nearly identical (wrong) things.

the training is broken from the academy onward. teaching officers things like "if you say you want someone's ID, they don't have a choice, have to give it to you, and you can arrest and charge them if they refuse." the law in california is far different from that, but it doesn't stop them from threatening jail for not surrendering one's 4A right (the threat itself being a civil rights violation, and numerous lawsuits have been settled to avoid public record being created in a court setting).

i would love to be able to say "well it's not the individual officer's fault for being trained wrong" and to an extent that's certainly true, but at some point "ignorance of the law is not an excuse" has to apply to the people charged with actually enforcing the laws, no? i'm liable for violating laws even if i don't know they're officially laws, i would hope those charged with enforcing the laws were held accountable for same. /shrug

I would argue that this is a general LE problem in the United States, not California specifically. The specific faults you cite in California may very well be endemic -- but the overall problem is nationwide.

certainly don't disagree on that.

also think i'm gonna go with dealertool and should the cafe/shop turn into something decent, just add the unlimited vins through that.

i don't really have any desire to do any tuning of ECUs, mostly just resetting service lights, programming keys, etc.

450 miles on my new car and it already has two small chips on the hood...🤬🤬🤬. Ordered touch-up paint today. Now every time I look at it that's what I see. The rest of the car is absolutely flawless but my idiotic brain keeps seeing only the flaw. Guess some wine may help. Oh well. Such is life.

🚗🚗🚗

At the Santa Teresa DMV in San Jose to swap Primrose, my '79 ET3, to a salvage title. Arrived at 9:30am and got in the queue outside.

Got my ticket number at 10:15am and was able to go inside.

At 10:40am, I was 20th in line. I believe there are separate lines for different services.

It's now 1:20pm and I'm 4th in line. I've burned through my laptop's battery, so I'm working from my phone and paper notebook.

I should have known better than to come here on the day before a holiday, but this is the 10th day since the insurance company paid out on the total loss, so it's the last day I could do this.

Fun, fun!

Ha ha ha - foolish me for believing the DMV website that you have to switch to the salvage title within 10 days of the insurance company paying out.

The DMV don't have a record of the total loss, so there's nothing I can do today. I can make an appointment for next month, so I don't have to wait four hours next time, and "Don't worry about the 10 day thing. As long as it's not months it's fine".

Sounds like a waking nightmare!

I shot 43 on the front nine at golf today thinking I've got a very good chance of breaking 90 for the first time since I got back into playing again recently but no, a poor back nine of 49 shots put paid to that idea

Yeah. I know what you mean. I was in the Army for Eight Years and I`ve been living in Germany for almosy 35 Years. Both the U.S. Army and Germany use the 24 Hour Clock. It bugs the Hell out of me when someone get`s it mixed up.

Come live in Germany. You won`t get Shot, but there is a good chance that you`ll get ran over !

Hmmmmmm!!!! That`s not a bad Idea, but when I think about, it wouldn`t be conform to German Standards. Witch would mean that there is a good chance that I`d get a Ticket for having it mounted .

Here! Here! . I agree Wholeheartedly !!!

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

As much as I sympathize, please no politics.

Though I think the Brits taking the piss is fair game:

https://x.com/UKinUSA/status/1941044312583950697

And I fundamentally agree with you and appreciate your pointing it out.
It just shocked me to receive something that crossed what I had always considered a traditional 'no politics' line so egregiously. But thank you for the reminder, Jess. It (hopefully) won't happen again.

I had the same email - it was sent to my 'everyday' account, not my account reserved for such official places. Reported as spam.

the world owes them a huge debt of gratitude, the Brits are responsible for more Independence Day celebrations around the world than anyone else and by a big margin.

Anyway, I thought the USA actually gained independence on the 2nd July?

You can blame today's Google Doodle for my having spotted that.

2nd, 4th. Moot point.

OFG

Declared. It's right there in the name.

Gaining independence actually happened a bit later, in about 1783.

The vote happened on the 2nd, but the Declaration of Independence wasn't disseminated (i.e. read aloud in public) until the 4th.

Holiday weekends are pissing me off today.

They used to mean something, and I was elated to have an extra day off to decompress from work.

Now that I'm retired, holidays are meaningless and every day is Wednesday.

(Okay, it could be worse, I could still be working, but I still feel like I've lost something precious).

Since I retired, I have 6 Saturdays and one Sunday every week.
It gets sorta hard to remember what day it is sometimes.

I would argue that if you have 6 Saturdays, they are no longer special.

True.

But they are all great days, just some better than others.