more cager madness

[lazlokovacs]

Some of you may remember when an enraged car driver tried to use his car as a weapon to intimidate me some months back. Today was a closer shave.

I'm on a three lanes on each side main road coming up to a major set of traffic lights some 50 yards ahead. Behind me is a massive truck, we are both beginning to slow down for the lights.

A woman driving a white Mercedes comes out from behind the truck and undertakes him, however, she doesn't see me (the truck isn't following too closely so she must have been looking elsewhere) and comes merging from behind into my lane. First I know of it is the sound of her car and a micro second later feeling her bumper just touch my left riding boot. She has managed to brake in the nick of time. Just. Just.

The lights change and she drives alongside me leaning out the window saying 'are you ok? I'm really sorry' I shake my head.

At the next lights she says 'I'm sorry I didn't see you' I reply, 'that was extremely scary. how could you not have seen me? do you not look in front of you when you're driving?'

calmly. politely.

she replies 'you weren't in front of me. I came from the side. I was behind the truck.

I go 'yes, you were behind the truck which was behind me, which means I was in front of you.'

She 'no no no I came from the side.'

At this point the lights change and she drives to the next lights.

I pull up along side her to continue the conversation, but she rolls up the window and says '----simple expletive----' and then turns up her music really loud.

I turn around to look at the truck driver, who is shaking his head, motioning that he has written down her licence plate number. We motion to each other and agree to pull over.

Lovely guy. He tells me that I was extremely lucky, he was watching it in real time and he beeped at her and thought that she was going to kill me until the last second when she emergency braked.

He also told me he has cctv from the front of his van and invited me to get in touch with his company to ask them for the footage.

Ok. here's the thing. I'm 43. I've been riding for 20+ years. My riding has only improved in all that time, but in the last year I have been involved in some nasty near misses. In my previous 20 years I have never ever come close to a collision with another vehicle. Some element must have changed.

I believe that it is car drivers on their highly addictive/habit forming smartphones that has changed and I'm no longer confident that the meagre level of safety that I have known in the past 19 years still applies. I think drivers are far far far worse than they ever have been.

I am very close to giving up using the motorbike (and the bicycle) in or into/out of the city permanently. Unfortunately, I have friends I like to visit who live 35 mins out of town by bike, which tends to take between 50-75 minutes in a car due to the near constant traffic jams. I also have sports competitions I compete in that are often within an hour of London, trying to get to those on 4 wheels would be torture!!!. The idea of driving a car to get around the city seems crazy too.

Ahhhhh I dunno. Bikes are just such a huge part of the fabric of my life.

Thoughts welcome

apologies if this post is oversharing in any way, feels like a momentous decision is being thrust upon me.

ride safe everyone! (and put those addictive smartphones somewhere you can't reach em while you're in the cage!)

[Zenermaniac]

I’ve been riding more than double the years you have and no time in all those years have I felt as unsafe as I do now. I think the past 5 years drivers have gotten exponentially worse. I’ve wondered lately the same as you. Should I be thankful I’ve made it this far and call it a day or defiantly ride above it all? So far I’m not letting them steal my joy. A little prayer before mounting up can’t hurt.

[jkguzzi]

I had to give up riding in my early 70's because of what you have described. And yes it is getting worse. Another contributing factor in Michigan is that it's now legal to "self medicate".

[bmc5733946]

The reality is more than 50% of the drivers you meet on the road are under the influence of something, drugs or alcohol,  25% are over the legal limit of whatever they're on. I try to remember also that 50% of them are not as smart as I, that is scary! So we get to be among 2-3 pound thousand vehicles piloted by individuals under the influence and not so smart. Riding motorcycles is dangerous! Didn’t your Mother tell you. Yet we still ride. I wear high-vis gear and a white helmet, hope it helps! Good luck to those who continue! Best wishes to those choose to give it up!

Brian

[guzzisteve]

Move to the country. I refuse to ride in a city, I'll take the Jeep. I do ride in country towns, like where I live.

[tommy2cyl]

It's ironic that the  advancement for automobiles including blind spot, rear of vehicle side motion detection,  & lane drift monitoring, along with
adaptive cruise control have in essence made drivers less aware and engaged with their vehicle and surroundings.  Add in quieter
interiors which further isolates and info screens with multiple menus to scroll through (b/c engineers haver replaced efficient buttons and knobs).
Vehicles are promoted more as mobile offices it seems to me.  Throw in that now some cars can self parallel park and fully automated AI
driving, and well, you have a recipe for disaster in my opinion.  Throw in the above mentioned "altered states"of a large percentage of people, stirred with a fair amount of underlying anger and stress and the cards are definitely stacked against us.  I am over 70, I still take long trips on the bike,  but the
amount of aggressive and incompetent driving I see has definitely increased over the last decade.  Life is a risk-reward endeavor.  Be careful out there.

