Bikes in the Fast Lane: 41 Firefighting Motorcycles From Around The World (+ Videos) plus 2 more

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41 Firefighting Motorcycles From Around The World (+ Videos)
France: Doubling The Parking Fines, Even For Motorcycles
UK: It Takes All Sorts

41 Firefighting Motorcycles From Around The World (+ Videos)

Posted: 11 Mar 2013 09:00 AM PDT

#Firefighters #Firemen - Firefighters, as we all know, are heroes. They put their lives in danger to protect us and our possessions, often with disastrous consequences for the firefighters. But getting to a fire in crowded cities is not easy, even if fire trucks have priority. When there's a traffic jam, even they are stuck.

So one way of getting there fast is by motorcycle. Many countries have adopted motorcycles for their first responders. Often these motorcycles are equipped to start putting out a fire until the fire tenders arrive, not an easy task for these brave firefighters. They need to circumnavigate crowded cities on heavy motorcycles, facing first the danger of riding a heavy motorcycle in a city, then putting out a fire. Respect.

Here are 41 photos of different kind of firefighting motorcycles from around the world...........

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France: Doubling The Parking Fines, Even For Motorcycles

Posted: 11 Mar 2013 05:00 AM PDT

A few days ago the French socialist government announced with big ceremony that they would be spending billions of Euros to make "The Greater Paris"; a project for Paris and the extended suburbs. To do that, they would need to beef up the crumbling transportation infrastructure, mainly the metro and commuter rail, and to do that, they would need to spend 30 BILLION Euros. And that in a country that is laden with debt, so much so that it would make the Japanese look debt free.

So you can guess what comes next... the government is going to look at us, the honest hard working tax payer, to finance this idea. And even if you don't live in Paris or its suburbs, pay you will.

But raising the tax rates even more is political suicide (the tax rate will shortly be set at 75%, yes, you read it right, seventy-five %), and the last thing the powers want is a spring uprising and then the chopping off heads. So they're now planning the next best thing; raise the price of fines!

A few days after announcing the Greater Paris project (which goes until 2030), the politicians now want to raise the price of the fine you get when you park badly, or forget to feed to parking-monster (which is easy to do since you can only feed them 2 hours at a time). Currently when fined you pay â‚¬17, shortly, if the extension gets approved, it will become â‚¬35, double what it is now.

The trouble is the fines are for all of France since it's a police matter. You can not fine someone in Paris for an amount A and someone elsewhere in France an amount B. That is illegal. So people living outside Paris will be paying enormous high fines to subsidize a project they will never benefit from. Or, they de-penalize parking fines and outsource it to private organizations, which will probably make fines even more expensive.

All in all, it really looks like this government does not know what to do. It's stumbling in the dark, bumping into objects while trying to find the bathroom and on the way, loose the content of their bladder. With all the rich people and celebrities fleeing the country because of ridiculous tax rates, with record unemployment, with companies closing down factories because of the power the unions have and the cost of having employees, the only thing successive governments will have left is higher and higher taxes. But I'm ranting....

So back to the subject. If they really want to make traffic fluid in Paris without major influx on money, all they need to do is promote motorcycles and scooters. Make more parking available in Paris, allow motorcycles to ride in the bus lanes and officially allow them to split lanes, and suddenly there's going to be less traffic jams, less pollution and a lot more happy people. But â‚¬30 BILLION is way to attractive a sum of money for some. Politicians need to think about their retirement too.

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UK: It Takes All Sorts

Posted: 10 Mar 2013 11:00 PM PDT