drivers story,.

[toyopete]

Hello Friends I wrote a story about my experience driving motorcycle in South America,.

Motorcycle driving in the south of America.

My name is Peter Quin, Ime Dutch and I love cars and motorcycles.
My older brother died in a motorcycle accident and our parents after this prohibited us to drive motorcycles.
In spite of it all, my three brothers nowadays are driving motorcycles.
Now this writing is for them who seek adventure by crossing the South of America specifically on a motorcycle.
At all times prevent driving at night time especially on unknown roads.
this is dangerous, let me explaine.
In the night time you can find potholes with missing lids, parts of trees on the road.
stuff that fell off trucks, worst if it falls off when you are approacing.
I found timber, bricks, rocks even a bed with matras on the middel of the road.
Sometimes parts of the road are sunk into the valleys and crash barriers are missing.
At night time you can find drunk cyclists and pedestrians in the dark on the road.
I almost split a drunk ciclist in two at nighttime at a speed of 120. ( yes way too fast )I had to brake so hard that the bike started to loose his grip just kept it up straight, cursing at the man, and I gave him the finger as well.
I was driving a Suzuki GS 500 at that time, good bike with very good brakes.
Servecing this Bike I always went for the best of parts, sythetic oil, best brakepads on the market and the best tires, your life can depend on it.

Things can get worse though, when it starts raining at night, these tropical rains are dense as we know. So you need to get some more safe distance between you and cars trucks.
This sounds easy, but here in the south it is not.
Every time you create a safe distance between other drivers someone will position his car right in front of you at a distance of 2 meter if not less, spraying you with water.
then there is this other thing these roads are not even, there are holes and tire traces filled with water witch will make your bike go into aquaplanning,.
One other thing, lots of trucks, cars, bikes are driving with bad lights, broken lights no lights at all,..
Before dark falls find a hotel, stuff your bike inside ( I always managed ) take your position at a terras order a beer and enjoy the unfolding traffic scenery.

Okay lets go back to daytime driving.
Now you will find lots of other bikers on your path.
How nice! you think?
Stay away from them as far as possible! they ride bikes out of misery not out of convition. Well anyway most of them, they ride 125 cc up to 250 cc,s most of them are not insured, have no knowledge about traffic rules, you will find them driving in slippers and shorts on the wrong side of the road taking the roundabout the wrong way and they use only there rearbrakes, do not wave at them because they already have one hand on the steer and the other on the phone, do I need to say more?
Ofcourse there are professional drivers you can reconise them on Hajabusas, Hornets, Ninjas etc.
While driving take care of the worst drivers, easy to reconise, they are the truckdrivers busdrivers and cabdrivers. it should be expected that they are the most experienced but they lack any sence of rules, and do not know the differrence between red and green light, forget about orange its merely there for decoration. Do not brake for orange without looking into your mirrors, you might be squashed by an up comming truck.
Some figures;
According to the WHO world healt organisation pubished by Car and driver, in Brasil on every 100 thousand inhabitants 23 loose there life in traffic. that is ten times more than in Europe.
Most safe Country by the way is San Marino, nobody dies there in traffic, probably nobody owns a bike or care there, or nobody go,s out, or San Marino has zero inhabitants.
Anyway Brasil takes a dubious 138th place of most dangerous countries to drive.
In Brasil you biker have a 100 percent more chance of getting involved in an accident then cardrivers.
Brasil has an averrage of 44 thousand! deadly accidents per year.
this is an alarming rate specially because the fleet of car owners is growing rapidly.
Twenty percent of these 44 thousand victems have consumed alcohol. 23.4 percent of the victems are pedestrians. The cost of this massacre is extreme, over 200 million a year.
they might try to invest this in infrastructure etc.
Last thing would I advise you not to go to South America?
Then you must have misunderstood me, Brasil is one of the most Beautifull countries in the world, fantastic nature, flora and Fauna. breathtaking sceneries like Chapada Diamantina in Bahia and Chapada Guimaraes in de Pantanal, then we have the Amazone.
They might be terrible drivers, but they are very friendly helpfull people, everybody is enjoying even the poorest people, they have delicious food, fruits that you have never seen or heard of before and they definately must have the most beautifull girls in the world.
So do make that trip to Brasil.
I live in Brasil for 4 years now driving around on a Suzuki GS 500 E and recently the Suzuki V-twin 650 Gladius.
for more information or correspondence throw it at me at pjak106@hotmail.com

take care!

Peter

[gruntle]

Definately mate - please post a link for more details...
Just got back from Lake Como, Italy. Hired a Guzzi V7, 'twas splendid fun...

[toyopete]

Italy is great, have some nice corners there.
going to put the story on now,.

[gruntle]

Me and my brother 2 weeks agogogo:


and this is the bike the Moto Guzzi factory lent to a chap from California we met in Mandello del Lario to convince him to sell Moto Guzzis back in the US of A (lucky fella!):


and this is the view from the twisties:


the V7 is what my GS wants to be if it ever grows up!

[gruntle]

Last time I was in Brazil was 1980!

Would love to ride a bike from Rio to Iguaçu, really magical and majestic place...

[AnonRider]

good read