Ok, another near miss story, but I must. This week, the first three days are great riding weather, not so much in the morning, but on the ride home. Low 80’s, clear skies. Monday, the commute coming and going goes without a hitch. I take the long way home, nail all of my stops and starts very smoothly, take a nice twisty route that is the last 8 miles of my ride home. Wonderful ride.

Tuesday, smooth sailing on the way in. But, Tuesday on the way home, I am on a four lane road that is one of the most scenic on my route. Two lanes north and two lanes south, and no center divider of any kind. I tend to stay in the right lane, but road construction at one spot forces everyone into the left lane for a quarter mile or so.
I pass two cars, one a small red sedan, the one behind it, a medium sized SUV. As I pass the SUV and pull up even with her door, she moves over into my lane to pass the red car in front of her, and right on top of me. It took me a spilt second to realize what was happening, and I moved as far to my left as I could and hit the gas a little to pull away. I remember my tire just inside the yellow divider, I am almost out of lane before going into oncoming traffic coming at me at 50 mph, and her fender just off my right knee.
My acceleration and her braking or slowing once she saw me allowed me to get away from her.
Not really sure how bad it looked, but I thought my reaction was good for the situation. I made it.
I immediately was more angry than scared, and this is the part that bothers me. I more or less called her out at the next light. We ended up beside each other and I really gave her the “damn you almost killed me” look. That with me fuming at myself didn’t look to good. I feel I did all riders a disservice by not just blowing it off and thanking God for keeping me safe. She is thinking, “what a hot head” instead of “he handled that well, I need to be more attentive”. This also distracted me for the next few miles before I could clear it from my mind and concentrate on riding. I should have just pulled off for a few minutes.
I know she didn’t set out that day to kill me but, was she on a cell phone and totally oblivious to me, was I in her blind spot as I was passing her the very second she looked in her mirror and she just didn’t see me. What did I do wrong to cause any of it. Why did I look at her fender relative to my knee instead of where I needed the bike to go.

I almost didn’t ride on Wednesday, but thought I needed to just to get back on the horse so to speak. So I did.
Wednesday on the way home, same route, and while following another car that turned right onto a side street, I watched a large Ford roll up to the stop sign, and had a feeling he would not stop. I don’t think he saw me behind the turning car. I backed off, to give some room and to separate to be more visible. He still didn’t see me. I was off the gas and covering the brakes as he pulled out of the side street. I braked and swerved to my left as he saw me and stopped. Had he not stopped, I see no way I would have missed him. He followed me to the next stop sign, me turning left, and him right and he never stopped, just rolled thru the sign at maybe 15 mph, like no big deal to him at all.

So… I am questioning whether riding to work is worth it or not. Going in is easy, I leave home around 5:30, so very little traffic. But the afternoon ride is treacherous. People distracted, tired, just driving very badly, I don’t know.
I was not going to post, but did to share with everyone and maybe just to get it off my chest.
Be safe out there, I am taking the truck the rest of the week.

 

Inattentive/bad drivers and people driving with their heads up their a$$ are everywhere, as you know. As a motor officer, I have a siren and red and blues available with aflick of my finger or or thumb on the FLHTP I ride every day and I use them with great effect on dimwits like the ones you described to prevent such occurrences.

Now I'll tell you how I go about doing it on my '04 Ultra when riding off duty. I installed Motolights ($369) which mount on the front forks. Check 'em out on line, the have a video. They form a "light triangle" with your headlight thatmakes you a lot more visible to motorists about to pull out to pull ou in front of you/turn left in front of you. I use use them 24/7 as DRL's. They add nicely to your night time lighting too.

Hyperlites on the rear ($85). They are LED stobe/flashers in 8 or 16 light units (I use the 8's) that pulse wwhen you apply the brakes. They grab the attention of an inattentive driver behind you as you're braking, possibly keeping them from steamrolling you. Cheap insurance. They are small and virtually do not change the appearance of the bike.

A good air hor to replace tthe stock air horn. Every motor officer quickly learns how to flick his or her left thumb to blast the siren to warn a driverthey are about to run into them. It has save me from harm many times. A good LOUD air horn serves the same purpose. My choice of air horn was after a lot of reserch, and is admittedly pricey ($400), but it is the best. Excellent alternstives are Rivco, Howard's Horns, and the Mini Beast. The stock HD horn is a joke.

I'm not sure if these mods would have prevented your close calls, but they might have. I'll never know how many crashes or close calls my mods have saved me. That's what they're there for. To stop bad stuff before it ever starts.

I'm glad you're ok. Glad you held your temper. Ride safe!

 

I didn't say the name of my air horn-it's the Authentic Air Horn by Meister Industries. True 130 decibles.

 

If she was scared by the close call and you gave her the evil eye later,maybe she'll wake up and be more aware of what's going on around her.
You didn't do anyone a disservice in my opinion,in fact you may just have saved someone else.

 

I think you've just had a run of bad luck. Let's hope it doesn't continue.

Why not let us know if you experience the same thing in your truck? Actually, this might be an interesting experiment - how much you perceive other people's driving errors while inside it, as opposed to being "more exposed" on your bike.

 

You did nobody a disservice,as long as it didn't get physical.She almost wrecked you and you woke her up to the fact.Mistakes happen,and maybe you were in her blind spot.I ride a lot with my wife,following on her FLHX,and my peeve is these A-HOLES that insist on riding right on her rear fender.Cannot tell you how many times I have made her pull in front to give the culprit an ear beating.Those are the ones who put our lives at risk because of their impatience,even though there is a line of traffic and they aren't going anywhere.

 

I don't think you did anything wrong by giving her a "stern look".

Last time something like that happened to me I made sure the driver "understood my point of view" I didn't threaten to get physical with him, I just told him that "that won't make my wife and kids feel better at the funeral", as kept repeating "He didn't see me."

 

Just a string of bad luck. There are a lot of crazies out there. I had days were it was like people were out there to kill me. Almost got hit by 2 cars in a span of 20 mins on the highway. You need to familiarize yourself with the horn.

 

Seems to me you had every right to do more than glare at the broad in the van, but I doubt it would have done much good for her or you. Your restraint is commendable. Let's hope she learned something.

 

I hate to stereotype but I'm going to. I've had WAAAAAAAAY too many near misses with a bimbo on the phone, big $hit! eating happy face, oblivious to everything around them as they motor along. Yep some guys too, just not proportionally as many.

I used to believe that we talk to people in our car while driving, and mostly handle it well, so the phone is no big deal, but no longer.

It's a real problem, and many people (Cages and bikes) are dying because of them.