On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 21:42:06 -0500, Drew Hamilton <awh@awh.org>
belched the alphabet and kept on going with:

>Eric Takabayashi  <etakajp@yahoo.co.jp> wrote:
>>Or drive illegally, like I see many foreigners do.
>
>Nah, I already had one experience with Japanese authorities and
>that was enough for me.
>
>>Contrary to what I had been led to believe my first time at the examination
>>center, they didn't convert my motorcycle license along with the manual
>>transmission license. I had to go back for more testing, and only held two
>>days a week. More driving school. Well, I hadn't had experience picking up
>>fallen bikes or pushing them in figure eights since Motorcycle Safety
>>Foundation days, anyway.
>
>I heard that picking up a fallen bike was part of the conversion
>test.  Nobody ever taught me how to pick up a fallen bike or push
>it in a Figure 8 in my motorcycle safety course.  Maybe I'll get
>lucky and my bike license will transfer right over like my car
>license.

I thought picking up the bike was only for the large bike license. I
may be mistaken about that.

A couple of months ago I had the joy of watching one of the
lane-splitting kamikaze idiots in Tokyo go ass over teakettle. He was
very fortunate that there was no traffic coming from the other
direction. Otherwise he would have been an EX- lane-splitting kamikaze
idiot. Anyway, what I really wanted to say was that he was riding one
of the larger bikes. One of the bikes you're required to demonstrate
that you can lift to an upright position.

He demonstrated that ability admirably at the accident scene. He
lifted the bike, which looked to be pretty extensively damaged on the
side that had met the asphalt. He forgot to stop when the bike reached
an upright position, though, and unceremoniously dropped it on the
previously UNdamaged opposite side. Maybe it was some sort of inborn
Japanese need to restore a sense of balance and harmony or something.
I dunno. (Yes, I have jpegs).

I think I already told about watching a traffic cop try to execute a
superfast U-turn from a dead stop. He dropped his cop bike. It was
really a shame, because it would have been a way kewl maneuver if he
hadn't fucked it up. (Yes, I have jpegs).






--

Michael Cash

"Tom Cruise saves late 19th Century Japan from creepy politicians and creeping
Westernization in "The Last Samurai," another Hollywood epic that shows that 
nobody embodies the nobility of an exotic foreign culture like a visiting white 
guy."

                                John Beifuss