Apart from the illegal lane split, what was so bad about this? If there are two cars side-by-side in lock-step for minutes on end when there are vehicles waiting to pass, that’s the douchebag maneuver.
Agreed! The motorcyclist cleared the path not just for the bikers, but also for the cars. Including StrTrkr777’s.
Braking to get someone to back off, especially when it’s serving you and your friends, is messed up. Yeah, illeglly lane split and go on your way, don’t fuck with the cars too.
The braking was to separate the two side-by-side cars which were in effect forming a road block. I think that’s okay, if prior attempts don’t wake up the driver in the fast lane — like flash to pass.
Agree or no?
The straight dope is that most Americans are pretty poor drivers, and when you get to motorcycle riding the operators are even worse.
The straighter dope is that motorcyclists have to be, must be, much better than other drivers. In order to live long, that has to be the case.
Motorcycles are inherently unstable. You have to balance them. In any accidents with cars they are at a distinct disadvantage.
We learn to survive, and yet for those that ride on, we thrive.
A road block. :dubious: We don’t know how long these cars were side by side. We don’t know if the car in the left hand lane was getting off soon on a left hand exit. There’s no evidence that the car in the right hand lane was doing anything wrong. Yet apparently it was okay to illegally lane split, brake check the car in the right going HIGHWAY SPEED until there was enough time for his buddies to illegally pass other cars on the right so they can all go speed on down the road. No, not okay. Dangerous and dickish move.
We weren’t told about any prior attempts (which is irrelevant to whether a dangerous and illegal maneuver should be performed) and you think it’s okay to do to the person in the right lane because the driver in the left lane didn’t use the left lane as a passing lane (which is sometimes legal in AL)? It’s never “okay” behavior to slow a car down going highway speed so your buddies can catch up with you because for some unknown amount of time a car in the left lane made it impossible to pass.
And sometimes it is OK to do this. Moving road blocks, when there is no left exit, and when there is no other reason for being a road block other than either total cluelessness or intentionally inconveniencing the drivers behind, is the dickish behavior here.
Why is that okay? Since you think this is okay you cannot also believe that we are to share the road.
Dickish behavior.
I once merged onto a freeway and saw this behind me. Cars forming a moving road block, for a long time, and with no left exits in sight. They passed right exits and kept blocking the highway. Whether it was intentional or not, hard to tell, but there were many cars piled up behind them. So I moved to the right lane and coasted to a slower speed — 55, 50, 45, which forced the road-blocking car in the right lane to slow down.
I am well within my legal right to do this — drive slower in the far right lane. It broke up the road block and released the cars behind like the opening of flood gates.
They were the dickish ones.
2 cars driving the speed limit down the road are intercepted by 3 motorcycles who prefer a faster speed. One of them splits traffic illegally and brake checks someone
What could possible go wrong with that? hmmmm. Maybe the driver doesn’t know he’s being brake checked because he’s looking in the rear view mirror in anticipation of the other 2 jackasses doing something stupid. He then runs over hits the first motorcycle causing a cascade of cars, motorcycles and parts all over the road.
So, you just go ahead and make up a new scenario NOW and claim that’s what you were saying was “sometimes” okay?
We were given a specific incident by StrTrkr777 which wasn’t fully detailed and included LANE SPLITTING WITH CARS THAT WERE GOING HIGHWAY SPEED. No, it’s not sometimes okay to do that. This was a response followed by yours:
Machine Elf:* Apart from the illegal lane split, what was so bad about this? If there are two cars side-by-side in lock-step for minutes on end when there are vehicles waiting to pass, that’s the douchebag maneuver.*
Bullitt:* Agreed! The motorcyclist cleared the path not just for the bikers, but also for the cars. Including StrTrkr777’s.*
Regardless of unknown details (like the made up “minutes on end”), it’s not okay to illegally pass vehicles by lane splitting cars travelling highway speeds, slow down a car going highway speed that isn’t doing anything wrong long enough so your pals can also pass illegally so you can all ride together.
In Alabama, if I’m interpreting the law correctly, it’s not illegal to drive in the left lane as long as one is not “proceeding at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions.”
IME, places like here in NJ where the left lane is strictly for passing, driving in the left lane freaks people out much more than in states where the left lane is not strictly for passing. Either way, breaking the law and being a dick isn’t the solution.
I think it’s okay to intentionally inconvenience drivers behind you because…
Lame. YOU JUST NOW made up a scenario and claim that I think it’s an okay one. Again, we don’t know why the driver was driving in the left lane or if it was legal to do so; it could have been for a good and legal reason and it may have been for a short amount of time. It sounds like it was for a short amount of time based on this:
I saw 3 bikes coming up in the right lane.
Which sounds like they weren’t there all along; they had just sped up to to everyone in front of them.
Irrelevant. You made up a scenario that doesn’t necessarily correspond to StrTrkr777’s experience and it’s not “okay” to break the law with another dickish move that is also dangerous for everyone. Freaking drivers out by lane splitting at highway speeds is not “okay” along with the other dickishness by all three riders.
Uh-huh.
I don’t like how common it is for people to drive slow in the left lane here in NJ, but I would dislike much more the behavior by the motorcyclists as described by StrTrkr777 becoming a common way to not just be more patient.
Do you ride? Seriously, do you?
Many riders do not lane split, but many riders do. It has its risks, but generally can be done safely. I don’t commute daily on a bike, but I used to, rain or shine or black ice. And I would lane split all the time, though not on black ice!, and usually not when traffic was above 25-30.
I have lane split at 65, briefly and very rarely. It is much more common in So Cal.
