Could have been worse. At least a broken leg normally heals fine. And being Christmas he probably got a half decent meal in the hospital!

I think one thing that put me off from ever riding a bike was the dangerous aspect of it on public roads. It's not your own driving ability, its the others you have to constantly be on the look out for. It's bad enough driving a car these days with the number of idiots around you on the road. The number of people that cannot use a roundabout correctly is mad. Everyday I get people moving right across lanes without indicating and then drifting back out into the other lane again, with no obvious indication that they noticed you there. Same happens on the motorways all the time too. That and people not leaving enough distance and having to constantly use their brakes.
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OMG, you sound exactly like me.

Everything you just said is how i feel about bikes and round-abouts,
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I know a guy who has never had an accident on the bike - he says that if you have an accident its your fault, even if a car pulls out in front of you, as you should have been thinking about 'what if' - i try to follow his example and so far it has worked. Other drivers are the most scary part tho - the best way is to try to make eye contact as you approach as your sure they have seen you then - if not get ready to stop - bikes can stop on a penny when they need to. I suppose its just the same for every other road user - only on a bike your far less protected so you have to be far more aware.
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I love the way the government are making the bike test harder to reduce the number of accidents. When I heard that on the radio, I thought hang on it's the car that didn't look that causes the most bike accidents - surely motorcycle observation should be included in the car test if we want to reduce accidents. Bit like speed cameras (oh no, here we go again) - most accidents are caused by careless driving, yet provided you drive stupidly within the speed limit you are highly unlikely to be caught. The driver doing 80MPH past a camera on a motorway at night with noone around will be caught however.
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Totally! Most drivers who speed are probably much safer than those that drive too slowly.

Tonight I had a very near miss, and again it was on a roundabout! I was in the outside lane, following a van, going around a roundabout, indicating right as I needed the third exit. When a car going really fast suddenly shot straight out of the first exit between the van and my car into the outside lane of the roundabout. He must have squeezed between us with inches to spare. Mad! He got a blast from my horn and a flashing headlights in his rear view mirror but I doubt that did much.
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Back on the subject of crashes, did anyone watch the touring cars at the weekend. Pretty big rain-induced smash up there (probably the biggest I can remember since F1 Spa '98).

Watch
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Yes, I watched that. There were also quite a few pretty good crashes in the later races too and some near misses.

I love Touring Car. Much closer racing than any other series and contact is allowed.
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I'm a big motorsport fan. Started on F1, but that series really pisses me off now (even though I still drag myself to watch it). I follow many of the other series and motogp.

The Indy series has some stupid flaws however - Andretti Green run far more cars than anyone else, so can collect more setup data. The minimum weight excludes driver, so lighter guys (or girls) get a small advantage.

Those two crashes involving Dario were scary to watch, but he was one guy riding the lucky train that season as he went on to win the championship!

Dan Wheldon on the other hand - who I support because he's English - what honorific form and luck he hit during and after Indy. Any accident or bad pit work seemed to involve him and he drove horrible races on the road course, something he was good at the year before??? Dario's crashes involved him too!
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I used to watch Indy cars when Mansell moved over there and continued for a few seasons, but the oval circuits just bore me too much. There isn't really that much skill involved compared to F1 or any other sport where real circuits are used. It makes me laugh when you do see the couple of races Nascar run on proper circuits because half the drivers can't get to grips with having to turn in another direction. Quite funny to watch.
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I did the same - followed Mansell over from F1 to IndyCar and stopped watching American racing after he left.

I went back to it because it's shown on EuroSport and Sky Sports 3 on Sunday evenings. Now of course there are two separate series - IndyCar (mainly ovals, adding more circuits next year) and ChampCar (all circuits).

After the same attitude as you about ovals, I've grown to enjoy watching the races. Although there is obviously less skill involved, the racing is very close with loads more action and overtaking between the cars and the spectators get an excellent view. You never know who's going to win until the last lap, so it's certainly got some positives to go along with the negatives.

Formula One on the other hand has had some of the most boring racing I've seen this year when comparing it to other series. The politics and off-track antics have been far more interesting than the actual races. In fact, I'd say the qualifying on Saturday is far more interesting than the actual race as that pretty much decides the finishing order.

Touring Cars, MotoGP and A1 have offered more during races than F1 in my opinion, which is a shame.
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