Great tips Dan. Sounds look a great discussion topic for one of our monthly meetings.--On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 3:36 PM, Dan Pilcher <dpilcher@cochamber.com> wrote:--I hope no one considers this email inappropriate, in light of the death of Doc's friend, but perhaps something that I write below will be of help to others. Perhaps some of you also have strategies for riding in congestion on the interstate or other limited access highways that you can share.
I try to study motorcycle accident reports to understand what happened and to perhaps add a "lesson-learned" to my toolkit of strategies. The State Patrol used to have vehicle fatality reports up on its Web site, and they were pretty informative. Still, you can find some news releases. But not all fatal accidents show up there.
For a couple of years, 2007-2009, I commuted up and down I-25 from the Tech Center to/from the Logan/Lincoln/Broadway exits, since I work downtown.
Having once worked as a police reporter (Colorado Springs, 1972-73), and having studied lots of books and articles on safe riding techniques (since my 2003 mishap), I have come up with some explicit strategies--which I try to remember--for riding on a multi-lane, limited access highway during rush hour.
· Try to follow the rule of riding two to three seconds, or more, behind the vehicle in front of you. The faster the traffic, the bigger the gap you want. The problem, of course, is that drivers will see that gap and move in front of you. And, of course, you then have the problem of drivers tailgating you. Neither scenario is safe, so try to figure out a way to get out of these situations.
· Don't ride, if possible, in a middle lanes; in other words, ride in the far left lane if there is a break-down lane that you can access if a vehicle is approaching too fast behind so you can swerve left. This actually happened to me once. I was southbound on I-25 coming into the metro area from the north. I was riding too fast when suddenly the traffic suddenly came to a complete stop. I could not stop in time to avoid hitting the car in front of me, so I swerved left into the break-down lane. The car behind me braked hard and came to a stop behind the vehicle I was following, occupying the space that I would have been in--had I been able to stop in the lane. In other words, I would have been a sandwich.
· Keep to the far left of the left-hand lane so you can see the brake lights starting to illuminate on vehicles far ahead as they start braking, so you can start slowing down slowly. So many motorists follow too closely, and rear-end accidents are thus very likely.
· Be wary of the driver talking on a cell phone or, even worse, trying to read/send text messages/emails, and who may drift into your lane.
· If you can, watch the head movement of drivers ahead of you . . it's pretty easy to spot people checking their side mirrors, which is an indicator that they may be contemplating a lane shift--and one can hope that they also have a turn signal on. But many won't use their turn signals.
· To make myself ride more slowly--feel free to laugh here—I sometimes ride in the right-hand lane, which also allows me to access the right-hand break-down lane. The problem here is that this is also the lane for vehicles accessing the highway or exiting, which is usually a nightmare during rush hour, and merging can be hellish. So this is not a very safe option.
· Try to avoid riding alongside vehicles or in their blind spots—this is the "death zone" if the driver suddenly moves into your lane, not having seen you. This has happened more times than I want to remember. A couple of times, I've turned my leg 90 degrees and kicked at the vehicles, which surprised the drivers, to say the least. Some of these almost accidents, what I call "uh oh" moments, you don't forget. So, I speed up or slow down, trying to keep open space on both sides. Easier said than done, and almost impossible in heavy traffic.
· Touch your brakes lightly to just illuminate your brake lights to the driver behind as you are slowing. (I have a bad habit of just rolling off the throttle, slowing down, and then the driver (or rider) behind comes up too close because he/she never saw my brake lights come on. Dave Warfield can attest to that, when we rode back to Montrose last summer, coming north from Ouray!)
· If you come to a stop, stay a good distance back from the vehicle in front of you but angle the bike at a 15 degree angle of so and keep the bike in first gear. In case you see a vehicle approaching so fast that you don't think it can stop, you can shoot up between the two vehicles ahead of you and hopefully escape being rear-ended. If you are stopped, and a vehicle is approaching too fast for comfort, pull the front brake lever in several times to flash your rear stop light. And, as Jay Clawson has done and probably others of you have also, install flashing brake light(s).
· Watch out for vehicles with out-of-state plates. The drivers may really not know where they are going. Late one night, southbound on I-25 at Broadway, I was riding in the far right lane. A car with WY plates zipped past in the far left lane. Then, at the Logan exit, the driver suddenly swerved across all lanes of traffic—fortunately, there was no other traffic around--to exit in front of me onto the off-ramp. There was enough distance between me and the car so that I was not in danger, but it left me shaking my head.
Perhaps one reasonable conclusion is that there are no really good options when riding in rush hour traffic, just choosing amongst what you personally think are the best of a lot of bad options . . . or just get off and take the back roads?
I try to consciously say to myself: "All those people are trying to kill me, so what am I going to do?" And try to plan accordingly . .
Dan
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "EMRAT" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to emrat+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to emrat@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/emrat.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "EMRAT" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to emrat+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to emrat@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/emrat.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Monday 24 March 2014
Re: [emrat:4335] Lessons Learned on the Interstate
These issues were discussed at previous meetings,however,there is no such thing as "over discussion"!Maybe it is time to address the Issues again in the near future
E-Steve
Sent from my iPhone
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment