I get made fun of incessantly. Changing lanes in either direction is a five point process–indicate, rear mirror, side mirror, look over shoulder, change lane. If a lane is clear to my right (I’m in the US), I move right and let traffic pass. If I make a turn, I check for all pedestrians, bikes, and motorcycles every time. I speed exactly 3 mph over the limit at all time.
Perfect record, never even been pulled over. And I always arrive faster than the idiots who make fun of me.
P.s. I’m probably gonna get a moving violation tomorrow for being a pretentious are
But you never again have the joy of handing the keys to your Commando to someone who’s never had an old bike and watch them struggle to figure it out .
Lane splitting is illegal in many areas/states… because it unnerves other drivers easily, and creates a hazard… if only motorcyclists could maintain a reasonably slow speed (say 10mph), I wouldn’t mind personally. But they don’t, so I’m glad I live somewhere that it’s outright illegal.
Also, those are your side-view mirrors that stick out, rear-view mirrors are usually mounted to the center of the front window (but I’m sure everyone knew what you meant).
Motorcycle and car driver (and tractor, skidsteer, boat, and avid cyclist while we’re at it) and I can respect your style. I can’t claim a record as impeccable as yours, though it has been 20+ years since I was cited for an infraction.
I gave up speeding a few years ago when I realized how anxious scanning for cops all the time made me. Much more enjoyable now and I usually arrive at the same time as the racer who’s been jockeying for position all through traffic.
Good luck on the commute tomorrow, I have faith in you!
No, but object permanence dictates that the motorcycle, that you have all been paying such scrupulous attention to, that disappeared while you were stopped will be there again when you start.
Why would you swerve to the left when something appears behind you?
It is virtually always counter intuitive. As race car drivers know the quickest path isn’t always (or even remotely likely) to be the shortest. Staying steady in slower lanes almost always beats passing lanes in the US because of pressure from merging into ‘fast lanes’.
This leaves a proverbial vacuum for us aware drivers to take advantage of. I know you know this, but it bears observing: going forward and backward is about 5% of driving. Horizontal is waaay more important.
I don’t always scrupulously track someone approaching me from behind, especially in heavy or stop-and-go traffic. I swerve because I suddenly see something which might be about to hit me. Acting to avoid things that appear rapidly out of nowhere is one of many instincts acquired in over 40 years of driving.
My working commute frequently involves a fair bit of motorway travel. By Australian law, all vehicles are supposed to keep to the left unless overtaking on such roads.
However, this law is never enforced and almost universally ignored by the car commuters. They just hop into the rightmost overtaking lane and stay there. As a consequence, the leftmost “slow” lane is frequently moving at 20km/h faster than the “fast” lane during peak hour.
So long as you’re prepared to change lanes to pass the occasional law-abiding slow vehicle, you can generally travel substantially faster by keeping to the left.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fantasised about fitting scrolling LED displays to front and rear windscreens (mirrored on the front one), to say a few choice things, with this being at the top of the list.
Keep left unless overtaking would be the default on the front one, with get off my arse on the back for the fuckwit tailgaters.
…And while we’re having a general bitch, how about all those folks with their stupid jacked-up people movers of various flavours, preventing peeps in sensible cars from seeing up the road… fuck y’all.
I used to know a guy who’d get a pack of those white adhesive freezer labels, peel them off, write on the sticky side in black texta, then reattach them to the backing sheet with enough hanging off the side so he could peel them off while wearing bike gloves.
Whenever a driver overly pissed him off, he’d choose an appropriate message, ride up alongside and slap it onto the car windshield.
Not recommended from a road safety POV, but it is a satisfying thought.
I once read an account of a rider who’d been cut off by a motorist who didn’t indicate, and when he pulled up next to her at the lights, her window was down, so he reached in and snapped off her indicator stalk.
Pretty nifty, I thought. Fucking hate dickwads who don’t indicate.
Mayhap the solution is designing roadways for all users? Lane markers that are sufficiently wide can deter speeding (feeling of a narrower lane) and encourage a dedicated space for motorcycle riders or cyclists to filter.
But that would acknowledge that roads are designed for more than just cars. Which they aren’t. They only exist because of the cars, and they only exist to serve the cars. Which sucks, but what can you do.
This is so true. I had at one point a Bonneville which was considered quite a fast bike. It was 46HP and if you tuned them various bits broke very quickly. But things were already changing; I also had a small bike - a Kawasaki S2 - which produced 44HP from 350cc and, due to the light weight, could out-accelerate a Bonnie up to 90 or so.
When I decided I wanted a bike my mother panicked - as they do - and was convinced I would kill myself. My father reminded her that her uncle, a WO in the Navy, had had one for years and had taken her out on it. She said yes, but that was just a little bike. And dug out an old photo…I said er, yes, that’s a Brough Superior, Lawrence of Arabia had one. (The SS100, the real one made by Brough, produced 50HP in standard trim using a 1l JAP V-twin. )
Anyway, no more was heard of serious objections (and my brother had far more serious crashes with cars and hang-gliders.)
As a complete side note, my mother’s uncle was a Methodist and didn’t drink, which I think went some way to explain his survival on such a fast motorcycle with the tyres and brakes of the late 1930s.
The Difazio Brothers of Frome (not far from where I live) used to be agents for Brough. In the 1970s they devised an interesting racing suspension/steering system which was modestly successful. My biggest mistake was that shortly before they shut down they sold a Guzzi 250 single - and I didn’t buy it. It would have done a lot better than my RR shares did.
The T E Lawrence Brough went for some ridiculous amount of money. I confess, I’ve ridden Vincents but a Brough would have been too much excitement, unless you could guarantee a more or less empty oval circuit like Brooklands.
