I've got a new bike, did I mention that? Yes, I know it's no more than a couple of years since I last got a new bike, but it was falling to bits through lack of care and maintenance, and I felt like splashing out rather than keep fixing the thing. Anyway, it came with a little sticker on it that says "Warning: For safety reason. All bolts must be checked for tightness before every ride. Failure to do so could result in serious and/or/fatal injuries."
I ask you. I could nitpick the unusual punctuation and grammar, or wonder whether it really means to imply that you can have injuries that are fatal but not serious, but I'm more interested in the instruction that I have to test every bolt on the bike, every time I want to ride it anywhere. I mean, I'm all in favour of safety (except for wearing a silly-looking helmet, I'm still not going to do that), but that seems a little excessive. And does this mean that if the bike spontaneously falls apart, I can't sue whoever made it, because I didn't check all the bolts?
I suppose I could lie in court and claim that I had, but they're probably monitoring me with CCTV cameras, just in case. Or I could be honest and say that the sticker fell off, which it quite genuinely did on the way home tonight. I hadn't noticed it until then. I'll keep it and stick it onto something else, just to confuse everyone.
4 comments:
Hi Ben :-)
You may buy the bicycle as, it does not always matter what the company says that you have to do.
If the bicycle falls apart it is still their legal responsibility at this stage.
There are legal requirements that state that it must be fit for the use that it was purchased !!!
It has to be safe :-)
Dai Griffiths
Here you had a chance to be really cool; you could of thrown commonality of transport aside, and purchased a Shetland pony!
But Nooooo! -- you've transmogrified into just another conventional corporate bastard willing to forgo the coolest of all things, mammalcycling.
See, the thing is, I take my bike on the train to work, and the space for bikes is very small. I suppose I could put the shetland pony on the overhead luggage rack, but then it would be reading people's newspapers over their shoulders and giving them unwanted help with sudoku puzzles.
But now you're moving, you won't need to take the train any more because you'd be able to go the whole way by pony.
Damn - it used a lower case L instead of an upper case i and I got the verification wrong. I'm not a computer, honest.
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