Posted on 07/19/2004 9:01:53 AM PDT by BluegrassScholar
Town of Waukesha - Motorcyclist Daniel Buckel was within 10 feet when he saw the potential disaster stretched across a dark and foggy rural road just ahead.
Disbelief turned to fear, then anger, as Buckel's 2-year-old motorcycle hit a barrier of kitchen-variety plastic wrap that was wound thickly from traffic pole to traffic pole on opposite sides of Guthrie Road, south of Highway I.
The clear plastic trap, which was 3 to 4 feet above the two-lane road south of Waukesha, sent both Buckel and his passenger, girlfriend Theresa Brzykcy, into a bloody slide across the asphalt.
"It's appalling, and it's really frightening," Brzykcy said. "What was their intention? This should make people more aware that pranks like that are not as harmless as they seem.
"They had done a pretty thorough job. It was wrapped around pretty thickly," she recalled.
The malicious prank has Waukesha County sheriff's investigators concerned because other capers involving plastic wrap occurred in the town last year, although none was as serious as the motorcycle crash early Tuesday, Sheriff's Detective Steve Pederson said Friday.
Investigators were planning to canvass homes near the crash site this weekend, looking for information that will lead to a break in the case.
"When something like this happens someone always brags about it," Pederson said. "If anyone has heard anything about this or any other incident involving (plastic) wrap, contact us.
"Maybe someone had seen this happen or removed (plastic) wrap from other areas," he said. "We'd like to know about it."
Last year, a number of parked cars were found bound in plastic wrap to prevent drivers from getting inside the vehicles, Pederson said. Plastic wrap bonds together, giving it strength and making it difficult to remove.
Pederson said investigators were unaware of other incidents of wrap being stretched across a road.
The couple's injuries sent both to Waukesha Memorial Hospital. Buckel, 22, of the Town of Waukesha, required 15 stitches to close a deep gash above his right eye and also broke a finger. Brzykcy, 19, of Brookfield, got a deep cut and bruise to her right cheek along with other scrapes and bruises. The motorcycle was a total loss, Buckel said.
The 1 a.m. ride was supposed to be a short one meant to relax the couple, who have known each other for more than a year. He had just left his bartending job, and she was waiting for him at his family home. Earlier she had taken his mother to a medical appointment.
Buckel said he was driving 5 mph under the 45 mph speed limit because the motorcycle headlight had shone on deer along the road and there was a slight haze from ground fog in the low-lying area.
"I didn't see it," Brzykcy said of the barrier. "He braked so hard I figured it was a deer. My first hit was on him, which totally saved me. Then, I landed on my head (on the road). Everything went white and yellow and red, and I blacked out for a while. I woke up on my back, laying in a driveway."
Buckel, fueled by anger and concern for Brzykcy, fought off his own pain and called 911 on his cell phone, he said. Among the first emergency personnel to arrive was Beckel's best friend, Scott Sommers, a member of the Town of Waukesha Fire Department.
"I ran over to my girlfriend and looked around to see if the pranksters were still around," Buckel said. "I didn't see anyone. When my friend arrived, it made things a lot easier to cope with."
""The 1 a.m. ride was supposed to be a short one meant to relax the couple, who have known each other for more than a year."
Let me just guess here:
Harley with open pipes, he regularly takes these 1 AM rides;
Maybe one of his neighbors is not so amused?"
I'm a lifelong biker, but I have to admit thats my first thought on this one. It was stupid to do this.....but its also self centered to ride with pipes that wake the dead.
Personally, I keep my Intruder's baffles intact. I'd rather the police focus on my neighbor and his very loud baffle removed Harley.....(grin)
No excuse for this, and I'm not defending it. However, I do understand neighbors fed up with loud bikes at 1 AM.
Salt works better, and if you don't pour out too much, you can write a clever phrase or two on a lawn.....but it will be gone by the next year.
If they have a front lawn with a slight rise, its even better. Passing vehicles can see your "slogan" for the target of your wrath.
Its also very effective a week before a football game away from your home field, btw......LOL!
A creative application of Roundup could prove interesting as well.
(Not that I know this from experience of course)
; )
I live in a gated community. I canvased all my neighbors between me and the front gate and asked if the noise from my bike was in anyway disturbing or bothersome (exact words) to them as I also do the midnight ride routine. Half of them had no idea what I was talking about the other half had no problem and gave me the usual "My cousin owned a harley and..." stories.
