We are all aware that every time we ride, we are at risk simply by virtue of sharing the road with inattentive car, truck and van drivers. But what about clueless motorcyclists? With all of the new and returning riders hitting the roads in the last few months, there's a lot of 'em who are unaware of being part of a special fraternity (that gladly welcomes sisters, too!). Worse, some riders -- both old and new -- seem to think that they are king of the road. To wit:
The first incident happened this morning (or should I say, "the first incident today...!") on the way to the Cruiser Palace and Cube Farm. As you may be aware, it is legal in California to lane share, i.e. ride between two lanes of traffic. I'm not going to go into its intricacies here, though. As I was saying: I'm riding along, and I spot another motorcyclist about 1/2 a block behind me. The two lanes in my direction slow down ahead of me. I'm still going about 25 mph and about 0.5 sec. from diving into the gap between the lanes when this bozo comes flying past me on the right.
Now, that might sound fine except that in that situation, the following rider -- bozo (opened flip-up helmet, shorts, t-shirt and tennies) -- should have beeen preparing for the rider ahead of him -- me -- to be jinking over into the lane gap to also split lanes. A fraction of a second later, it would have been a nasty crash for both of us, ping-ponging between the now stopped cars (and damaging them, too).
A block or two later, I finally manage to catch him (mind you that I'm on a wide-handlebar'd cruiser and he was on a nimble BMW 650GS) and advise him (without swearing, really) that he might want to consider the point I just made above. He immediately went into a version of "You tawkin' ta me?" Bonehead. I rode off.
Then, a few hours later, a story turned up on another website, a story that took mine at least a couple steps over the line. You can read it here.
Seriously, everyone, it's tough enough out on the roads as is. Let's look out for each other, too, and enhance everyone's riding experience.