It can be done pretty safely, although if a cop sees you, you’ll likely get a ticket.
Which makes me wonder, if lane splitting at freeway speeds is common in So Cal, what happens if a CHP sees you? My guess, if the CHP is in a car, they likely couldn’t catch the rider (although you can’t outrun Motorola).
Such a bizarre set of intentions. First you lane split because it’s all about you and your friends getting out in front of everyone else, and then you take it upon yourself to intervene upon the traffic pattern of the cars. Why not just go your way and not brake check, which is messed up behavior?
But gigi, what about “the road-blocking car in the right lane”?
Yes, I have a couple of motorcycles and ride down to 35 degrees. I almost hit other motorcycles on the road once because they made rapid lane changes around me that I didn’t anticipate because I was looking at traffic in my mirror. Driving between 2 cars is an unanticipated maneuver and the rider is driving right through a blindspot to do it. Not only is the driver not expecting it he can’t see it happening at the most critical point.
I don’t know what to say to something that dangerous except to suggest you carry your donor card with you at all times.
It can’t be done safely. That’s why it’s illegal. You can get away with it but that’s not the same as saying it’s safe. As an example: You can rock climb with no ropes and live to tell about it but that doesn’t make it safe.
“They”? I don’t see the driver in the right lane necessarily being dickish. And I’m not so certain what you did was within your legal rights- slowing down a car going over 55 to 45 so you can be the traffic hero. It wasn’t safe, either. Getting in front of a car and purposely slowing it down to 45 mph on a freeway, for no apparent reason to the driver such as exiting, is a very good way to incite road rage or aggressive driving. Don’t be the hero by being a dick.
slowing a car down to 45 on the freeway means the car behind has to slow down to a lesser speed and the car behind that car to a lesser speed… This is what causes accidents and kills people.
But that all happens BEHIND the person who starts it with a brake check. So they’ll never know.
^ In fairness, Bullitt said “I moved to the right lane and coasted to a slower speed” not “brake checked”, but still not a safe thing to do, especially since it was done after lane splitting some speed greater than 55 mph. It can absolutely cause road rage to pass going that fast just to get in front of someone and make it apparent you are purposely slowing down a driver in the right lane. Also, like you said, slowing someone down like that can still cause an accident, even if not done by brake checking. This behavior doesn’t jibe with the declaration Bullitt made regarding how motorcyclists must be much better than other drivers, all to be the hero that made it so other drivers can go some speed faster than the over 55 mph they were already travelling at. And it’s not uncommon for traffic to go right back where it was moments later.
How does that jibe with the much higher accident rate/fatality rate for motorcyclists. All those dastardly fiends in cars overcoming our superior road skills?
I’ve been riding for almost 40 years now and most riders I’ve seen have sucky riding skills and exhibit poor judgment across a broad spectrum of riding practices from riding without safety gear to thinking a 200mph sport bike or 800lb cruiser makes a perfect learner. In my opinion, the chief reason riding seems so dangerous is how many people simply ride poorly; when non-riders lecture me about the dangers, citing some hurt/killed relative, I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying “He/she was probably riding like an idiot.”
Bullitt said that motorcyclists must be better that other drivers in order to live long; he didn’t say that they are better than other drivers.
The fatality rate is higher, surely mostly due to not being strapped inside a much less vulnerable vehicle. I couldn’t find any info that motorcyclists have a higher accident rate (just looking at accidents, not injuries or fatalities). Do you have a cite?
The higher fatality rate should be kinda obvious. There’s no seat belt on a motorcycle. There’s no protective cage around the biker. There is no crumple zone on a bike to absorb the impact. The biker is the crumple zone. When a bike hits a car, it’s not that uncommon for the car to get a dent and the biker to get killed. Sideswipe a car, and you’ll scratch some paint and dent the metal. Sideswipe a bike and the rider goes flying off of his bike and gets seriously injured.
IIRC, the most common accident on a bike comes from losing control in a turn. In many cases, it’s because the biker misjudged the turn. Do the same thing in a car and you’ll squeal the tires a bit, but no biggie. On a bike, you end up going off of the road. Or maybe the biker hits a bit of gravel, or a tar snake. A car wouldn’t even notice, but on that same turn, the bike goes off the road.
You can probably make a valid argument that a lot of these types of accidents come from squids coming into turns too hot. However, gravel and tar snakes will put you down quick, even if the biker is riding responsibly. Heck, I hit a tiny apple once that I couldn’t even see because the shadows from a leafy tree camouflaged it on the road. It made my front tire skip while going around a turn. There was definitely a bit of pucker factor involved, but I recovered ok, but that could have easily wiped me out.
Bikes are inherently less stable than cars, so I’d expect the accident rate for bikes to be higher. I would be very surprised if it wasn’t.
But this is Bullitt’s point. If a car driver isn’t paying attention and one wheel hits an apple going around a turn, the driver might not even notice, but a biker can easily be wiped out. We have to be better drivers just to survive. If we’re not ready for anything the road throws at us, if we’re riding along and kinda zoning out and not paying much attention, we can go down a lot easier than a car can. If the car in front of us suddenly slams on his brakes, the zoned-out car driver sees the brake lights, reacts a bit slowly, and slams on his brakes, skidding to a halt without hitting the stopped car. Do that on a bike and you’re going over the handlebars and your body will be slamming into that stopped car. We have to be more alert. We have to be better drivers.
The most common accident by far when another vehicle is involved is the car turning in front of the bike when the biker has the right of way. These can be difficult to avoid. So yeah, in this case it quite often is a dastardly fiend (more like a clueless idiot, IMHO) in a car overcoming our superior driving skills.