It was the end of bike week in Florida and the day of a big pig roast for some old high school buddies. Spirits were high, folks were in good humor and everyone agreed to get together more often and not just at funerals.
Death, apparently, has a sense of irony. The story in the St. Petersburg Times and tampabay.com tells of the final hours of a couple of riding buddies and their passengers wiped out by a man with a suspended license trying to pass a truck on a two-lane blacktop. Check it out here, http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/accidents/reunion-of-largo-high-graduates-ends-with-four-motorcycle-deaths/1080391
All four SOBs were killed in the crash.
Web reports quoting Florida Highway Patrol troopers say a man driving a pickup tried to pass a “slower-moving” truck as two eastbound motorcycles were traveling on Sumter County Road 476. Thinking the motorcycles were farther away then they were, he pulled into their lane to pass.
He didn't make it. Neither did the riders. The driver hit the two bikes head-on, throwing one bike passenger into the windshield of the truck he tried to pass.
Motto of the story is simple: Be careful. They are idiots and They are, in fact, out to get us. Drive staggered in the lanes so one moron doesn't take us all out. And charge drivers who kill bikers with vehicular homicide and put them away.
It's better to ride in peace than rest in it.
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