hence the old, shopworn figure of speech “like tape off a duck’s back.”
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ha! there was a pic upthread that I was wondering if it was that contraption. I really need to watch that movie again.
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Crazy to me that a vehicle with no rear visibility could possibly be considered street legal.
Just look at it!
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Looks a little like a scaled down version of Gru’s “car”
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That at least has wing mirrors.
Looks like she’s done this before - seh knew to climb
Front page headline in the Lethbridge, Alberta Herald.
I can pretty much guarantee that the hardest part of this build was the windscreen wiper…
I"m sure that a few “MOT legal” vehicles made in GB were just as weird despite coming from a factory. Reliant, Peel, Bond anybody?
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This is my actual fair-weather commute vehicle. 1200 watt motor. Cruises at 25 mph. 18 mile range. Very fun to ride.
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Sweet! Needs more duct-tape though.
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If you look closely, you can see the mirrors on the duct-tape bike; they’re mounted above the handlebars, inside the aeroshell.
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Older vehicles are grand fathered in, which is why I can still drive my twenty year old Peugeot, even though it probably wouldn’t meet emissions for a brand new car.
Also, a little disambiguation. The MoT is an annual roadworthiness check. Exactly how stringent it is, depends on when your car was first registered, and how it was sold, for example, a new car must have two wing mirrors, and if one is broken, you will fail. However, if your car was originally sold with one wing mirror, then as long as that one is still working, it’s fine.
Getting their home made bike/streamliner/thing though an MoT was actually the least of this person’s problems, the first hurdle to pass is getting it registered.
For a car to be registered and receive it’s number plate it needs to pass the DVLA’s road-vehicle regulations. For most cars, the manufacturer will get a ‘type-approval’, show proof of crash testing etc, and there after all cars of the same model are legal. Kit-cars usually have a type approval as well, although your work will be inspected.
If you’re building your own vehicle then you can get “Individual Vehicle Approval” (also used if you’re importing a single car from outside the EU, or basically every other strange vehicle that doesn’t fit into an normal category, such as a tank). The short version of the process (and just the guidance notes are 65 pages) is that you fill out many forms, and then take the vehicle (on a trailer!) to be inspected, where it has to meet certain basic standards, such as working headlights that point in the correct direction, clean and safe wiring, and even “exterior projections”. This is anything sticking out from your vehicle, so no spikes, even the old Jaguar logo fell foul of this, which is why in the UK they just have a flat badge, (but you can buy the “leaping cat emblem” to sit on your mantle piece, which coincidentally comes with just the right bolt hole to attach it to your car).
tl/dr getting a scratch built vehicle registered in the UK is a massive pain, and requires many, many forms to be filled out. Whoever built this vehicle must have really put the effort in, and despite it’s looks, it must be well built and safe else it would never have got a number plate.
Although now I look at it, it’s probably registered as a motorbike, so it’s slightly easier to get registered. Still lots of forms tho.
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Its no worse than my van, with a load in the back.
I’ve always been interested in that kind of vehicle (increasingly so since some lower spine trouble means I can’t ride a standard upright bicycle for long). How is the visibility when you’re riding it? My intuition is that your eyeline would be quite low to the ground…
On my first bike, the mirrors vibrated so badly as to be completely useless.
On my current bike, the stock mirrors gave you a perfectly clear view of your own shoulders (I’ve since modified them to correct that).
Even when they work, relying on your mirrors is suicidal on a bike. Head checks are good.
Oh definitely. I have an aftermarket mirror attached to the bicycle I commute on. Vibration isn’t a problem, but the highly convex mirror makes it hard to see cars at any distance unless they have headlights on.
And yeah, I do turn my head a lot.
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Zip ties. Half that thing is held together with zip ties.
I tend to stick to back roads, but I don’t have a problem seeing cars. I just can’t see over them and I have to be careful sometimes creeping up to an intersection if there are cars parked on the corner. I’m far more concerned that they see me, which is why there is a big spinning windsock on that thing…
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