Oil Drippings: News and Opinion

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com

The Harley-Davidson had a Japanese license plate attached to the rear fender, so what was it doing on a beach on Graham Island in British Columbia? Well, the bike was inside a shipping container and the belief is that it is debris that washed across the Pacific Ocean following the tsunami in Japan in March 2011. The CBC has the story here. The BBC has the story with video here.

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Ferrari makes sports cars, not motorcycles, but a Ferrari-badged motorcycle made as a tribute to Enzo Ferrari has been sold at auction for £85,000. The bike was designed and built by David Kay Engineering. Visordown.com has the story here.

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A 23-year-old Minnesota woman whose texting while driving lead to the death of a motorcyclist has been sentenced to perform 480 hours of community service and pay $200,000 in restitution. Erica Nelson was also placed on 10 years probation. “The Free Press” in Mankato, MN has the story here.

If you’re wondering why RIDE-CT includes a stories such as this one, it’s to remind riders and drivers of the consequences of bad behavior behind the wheel and that enforce the idea that riders should never be treated as second class operators simply because we’re on two wheels.

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April readership figures for RIDE-CT are in and the website devoted to riding in New England had 5,272 page views during the month, up from 3,253 page views in April 2011. The number of unique visitors on a year-to-year basis rose by 855 to 2,353.