Lately, on my daily commute, whenever I end up behind a motorcycle, they not only leave a noticeably larger gap in front of them (than I would in a car), they also slow down much more gradually and over a longer distance. This isn’t just accident or timing, because when a traffic signal changes, they will accelerate slower, to restore that oddly large gap. I’ve seen them even slow to a crawl (like 18-wheelers will do) and snake back and forth across a lane to avoid coming to a complete stop.
I know almost nothing about motorbikes, only that they are much more agile than cars, and the lack of protection greatly magnifies the damage from any accident/spill.
This. Most (careful) motorcyclists will leave room in front when in traffic to make up for the car drivers (cagers, as they are known) lack of stopping distance.
Also, motorcycles don’t have anti-lock brakes (as a general rule).
less surface area for breaking means that modern cars with ABS can stop faster
The personal costs of following too close on a motorcyclist are far higher than the average person in a car would suffer during an accident.
3 ) By increasing following distance you also increase the following distance of cars behind you, providing them with more time to react so they are less likely to pin you between the two cars if they fail to stop.
In general people tend to overestimate their abilities and follow way to close anyway, which is why there are so many accidents are rear endings.
it is fun, and useful to try to go as slow as possible as it builds muscle memory and improves riding skills.
This is a big one. A motorcyclist can’t control the following distance of a car behind them. All they can do, if they feel the car behind is too close, is to increase their own following distance so they can slow more gradually themselves and avoid being rear ended.
Stopping a motorbike very quickly is more dangerous than stopping a car very quickly because it’s far less stable. All the more so if the bike doesn’t have ABS.
In many cases, a motorbike will require a greater distance to stop from the same speed. A car will have twice as many brakes and several times as much rubber on the road.
As you note, the lack of protection greatly magnifies the damage from any accident. If a bike runs into the back of a car even at low relative speed it probably won’t go well for the rider.
So it’s prudent for a motorcyclist to leave a larger gap.
Most drivers in America are shitty drivers, though it wasn’t always this way. The ubiquitous combination of texting and driving makes city traffic a death-trap, which is why I sold my motorcycle a long time ago.
I will add another reason that is partially related to the others and something I observed repeatedly over the weekend. Those little potholes on a highway (I’m looking a you I-5 and I-90 near seattle) that your car sails over with just a bunch of noise can wreak havoc for someone on two wheels- same with other road debris. Having an extra second of lead time after the car in front “uncovers” such an obstacle to pick a better line on the road can mean a lot as far as safety goes.
That’s simply to avoid putting their feet down and then having to take off again from 0. You’ll see it even more in situations where they’d have to do it over and over, like a 3 or 4 cars in front of them at a stop sign.
And it’s not like it’s a big deal to take off from zero, at least part of it is for fun.
When I took my MSF class having to come to a rolling stop and then taking off again is taught and practiced. Even on the final test/exam, you have to go as slow as possible for some set length. In motorcycle rodeos one of the things is to see how slow you can go.
For the record, they weren’t telling us to roll through stop signs, it’s just an exercise in using the throttle and brake and handling the bike. Like a regular bike, it handles differently when going very slow than it does at just about any speed over a few mph.
And just to reiterate what everyone else has been saying, you really don’t want to stop to fast if it’s at all avoidable. Locking up either your front or rear wheel can be bad, for different reasons.
Its so that
A) We dont get crushed between you and the car in front when you dont stop
then we at least have a change of an out.
B) So you notice we are actually stopping, because many drivers can not see a motorcycle right in front of them (or so they claim)
Also if you are not speeding on your bike, unlike cars, many times you wont even need to use the brakes hardly to stop, which on a bike can extend the life of costly little tires. A tire that would cost 40 bucks on a car costs 100 bucks for a motorcycle
And lots of braking and acceleration shortens their life a good deal, much much less life than the tire on a car which may run 40k 50k miles
Snaking back and forth is useless, just bored or lazy i guess and dont want to put their foot down.