When my riding partners come to visit and leave afterdark, they know to back their bikes into the street and have their exhaust aiming up or down the street and not in the driveway aiming at my neighbors as they start em up. I have never had a complaint and have a super quiet neighborhood with a few state troopers and a sheriff in the community.
A little courtesy goes a long long way. Unless of course I scared em all into submission with my handsome looks!!
<|:-)~~
PS even the guys with Thunderheaders can tone down their escape, at least till they get outside the gate and past the troopers house.
This stuff is ubiquitous. You'll find it in most warehouses. It's used to wrap loaded pallets to insure stability during shipping
Arthalion, now that's how you relate a story to win friends and influence people!
The cursory (and somewhat adversarial) explanation originally given in Post# 71 is dramatically different from this reasoned, detailed, and vindicating post.
It sounds like you have suffered at the hands of some real lowlifes. The defensive steps you've taken should pretty much ensure an intelligent, law-abiding person would not be injured. Accept my apologies as your situation hardly compares to a bunch of criminals stretching cellophane across a public roadway.
Regards,
~ Blue Jays ~
p.s. Pictures of your arrangement would be very cool attached to this discussion thread. Your "hinged steel plates" solution sounds like it could even thwart car thieves in a suburban environment...
I guess I piss a lot of people off then. I'm glad that you like your motorcycle to be quiet, I don't, and that's that.
Really? Most people fawn all over my bike and love to talk to me about it. The only 'hate' came from a black guy on a Japanese bike. I waved at him and he gave me one of those 'dis' looks. In fact, in my experience, the crotch rocket riders are more elitist than the hog riders. Don't get me started on the 'fart mufflers' the 'tuners' put on their Japanese cars, talk about annoying!!
No more annoying to most people than very loud pipes on a cruiser. You're part of the problem, by the sound of it, so you have no right to complain about other people's annoying noise makers. Actually, you have a lot in common with those guys - putting a loud exhaust on an underpowered vehicle that produce no significant gain in power.
So it's whatever pleases you, and screw everyone else, right? When the cops pull you over and hassle you looking for equipment violations, you'll only have to look in the mirror to see who's fault it is.
This is settled easily. You're a Canadian, and I'm a Texan. You just wouldn't understand. No Texas cop is going to hassle a biker over loud pipes (well maybe the sandle wearing cops in Austin). This isn't liberal New York, and it's not Canada. Freedom still reigns here.
Everything I said in post #139 was incorrect.
I stand corrected and bow my head in shame.
Chain driven counter balancers as you said is correct.
(I was very vigorously educated a few hours ago)
Wow, it must suck to live where you live.
I thought courtesy and consideration for others (and not just those in your neighbourhood) was also a Texan trait. My mistake.
I like a nice sounding exhaust, which unfortunately also means loud, as much as anyone. But I know it annoys the heck out of me when my neighbour starts up his loud Harley at 5:30 am and idles it in his driveway for 10 minutes, nevmind going WOT as soon as he gets moving. So why would I subject others to the same annoyance?
I frequent lots of motorcycling message boards. I hear stories about that kind of harassment from the cops from all over North America.
When I bought my current bike from its previous owner, I could have taken it with the 2 Brothers slip-ons that he had installed. The sound they produced was sweet, but loud. I requested that he replace the stock mufflers before I took possesion, he sold them to someone on the internet.
Does your consideration extend beyond your neighbourhood? But don't get me wrong, not all aftermarket pipes are obnoxiously loud, and as I said if the loud handle is used judiciously they can be alright. If I've mistakenly lumped you in with the straight-pipe, WOT from every stop crowd, I apologize.
You can actually hear the chains on the 88B. What's worse, there is for lack of a better term, a laggy feeling to the 88B compared to the 88. It's led to a lot of veteran bikers tearing up perfectly good carburators thinking it's a jetting problem.
For good or for bad, Americans are more concerned with individual liberty, and less concerned with society at large than Canadians.
Now this goes double for Texas, where you can still find horses in a city the size of Dallas, and if the neighbors don't like the smell, they can move. Honestly, if the Texas legislature would attempt half the nanny-state regulations that California or New York have (let alone Canada), the legislators would have to drive further than New Mexico to hide this time.
I have a problem with that also. They sound awful. I love to hear a nice sounding engine but those tuners! OTOH, a harley backfiring into open pipes as it gears down for the stop sign near my house is also bad.
I was visiting the 'Old Town' section of town one weekend and the noise from the harleys was actually painful.
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