Crossing the line

[faffi]

Went for a brief 60-odd mile ride this evening, as the weather changed dramatically to the better. Tons of bikes out. Rant: However, on a narrow, winding road with limited vision, I met two old geeks my age, both steering a big BMW GS, who straightened the road in a manner that they both entered my lane Since I was just trundling along, I escaped any drama by simply keeping to the edge of the road, but it really bugs me when riders and drivers use the lane of oncoming traffic. I typically try to use the whole of my lane, making the corners as long as possible. I find this gives me the best view of the road ahead, but the risk is always there around right-handers; morons occupying my side of the road, creating risk of head-on collision.

Rant over.

On another note, I had just fitted another Maxxis Touring M6011 in size 140/90-16. The previous one of the same lasted 9183 km / 5706 miles, while the original Pirelli was gone in 7386 km / 4589 mi. Not a huge difference, but I like the way it handles better and it has plenty of grip, and the price is around half that of the stock tire. Being slightly narrower, it is also easier to squeeze between the swingarm and final drive.

[DoubleGuzzi]

There is at least one set of driving guidelines/recommendations (I forget where), that says it is perfectly acceptable to cross the line where there is a clear path through a bend, including its exit point. Not something that I personally subscribe to though on a very very rare occasion have done so; open countryside with a short kink in the road, for example. Otherwise, just enjoy the lean; it's not a truck that your driving with one elbow/arm out of the window or resting on window ledge. 

[Bulldog9]

What's the old phrase? "Keep it between the Mustard and Mayo?

[DoubleGuzzi]

I'm only repeating here; as said before I don't subscribe to this.

IAM* Advanced Driver Course - Observer's Handbook

Position correctly throughout the bend
without compromising safety
- Where view permits, it may be safe to take a
straighter line through a bend
- It may be possible to do this within the
confines of one lane with no effect on other
road users
- Advanced drivers must have an unhindered
view of the road surface and both edges, to
be certain there are no unseen hazards
- Mirrors and appropriate blind spot checks
must be utilised before straightening a bend
If in doubt, do not straighten

*The Institute of Advanced Motorists

[John A]

Its sloppy riding as a general rule in my opinion.

[Kiwi_Roy]

Keep the crazy old bastards off the road.
Run them into the ditch next time that happens.

[Bulldog9]

Yeah, but did these guys wave? 

[normzone]

Whatever justification for leaving the lane somebody can come up with, it remains that you are training your body's muscle memory to do that, and therein lies a hazard.

[Stretch]

I'm payin' taxes on both sides of the road, so  I'll use both sides of the road if
I want to  , as long as it's safe and POLITE to do so. As the world becomes more
and more crowded, being polite is important, methinks. Same goes for passing on
double yellow lines. (There are some MARKED passing zones that are just completely
unsafe. I ask myself, "Really?!" Mostly very poor sight lines. No way can one tell
what's coming.)

And I DO wave, "Thanks!" if appropriate when I use portions of the other lane.   

                                                                     -Stretch

[blu guzz]

Getting used to riding on painted surfaces is just asking for a crash.  You tube will show you a fair number of videos of people going down because of crossing painted surfaces at lean angles that are not even severe.  Personally, I consider that I have blown the turn if I get in the paint dry and especially in wet weather. 

[bronzestar1]

Nope, stay in your freaking lane!  Any moron can run wide into the opposing lane, regardless if there's traffic or not.  Takes more skill to stay in your own lane, so do it. 

[Bulldog9]

I'm payin' taxes on both sides of the road, so  I'll use both sides of the road if
I want to  , as long as it's safe and POLITE to do so. As the world becomes more
and more crowded, being polite is important, methinks. Same goes for passing on
double yellow lines. (There are some MARKED passing zones that are just completely
unsafe. I ask myself, "Really?!" Mostly very poor sight lines. No way can one tell
what's coming.)

And I DO wave, "Thanks!" if appropriate when I use portions of the other lane.   

                                                                     -Stretch

Surely you jest...............  Not to sound like your mom, but.... It's NOT a racetrack.

[Bulldog9]

You ride double the posted speed limit and say the roads are not “racetracks”….. what ever.
Also passing on a double yellow line is also a serious traffic violation, why are there double yellow lines? Because it’s dangerous to pass at that particular location of the highway.

The YELLOW signs are the suggested safe speed for most vehicles in a turn..... ANd using the clear line of sight in a turn to pass safely, yellow line or not is far different than using the whole road regardless of lines. But it's subjective right?  Ride your ride..... 

