Coyote Blog

11 Comments

1. Henry Bowman:

   Well, if this fellow continues this practice, he won't be beating rush hour much longer -- he'll soon be deceased.

   January 3, 2012, 3:23 pm

2. Gaunilo:

   He did push things pretty far. I can remember the days when a marvelous machine and skills that the boobs couldn't even imagine gave me that feeling.

   But later you realize that you are betting your life on gaps being there when you need them, and that the size of the gaps is a function of the first derivative of multiple driver's velocities, and that function is rudely sensitive to very small changes in speed for any of the drivers. And the fun sort of goes away.

   I would offer the analogy that what he is doing is like playing Russian roulette with a 50-cylinder revolver. You can do it, and it can be fun, and for a while nothing bad will happen. Probably. Until it does.

   January 3, 2012, 5:30 pm

3. I Got Bupkis, Fomenter of "small-l" libertarianism:

   The bigger problem isn't his own ability to integrate into the flow, which he does do exceptionally well. In most cases, he can nominally guage a driver's movements closing the space and either slow or change "holes".

   The real problem is some random, utterly unpredictable thing that there's no reason to expect -- some driver stuck in traffic opening his door a little bit to spit out of it onto the ground. This takes only a minor fraction of a second yet allows him no warning to adjust his behavior accordingly -- this is particularly relevant when he's skirting the oncoming traffic by riding on the "double yellow" between the two directions He's got virtually no maneuver room so it would screw him royally to have that space close up even by 2x the depth of a car door. He smashes into one of those doors at speed and he's almost certain to bounce into the oncoming traffic.

   I concur with Henry, he's not long for this world.

   But some people just need the adrenalin rush -- it's like free-climbing a mountain. It's an amazing thing to be able to do, but you fail or screw up just one time, and you're splat pizza.

   January 4, 2012, 4:08 am

4. Capn Rusty:

   Freedom is risk, and perhaps, proportional to it. If so, that man experienced more freedom in those six minutes than most of us do in an entire lifetime.

   January 4, 2012, 5:45 am

5. Capn Rusty:

   Freedom is risk. And perhaps, proportional to it. If so, then that man experienced more freedom in those six minutes than most of us do in an entire lifetime. Bravo!

   January 4, 2012, 5:46 am

6. Anon:

   I love to ride motorcycles, and I love to ride them very fast, but I wouldn't contemplate doing that.

   I don't care if that guy kills himself, but I don't think he has the right to expose the other drivers to the resulting property damage and having his death haunt them. I mean, really, do you want to be pulling his bloody body parts out of your trunk and rear seat after he screws up?

   I'll stick to the racetrack for my high-speed kicks -- there are many organizations now that rent tracks for the day: http://www.nesba.com, http://www.sportbiketracktime.com, teampromotion.com, etc.

   For a ~$150, you get more track time than you can physically handle. And there are ambulances and a medivac helo pad at the track for when (not if) you crash.

   January 4, 2012, 7:36 am

7. me:

   Woah. And I thought my commute was bad.

   January 4, 2012, 8:37 am

8. I Got Bupkis, Fomenter of "small-l" libertarianism:

   >>> I don’t care if that guy kills himself, but...

   I'm willing to assume he's breaking all sorts of laws in doing what he's doing (I confess, I'm not familiar with Russia's traffic laws, but they're probably fairly similar to most of those in the USA), and, if he gets caught (granted, cops may not find that all that easy), he's going to probably go to jail, certainly get a mass of tickets that will take his license.

   As a result, what you say is pretty much a given.

   I don't shoot a man for being incompetent in the Devil's work. I shoot him for being competent in the Devil's work. Admiration for his technique is part of the process.
   - Larry Niven -

   The man's driving like a maniac, but that admission does not prevent one from appreciating his skill at doing that. :-D

   January 4, 2012, 10:24 am

9. I Got Bupkis, Fomenter of "small-l" libertarianism:

   Also, Anon, part of the thrill of what he is doing is the process of integrating himself smoothly through and around the traffic. I've known that when driving through moderately heavy traffic on an interstate, while taking nowhere near the same risks he is taking. Managing to put yourself in juuuuust the right lane to be passing most of the traffic, and getting in the clear, and proceeding at max rational speed to the next blockage, negotiating that, etc.... it can be fun doing it, even if you're not taking it balls to the wall like he is.

   The point would be, the thrill of doing what he's doing does not entirely lie in the speed itself, and could not be attained on an otherwise largely empty track.

   January 4, 2012, 10:29 am

10. A fiend:

    You should look up Ghost Rider on Youtube. Not the movie. Guy in Sweden makes this guy look slow.

    January 6, 2012, 5:29 pm

11. JLW III:

    A friend of mine and I refer these things as organ donor machines.

    To paraphrase "The Magnificent Seven:" "Can I have your kidneys when you are dead?"

    JLW III

    January 9, 2012, 12:07 pm