At a stoplight..please watch your mirrors...

Watch this. I'll wait. Then, come on back here and let's talk for a minute. It's because I care about all you guys on motorcycles. .

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I'm serious...go watch it.

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Ok...please please please watch your mirrors when coming to a stop. I used to ride a lot, not so much anymore, but one thing I try to do is checking my six o'clock position when slowing or stopping. The 6 o'clock position is your rear in case you're wondering. I've heard a lot about guys getting plowed into from behind. Quite a few of them died or were laid up with some serious injuries.

A few pointers:

1. When slowing down or coming to a stop, check your mirrors for traffic not slowing down. That will be your first, and maybe only, warning.

2. When sitting at a light, be ALERT. Look around you (left, right, forward). Watch your mirrors (rear). Be on the look out for anyone who will hit you while you're stationary.

3. Sit at the light with your clutch lever compressed and your motorcycle in gear. This way if you need to make a quick position change, you can. You won't have to waste precious milliseconds pulling the clutch, engaging first, building revs, and then releasing the clutch. All that takes time. It's much faster to have the gear selected, clutch in, ready to escape. Which brings us to the 4th pointer...

4. Have an escape route planned. If you're sitting at a light try to point your bike where you want it to go in case someone comes barreling down on your tailpipe at 90 mph while you're at a dead standstill. Good options are out of the lane. In between two cars in the hopes that the car will get rear ended and not you. The worst scenario, assuming you can't move the bike in time, means jumping off and making a run for it. If you have to leave your pride and joy behind and F'IN LEAP FOR IT like in Die Hard. Just go.

Sorry to be so preachy guys. I love motorcycles. I just wish everyone was forced to ride one so we wouldn't have to deal with cars. We always lose.

Anybody care to comment, criticize, or share more tips? Please feel free to improve on my strategy. It's no where near perfect.

Tip:

When a car is stopped at a side street, looking to pull out, try to make eye contact with the driver.

If lieu of that, watch the front wheel; you will detect movement (toward you) faster that watching the whole car.

Dan

Yup, saw that earlier. Damn scion drivers

914Driver wrote: Tip: When a car is stopped at a side street, looking to pull out, try to make eye contact with the driver. If lieu of that, watch the front wheel; you will detect movement (toward you) faster that watching the whole car. Dan

those are both great tips for human powered bikes as well.

the wheels turning thing works well when riding along parallel parked cars.

if coming up on a side street in the scenario above, and i don't think the driver sees me, i'll point at them while looking to make eye contact. seems most people's subconscious responds to that if they are otherwise tuning you out for larger traffic.

914 Driver and Bluej - both of you make an excellent point. For some odd reason it's easier to visually see a tire rolling than to watch a car moving. I have no idea why.

Also Bluej is right about two wheels being two wheels. Riding a motorcycle and riding a bicycle have a lot in common. Especially when it comes to risk management.

On a related note...if I'm riding in traffic and suspect a car is moving over on me I'll watch their tires relative to the lane markers. For some reason I can gauge that movement much better than looking directly at the car and trying to detect drift towards me.

Anyone else care to comment?

I just assume that everyone I see is out to to kill me. Most aren't, but for those who are, I got away with just a close call.

I make it a practice that while I'm stopped at a light, with the brake light ON, I'll tickle the the brake to make the tail light flash a couple of times. Hopefully it catches the eyes of those behind me.

minimac wrote: I make it a practice that while I'm stopped at a light, with the brake light ON, I'll tickle the the brake to make the tail light flash a couple of times. Hopefully it catches the eyes of those behind me.

This little gizmo will do that for you.

I started using one after following a guy with a taillight that blinked and did all sorts of strange patterns. It kept my attention and would get my attention when I was behind him. I figured if it worked on me it would work someone else.

minimac wrote: I make it a practice that while I'm stopped at a light, with the brake light ON, I'll tickle the the brake to make the tail light flash a couple of times. Hopefully it catches the eyes of those behind me.

I do the same thing, and though i love my bike I don't believe I have ever "tickled" any part of it

Also....GOD just watching that video terrified me. Like when you know something terrible is about to happen and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Very scary, but all safe riders need to be reminded of the serious side of riding, from time to time.

It is a scary video, I knew a guy who was killed in a similar accident.

Regarding bicycles, there was an interesting story in the Minneapolis paper today - as the number of bicyclists here has increased, the number of car/bike accidents has actually gone down. They attribute it to motorists getting more used to seeing them on the road.

The more people bike in Minneapolis, the safer they seem to be.