[SIR REAL ED]

Oncoming traffic in your lane on back roads around here (VA) that don't have painted centerlines is more the rule than an exception.

I've ridden one three mile stretch of back roads where it seems 98% of the oncoming traffic is on my side of the road.

Very strange as it is a back road where I would expect 95% of the vehicles using it actually live on that stretch of road.

[SIR REAL ED]

Also passing on a double yellow line is also a serious traffic violation, why are there double yellow lines? Because it’s dangerous to pass at that particular location of the highway.

That is the way i have understood it. 

In VA, the powers that be seem extremely cautious in creating double yellow lines.  IMO, the assumption seems to be that everyone is driving a vehicle with the acceleration of a fully loaded dump truck.

I understand the mentality.  There is no downside to lots of yellow paint everywhere for the people who have to deal with the results of any accident.

[faffi]

The riders I met saw me several hundred yards away, and the S-kink was not hard to ride through - I think they just could not be bothered to steer, preferring to go through straight. Or they lacked the skill/nerve to do so.

[rocker59]

There is at least one set of driving guidelines/recommendations (I forget where), that says it is perfectly acceptable to cross the line where there is a clear path through a bend, including its exit point. Not something that I personally subscribe to though on a very very rare occasion have done so; open countryside with a short kink in the road, for example. Otherwise, just enjoy the lean; it's not a truck that your driving with one elbow/arm out of the window or resting on window ledge. 

The only problem with that habit is at some point you'll be carrying enough speed cutting that curve over the double yellow that you'll not be able to avoid the car which suddenly appears.

Early in my sport-riding phase I was tempted by corner-cutting.  A couple close calls myself, plus seeing a couple of bad results broke me of that bad habit.

[Tkelly]

Even I the corner is clear I always try to stay in my lane,keeps me alert and in practice when a car comes around a blind curve on the centerline.

[Motormike]

Everybody thinks they are Valentino Rossi.   Or is this "crazy old geezer" showing his age?  Perhaps I should say everybody thinks they are Marc Márquez!

[guzzisteve]

Go ride N. GA on the weekend, you never know what's going to come around curve sideways in your lane. Riders riding over their head. At last years Guzzi rally in 5hrs on Sat there were 14 crashes, it's not safe enough for me to go up on weekends, we have curves everywhere.

[bronzestar1]

Everybody thinks they are Valentino Rossi.   Or is this "crazy old geezer" showing his age?  Perhaps I should say everybody thinks they are Marc Márquez!

Nah...Giacomo Agostini! 

[PJPR01]

Color inside the lines...no need to be sloppy or lazy and overrun the lane lines. 

 

[John A]

I was on a trip on the west coast around ‘79 on a 71 Ambassador. I stopped at a burger joint where a couple old timers started looking over my bike so I went out to talk to them. One had a pronounced limp and he told me he had the same bike. He went around a mountain corner and a pickup truck came around in his lane and took off the left cylinder and his left leg and kept on going. He said he still remembered the bike laying on its side , running with the exposed piston going up and down. I didn’t enjoy mountain riding as much after that.

[kballowe]

Even if you manage to stay on YOUR lane....

[pressureangle]

Polarizing opinion to follow

First, 'safe' is not necessarily 'legal'. There is *zero* times when crossing a solid yellow is legal, technically even to pass a bicycle safely. Feel free to post up your Statute that contradicts me.

Secondly, my observation is that the worst offenders come in 2 colors; 1st, but only 10% of incidents, are young riders 'sporting about'. I get it. I'm not a law-and-order guy, and if I had a ticket for every time I broke traffic code I'd be serving eternity. HOWEVER even as a spirited youth, I understood clearly the consequences of crossing the centerline. To do so regularly is a folly with certainty at it's end.

The other 90% of the centerline abusers are Boomer/GenX riders. Many/most of us here have done the dance, and simply don't do it. But if you do you know who you are; 60 +or-
 5 years, white-collar, entitled to your second childhood on your second expensive bike and likely never had a serious violent event in your life. You're the same guys who ride helmetless in shorts and Korean Go-Aheads.

When I see you on the curb, bleeding and rashed up giving your tale to the Medic and Cop, I drive by with just a little sadness and an equal measure of knowing the universe is a fundamentally just place.

[Bulldog9]

I was on a trip on the west coast around ‘79 on a 71 Ambassador. I stopped at a burger joint where a couple old timers started looking over my bike so I went out to talk to them. One had a pronounced limp and he told me he had the same bike. He went around a mountain corner and a pickup truck came around in his lane and took off the left cylinder and his left leg and kept on going. He said he still remembered the bike laying on its side , running with the exposed piston going up and down. I didn’t enjoy mountain riding as much after that.