[Ncdan]

We all know the risk that comes along with our passion for riding these death traps.
Therefore, abide by the basic rules of riding.
- Obey the traffic laws
- wear protective gear
- look and plan ahead
- include the road, traffic conditions and weather in your riding behavior.
- keep your cool and exercise patience with other motorists stupidity.
- and probably most importantly, ride as if there are drivers out there that’s planning to kill you every time you ride.

After following all the rules there are some happenings that just falls in the category of “stuff happens”🤔
Be safe out there my fellow members.

[sdcr]

We all know the risk that comes along with our passion for riding these death traps.
Therefore, abide by the basic rules of riding.
- Obey the traffic laws
- wear protective gear
- look and plan ahead
- include the road, traffic conditions and weather in your riding behavior.
- keep your cool and exercise patience with other motorists stupidity.
- and probably most importantly, ride as if there are drivers out there that’s planning to kill you every time you ride.

After following all the rules there are some happenings that just falls in the category of “stuff happens”🤔
Be safe out there my fellow members.

Even when you are doing almost everything right, $#@& happens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7roamDedaME

[Moparnut72]

Riding a motorcycle allow the rider to look into adjacent cars fairly easily. It is amazing to see the number of driver who are using their phones while driving.
kk

[Perazzimx14]

We all know the risk that comes along with our passion for riding these death traps.
Therefore, abide by the basic rules of riding.
- Obey the traffic laws
- wear protective gear
- look and plan ahead
- include the road, traffic conditions and weather in your riding behavior.
- keep your cool and exercise patience with other motorists stupidity.
- and probably most importantly, ride as if there are drivers out there that’s planning to kill you every time you ride.

After following all the rules there are some happenings that just falls in the category of “stuff happens”🤔
Be safe out there my fellow members.

Ride knowing a motorcycle always loses to a automobile.

Ride like you are invisible both visually and audibly to other people.

[tris]

Move to the country. I refuse to ride in a city, I'll take the Jeep. I do ride in country towns, like where I live.

This!

Come to Lincolnshire lazlokovacs.

I dread the times I need to go to London - and that's in the Octavia

They're all nutters south of Watford Gap Services 

PS Watford Gap Services is nowhere near Watford - it's just named that to keep people on their toes 

[blackcat]

Ride knowing a motorcycle always loses to a automobile.

Ride like you are invisible both visually and audibly to other people.

Exactly. 

For 25 plus years I rode in NYC traffic so I've assumed the worse and it made me a better rider. Now that I don't live there the little city that I live in has some bad drivers so I mostly ride in the country, but that isn't free of idiots either. There are just less of them.

[n3303j]

Misdirected attention just came up on AvWeb. We have a generation trained to "watch the screens". Now they are putting screen instrumentation into modern small airplanes. Instructors are finding out they have to push students eyes away from the screen and get them to look out the window and fly the plane.

I look at modern cars and see these huge color moving image screens right in sight of the driver. Bet that is keeping more drivers occupied inside their box instead of focusing attention out the windows.

[Vtduc]

Hi, I'm a newbee on this site, but have owned and ridden motorcycles for the last 45 years or so.  I have to echo the sentiments of all the previous posters.
I live in a very rural part of Vermont, which is already a low population state to begin with.  I the past 5 years I have NEVER gone on a ride without a cage driver doing something stupid or inconsiderate. When my wife asks me "how was your ride?" my usual gage is how many bad drivers/ assholes I encountered........ ."Not bad, only one or two idiots today"  It's getting bad and only will get worse, unfortunately.   If I lived in an urbanized setting, I would seriously consider giving up riding.

[n3303j]

Always enjoy riding & camping in Vermont



...but it's the only state I've ridden in that allows passing on the solid yellow center line! That just encourages stupidity.

[LowRyter]

I think it had something to do with that Harvest Moon.  I had two cars pull out left turns in front of me on a bike, and numerous people cut me off on bikes and in the car.  All of it during that week.  I'm not typically a believer in the moon influencing peoples' behaviors but it was so pronounced and so obvious that it made me wonder about it.

[Tkelly]

In addition to the incompetent and distracted drivers we have A lot of belligerent aggressive folks in this country who drive huge pickup trucks like they are in a NASCAR race,tailgating,passing on the right ,and cutting people off.Seems to be a general rudeness and lack of respect,maybe social media contributes and certain politicians as well.

[Huzo]

In addition to the incompetent and distracted drivers we have A lot of belligerent aggressive folks in this country who drive huge pickup trucks like they are in a NASCAR race,tailgating,passing on the right ,and cutting people off.Seems to be a general rudeness and lack of respect,maybe social media contributes and certain politicians as well.

