Keep The Rubber Side Down: Ride Safe

The car on my right doesn’t seem to be paying attention. Will she pull out in front of me at the last minute?

Okay, if she does maybe I have space to make an evasive move into the left lane. No, that won’t work there is a car in that lane who is driving in my blind spot.

Whew, past that intersection and the car on the right held her position. The car on my left has just moved into my lane and he is about 3 feet from my rear wheel. “Idiot!”

Oops, got to hit the brake and swerve right because a truck has come up on my left and he is changing lanes right on top of me. Relax a little it is all clear for the moment.

Ahead I see two cars waiting to pull out of a shopping mall exit. This area is notorious for wrecks here. A truck on my left, a car tailgating me and the two cars from the right are a threat. Uh oh, one of the cars is making a right turn into my lane of traffic. The car is now in my lane and moving about 25 mph slower than the traffic that he has just cut off.

I angle towards the curb, glance in my rear view to make sure the tailgater is paying attention and brake hard.

Luckily this time everything works – the brakes, the brake lights, the horn and my finger.

Relaxing a little I reclaim my full share of the lane and accelerate. The soccer ball is just a blur than registers in my brain only a nanosecond before I hit it and sure enough, hot in pursuit of the ball is a small child. Is he going to run into my bike? No, the soccer ball ricochets back onto the sidewalk and the child darts toward it instead.

The traffic light just went yellow and I do some quick evaluation of whether it will be best to keep going or to stop. The facts enter my brain in rapid succession;

The caution light just appeared and this is one that has a short cycle time. No traffic coming from the left. A string of traffic from the right is stopped at the light and probably will not react to their green signal rapidly enough to nail me mid-intersection. Across the intersection, the traffic is slowing; a couple of the cars look as if they might not have room to clear the intersection. A woman talking on her cell phone while she looks in her mirror and touches up her makeup is driving the car following me. Summary: No threat from the left, moderate threat from the right and a serious threat from the rear.

Conclusion: Cross the intersection under the caution light and hope it holds long enough to get clear.

Reaction: Kick it down a couple of gears, give the bike full throttle and make a veer quickly to the left aiming for an open spot on the far side of the intersection. The light goes red while I am in the middle of the intersection; the kid driving the souped-up Honda Civic uses his green light as his signal to see how fast he can turn a quarter-mile.

Crunching metal and shattering glass make their own unique sounds as “drag strip dummy” collides with “makeup Mary”. One last glance in my rearview mirror shows “Mary” at the moment of impact as she draws a zigzag...

We hope that you enjoyed reading this excerpt from "Ride Safe". If you would like to read the entire article and more, you can order a back issue of Jul / Aug 2004 where this article was originally published.

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