A large gap also gives you a place to accelerate into when the car in front of you creeps up to speed and you want a little more stability on take off without appearing to hold up traffic or getting to close the the car infront.
I snake around mostly for the reason Weisshund mentions, bored and lazy. Sometimes road grooves jostle me some. Sometimes to use the rest of my tires more, it’s really flat here so most roads are really straight and flat :(.
It’s for much the same reason – it takes both of them longer to stop in an emergency. Trucks have a whole lot of weight behind them, an motorcycles have only 2 wheels on the pavement, unlike the 4 in cars (and cars usually have fancy ABS braking). Also, cycles are much less stable – stop too fast, especially with more weight in front, and the cycle will flip up, and toss the driver onto the pavement, or in front of another vehicle.
Motorcycles generally take much more distance to stop than cars in the real world, and emergency braking from high speed is really hard and dangerous. Do it wrong, and it’s easy to lose control.
For example, the most effective braking is on the front tire, because braking throws your weight and the weight of the bike over the front tire giving it more grip. But braking with the front tire alone can easily cause you to lose control of the bike. So you get taught that in emergency braking you start with the front, then add the back brake. But in a panic, it’s hard to coordinate like that. So most people hit the foot brake for the back wheel first. At slow speed, that’s more controllable. At high speed, again having the weight of you and the bike thrown forward you can unload the back tire, which will then break free and throw you into a slide. Therefore, it’s hard for people to attain theoretical braking distances on a bike (which even theoretically stops longer than a car).
One time I came close to an accident on my bike, I was on the freeway. I left a large gap in front of me, which a clueless driver in the other lane then squeezed into, then hit his brakes because the car in front of him did and he had no space to carefully slow down. I tried all my best emergency braking manoevers, and still wound up sideways on the bike at about 50 mph. I just barely kept it under control and managed to stop maybe five feet from the other guy’s bumper with my heart racing madly. One minute I was commuting along safely, and suddenly I was a hair’s breadth from dropping my bike at 50 mph on a crowded freeway. Just because some asshole couldn’t be bothered to think about what he was doing, or wasn’t paying attention.
After that, I learned to be even more cautious on the road. I never passed anyone unless I was sure they knew I was there. I got into the habit of looking at the other drivers before I passed to make sure they weren’t texting, or adjusting the radio, or arguing with someone else in the car. And let me tell you, once you start doing that it gets very scary. A high percentage of drivers just don’t have their heads in the game, for many reasons. I once saw a woman with an iPad in the center of her steering wheel. She was watching a movie while driving.
Sometimes stuff like this makes you want to never take a motorbike on a public road again.
Like on a bicycle, hard braking can cause you to wipe out. Also, as mentioned potholes can cause a loss of control, but so can wet metal or painted lines (especially new thermoplastic), as well as loose gravel or sand. Those innocuous manhole covers, bridge expansion joints, stop lines, lane arrows, or a spilled bag of aquarium stones can easily cause a wipeout on a bike, whether motorized or not, whereas in a car it might only cause the briefest skid if anything at all.
Sam Stone, I was with you, until this:
“I never passed anyone unless I was sure they knew I was there.”
It’s impossible to know what the driver knows. They can be looking right at you, and not see you. IMO, it’s better to ride as if I’m invisible. I’m constantly imaging what the worst action is that drivers could take, and trying to create escape routes.
That wasn’t quite what I meant. I agree that you should assume you aren’t being seen, but I also look to make sure that the driver is at least paying attention to the road. I still pass carefully, but I won’t pass at all if I can see that the driver is distracted.
This is a common misconception. Static friction is, to a first approximation, independent of surface area. Besides, it’s not friction between the front wheel and tire that limits motorcycle braking; it’s pitchover. If friction were the limiting factor, pitchover (an endo) wouldn’t be possible.
Cars can stop faster than motorcycles mostly because they can’t pitch over. Rear-engined cars—mostly the Porsche 911—brake so well because they have a strong rearward weight bias. A long, low motorcycle with similar weight distribution to a 911 would brake nearly as well.