They see the reward is worth the risk.
Simply pull their licence for life and they won’t do it.
When we indulge in risk taking behaviour, we are knowingly or otherwise, running the numbers based on a risk/reward calculation, based on our lived experience.
If you knew that being convicted of texting while driving, would certainly result in losing your licence permanently, would you do it ?
No…and if you do ?
You won’t do it again.
We need to stop as a society, deriving excuses for malicious acts towards others.
Just make the penalty, not worth the crime.

[LowRyter]

I had two more people turning in front of me today riding my Duc.  I think this makes 4 or more in the last week.  That's several years worth of left turn crazies in a week's time. 

[lazlokovacs]

LowRyter - people just aren't looking anymore

its smartphones i tell you!! they are designed to be extremely addictive and guess what? a whole generation of people are completely addicted!! 90per cent of people I see walking down the street are either death scrolling their phone or weirder still, just holding it in one of their hands. I'm guessing the stats are not very different when they're driving....

[bacongrease]

They see the reward is worth the risk.
Simply pull their licence for life and they won’t do it.
When we indulge in risk taking behaviour, we are knowingly or otherwise, running the numbers based on a risk/reward calculation, based on our lived experience.
If you knew that being convicted of texting while driving, would certainly result in losing your licence permanently, would you do it ?
No…and if you do ?
You won’t do it again.
We need to stop as a society, deriving excuses for malicious acts towards others.
Just make the penalty, not worth the crime.

 Around  here, lose your license, no problem, just drive on.     
Ditto, no insurance, no problem.

[Zenermaniac]

 Around  here, lose your license, no problem, just drive on.     
Ditto, no insurance, no problem.

Sounds like southern Ohio. Just catch and release. No problem.

[Huzo]

 Around  here, lose your license, no problem, just drive on.     
Ditto, no insurance, no problem.

So make the penalty for THAT, such that it just is not worth it.
Let’s start with mandatory 5 years inside and see where it goes from there.

[sdcr]

So make the penalty for THAT, such that it just is not worth it.
Let’s start with mandatory 5 years inside and see where it goes from there.

Huzo,

There are not enough prisons in this country...

[John Ulrich]

I'm done.  Sold 4 cycles, went to a swap meet and sold boots, 9 helmets etc.  My knees are not the best for supporting a bike at lights, sold the Wing after a slip.  Both rotator cuffs are fixed.  Not worth a texting driver smacking me.
I ride a recumbent trike (not as far to fall to the ground) and even my riding club pals get run over at intersections by cellphone drivers at least once a year.  I'm still burning gas only with Corvettes which I've played with for 40+ yrs.

[sdcr]

I cannot think of any other sport/pastime activity, that is negatively impacted by others action.

[moto]

…
I look at modern cars and see these huge color moving image screens right in sight of the driver. Bet that is keeping more drivers occupied inside their box instead of focusing attention out the windows.

Make everybody drive Alfas. My Stelvio has only a long, short screen tucked under the dash where a wooden trim panel used to go. You can do all the interaction with electronics using knobs on the center console. No reaching up to touch the screen, and no big screen in the driver’s line of sight. It would also be a nicer world if everybody drove Alfas. Just a suggestion. Maybe more realistic would be to require all cars to have knob controls like the Alfa has.

[skixc1]

When I found this thread, I wasn't surprised. I've been griping to friends about the idiot drivers on the road and thinking I am crazy to be out there riding a motorcycle. 75% of the cars are +15 mph above the speed limit, tailgating, cutting people off. I've read that even with all the safety measures built into cars, traffic deaths are up. Who would be surprised about that!
I just came back from a trip out west, I had two tractor trailers pass me and cut back in barely 25 feet in front of me. Here in Pennsylvania, I don't think the state police enforce the speed limit anymore. And now add cell phones and texting to all this??? You take your life in your hands.
I enjoy riding so much, I know that I could never give it up, I guess the only thing we can do is drive as defensively as possible.

[Stretch]

Here in Pennsylvania, I don't think the state police enforce the speed limit anymore.

Quote from a Georgia State Policeman via my brother from some years back:

"We have lost control of the Interstates."

Even truer today! The only blue lights one sees now during high traffic
periods are from troopers working accidents.

                                                -Stretch

                                                     

[blackcat]

Riding down I-65 in Alabama I watched some guy pass a line of cars in the break down lane. And that isn't the first time I've seen that performed south of Montgomery. 

"According to NHTSA's early estimates, the fatality rate for the first quarter of 2022 increased to 1.27 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, up from the projected rate of 1.25 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles in the first quarter of 2021.Aug 17, 2022"

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/early-estimates-first-quarter-2022#:~:text=According%20to%20NHTSA%27s%20early%20estimates,the%20first%20quarter%20of%202021.