The Ghost Motorcycle of Lemon Tree Passage Road

Note:  The people trying to see this ghost are, frankly, idiots.  If you are anywhere near the location of this story, just enjoy the story, don’t risk your neck or anyone else’s looking for the spirit, or you are likely to end up one yourself, and maybe take someone else with you.  If you’re lucky, you’ll just attract the attention of the local police, who have been increasing enforcement activities to curtail this lunacy.  In other words, don’t be a fucking moron.  Enjoy the stories, but don’t do stupid things trying to find the ghost.

In 2007, a motorcyclist was killed by a collision with a speeding car on Lemon Tree Passage Road near Newcastle, Australia.  Since then, locals have reported seeing a bright, white light, rather like a motorcycle headlight, appearing behind them on the road. 

Ghost hunting along the road has become something of an internet phenomenon thanks to several videos loaded on Youtube that purport to show the ghostly light following speeding cars.  The light does appear to be a single headlight, and could be a motorcycle’s light.  The people behind the most popular of the videos clearly state that the light appears even when one is driving a sane speed along the road, but local folklore has nonetheless developed claiming that the ghost light appears only when a car reaches 111 miles per hour (or 180 kilometers per hour).  As a result, legend tripping teenagers with too much fuel money and too little sense have begun racing along the road in an attempt to see the ghost, creating a serious hazard.

Commentary:  This story is a bit of an oddity here in two ways: the first is that the majority of sources that I can find for it are newspapers, and not the usual word-of-mouth or amateur websites.  In fact, the first I heard of it was when it was a headline on Google news back in October…must have been a slow news day.  Of course, the ultimate source is a set of internet videos, so I guess it all comes around to amateur web content in the end.

The second is that this is also a case where, like Bostian Bridge in North Carolina, people are doing mind-bendingly stupid and dangerous things to try to see the ghost.  In the case of the Bostian Bridge, it was people endangering themselves by walking out onto a trestle.  In the case of the ghost motorcycle, people are driving at dangerously high speeds endangering themselves and others in order to get a thrill.  This is stupid.  Unaccountably, astoundingly, freakishly stupid.  I would normally be in favor of the idiots who do this taking themselves out of the gene pool, but the method that they have chosen is likely to result in them taking someone else out with them.   

Hell, the story even states that the motorcyclist was killed by a speeding car, which makes me wonder if this entire story wasn’t a cautionary tale that unfortunately become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Driving this fast in a vehicle made for normal road driving conditions is not safe for you or anyone else on the road.  Or, as an on-line article commentator going by DaryllK put it: 

'Don't know if there is a ghost, don't care - what I care about is that I travel that road regularly with my young children in the car and don't wish any of my family to be killed or injured due to idiots speeding.

'For years I was a funeral director and had to remove the mangled dead (many innocent children) from tangled wrecks caused by young drivers thinking they were bullet proof behind the wheel. USE YOUR HEAD AND THINK ABOUT IT.'

There are plenty of online videos for this, and I would normally link to them…but this is a case where stupid people are doing things that endanger themselves and others in order to get a thrill that, frankly, won’t live up to the hype.  I’m not going to give the imbeciles who do this any further outlet to showcase their moronically dangerous activities.  However, I will not that in at least one video, the people creating it state that they can see the phenomenon without speeding, anyway, meaning that the speeding is not just dangerous, but isn’t even necessary to achieve the desired result.

And in case not getting your sorry ass killed isn’t sufficient reason to not do this, the local police have been stepping up enforcement to catch speeders.  So, really, you’re taking two risks when you needn’t take any at all.

Sources: Newspaper, Newspaper, Newspaper, Newspaper