My single 'get off' was East Bound on the Cherohala in 2004. I was on a 4 corners of TN trip on Labor Day weekend on my brand new FZ1. Had looped the TOTG and Cherohala and was backtracking to my motel. Just on the TN/NC border there is a downhill reverse radius left hand curve. Speed limit was 35, I was likely clipping along at 70. Given the speed and angle of lean and line of sight, I was riding on the inner edge of the right track (just right of center or my lane) Suddenly a car coming the other direction was right in front of me. I was able to get up and past him, though his mirror clipped my helmet. Because the turn continued to disappear, and the course correction, I was pushed to the shoulder, and those who know the road know that outside the white line is nothing but grass and gravel. I low sided and got off the bike in a superman slide. Very low impact due to the proximity to the ground. Thankful I was a life long ATGATT rider. The gear did its job perfectly. The one problem was that the bike caught and tumbled and hit me twice as I slid down the side of the road and ended in the drainage gutter.

The driver continued on into TN, and about 5 miles later continuing to treat the road as his private racecourse he ran into a father and son riding Goldwings. Killed the father, and the son lost his leg. The guy riding with me was far enough back that he was able to pass INSIDE the car as it hit the outer apex and then cut back in. I had slid into a rain gutter about 4' below the edge of the road. As I finished sliding, I hear him on the phone calling the police that a car ran me off the road and killed me. I was about 50' away from him and when I stood up he about fainted. Two other guys who were chasing us were staying at the Deals Gap Motel also barely got past him, and had a trailer. They left to get the trailer, and we pulled the pieces of my bike and piled them. on the side of the road. Was a sad sight. The bike had a Canadian Market rack that allowed the mounting of bags from the FJR. Fork was hopelessly bent, front tire axle broke, and the rest of the bike flew off other than the engine and frame. As we were sitting there waiting we heard sirens and police coming up the road. 3-4 patrol cars and an ambulance. They drove right past us. The trail trooper rode past us and backed up and asked what was going on. I told him and when I described the car, he told us that the same car had hit the father and son.

In retrospect, though this chucklehead was driving like the road was his private racetrack, I was tired, had been riding all day the last 3 days and was at the end of a very agressive day of riding. Had I been riding the speed limit, I may have been able to avoid the edge of the road, but had I been fresher, etc etc. But had he been on his side of the line, or even just a little over, there would have been no issue. But he hit the outer edge of the start of the turn crossing over the line then cut back in. I was just for that instant at the worse place possible. STAY IN YOUR LANE!

[SIR REAL ED]

Even if you manage to stay on YOUR lane....

I experienced something like this once.  Tractor trailer coming down Falling Creek Road in VA.  He had no business being on that road.  I have come across several tractor trailer who have gotten stuck due to lack of turn radius on those back roads.  The tow truck has to pull them backwards for a couple miles to get them free.

He was making a downhill sweeping left turn, I was coming uphill turning right.  Luckily I was looking ahead and saw the back end of his trailer use up all but one foot of my lane.  Big drop off on the right side of the road. If I wasn't looking ahead, and if I had been 50' farther up the road, it would have been a very bad day.   

[bronzestar1]

When I lived in So Cal, one of the roads I used to ride was Mulholland Highway.  There's a section of MH that goes down to a motorcycle hangout called The Rock Store (lots of YouTube videos).  This is a tight, 2-lane road, and I remember watching some moron in a big rig try to navigate down that road.  He ended up scraping his trailer against the hillside I don't know how many times, in addition to using both lanes.  Even though I knew that section of road like the back of my hand, if I was charging up that road and came around a corner to see this idiot in a big rig, that would've been a very bad day (hillside on the left, guard rail or drop-off on the right).  My go-fast days are long-past, more about smiles per mile than anything now.  If I can't see all the way thru the corner, I slow down and have exit options, just in case.   

[faffi]

bronzestar1, I have changed my riding in the same manner. But even if I knew the dangers - and among several other serious accidents had a head-on with a Volvo 240 that attempted to pass a slower moving car around a blind corner and blocking my lane completely - the sensation of mastering was higher than the danger. I have had many a repair job done at hospitals, and am alive thanks to good doctors and plenty of luck. But these days I do not ride faster than roughly what I can see the road to be clear. And it is more fun - albeit different - than charging as fast as I could master.