What's new? Recently crunched city data show the reported cyclist-motorist accident rate dropping as the number of bike commuters grows. For 2008, the most recent year for which complete data were available, the crash rate was one-quarter that of 10 years earlier. Moreover, a trend line shows a steady decrease in the crash rate even as the number of commuting cyclists more than doubled.

Being stopped at a light is when I am on highest alert. My one little taillight blends into all the surrounding lights pretty easily.

If I was that dude and the lady that tried to kill me started to walk toward me, I'd be yelling to get the berkley away. She might get throat punched, old or not.

Xceler8x wrote: ...This little gizmo will do that for you.

For forty bucks, I'll continue to play with the front brake!

914Driver wrote: Tip: When a car is stopped at a side street, looking to pull out, try to make eye contact with the driver.

Do not rely on that. Ask any number of riders who have had someone pull out in front of them if they've had a cager look right at them before they pulled out...more often than not, they had "eye contact". It's a far better plan to watch the wheel of the car.

Anyone who rides who hasn't read this book needs to. I think it's the best driving skills book I've read. Sensible, easy reading.

ddavidv wrote: a cager...

I really hate that expression.

I check my mirrors 100% of the time when slowing, and stopped. I won't touch the brakes until I've verified the distance of the car behind me. I even do it in my cars.

I actually had that happen to me but with much less dramatic results. I was stopping at a stale yellow and the lady behind wasn't planning to. She locked up at the last 2nd and just tapped me. It still cost a couple hundred for a new hat and tail section though.

Been rear ended on the bike a few times. Never have cared for it.

Worse thing is usually there isn't anything you can do to make it better. Launching yourself out into cross traffic is not an improvement.

foxtrapper wrote: Been rear ended on the bike a few times. Never have cared for it. Worse thing is usually there isn't anything you can do to make it better. Launching yourself out into cross traffic is not an improvement.

I've taken to always stagger myself next to the lead car if I have the option. If I don't because I am first - I try to angle myself to the cross flow in case I need an emergency merge. It's probably a frying pan/fire kinda problem but what else can ya do?

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: I've taken to always stagger myself next to the lead car if I have the option. If I don't because I am first - I try to angle myself to the cross flow in case I need an emergency merge. It's probably a frying pan/fire kinda problem but what else can ya do?

This particular traffic dilemma has always caused me sleepless nights. It really is the worse of "worser" options you have to choose from.

I think your best bet is what I've listed above. They mostly boil down to stay alert and be ready to run/move at a light if you're about to get rear ended.

I very much agree with watching and being ready.

What I really dislike are the way so many people come flying onto you, braking hard at the last moment, stopping a foot or two off your tail.

Are they going to hit me or stop? Do I run the light or stay put? No easy answer.

Appleseed wrote: If I was that dude and the lady that tried to kill me started to walk toward me, I'd be yelling to get the berkley away. She might get throat punched, old or not.

This. I don't care how 'sorry' that person is. They better get the hell away from me for at least the first few minutes. If they get out carrying a smartphone then the EMS better bring a long pair of heavy duty forceps with them.

A good friend in high school was hit like that and he died almost instantly. The guy who hit him claimed it wasn't his fault because the brake light on the bike did not work. Way to go, jerk.

For myself: always leave a way out. Hug the white lines, stay close to the outside of the road, for Chrissakes never sit in the middle of the lane. I saw one of those patterned LED taillights mentioned in another post and yes they are eye catching. There used to be a small strobelight kit which did something similar; while you had the brakelights on the strobes fired every half second or so.

Lane splitting saves lives. I won't sit at the back of a line of traffic for this very reason. It's not legal where I live, but berkeley that - I can be law abiding and still be dead.

Years of two wheeled commuting develops your idiot driver ESP. I can tell what some waterhead is going to do before they know they're going to do it. Aside from catatonic drunks, just about everyone telegraphs their actions before they commit; you just have to know where to look to find their tell.

alex wrote: Lane splitting saves lives. I won't sit at the back of a line of traffic for this very reason. It's not legal where I live, but berkeley that - I can be law abiding and still be dead. Years of two wheeled commuting develops your idiot driver ESP. I can tell what some waterhead is going to do before they know they're going to do it. Aside from catatonic drunks, just about everyone telegraphs their actions before they commit; you just have to know where to look to find their tell.

Lane splitting probably causes way more injuries than being stopped in line, besides being illegal in most states. Just like "loud pipes save lives", all it really does is piss people off. Get in a peeing match against a cager and chances are your not going to win. Develop "Idiot driver ESP" for the win. My expectation is that they are ALL idiot drivers, and plan accordingly.