What’s wrong with this picture?
As motorcyclists we are adept at complaining about cagers who do things that make riding more dangerous. We complain about them texting while driving, blocking their side view mirror with their phone to their ear, cutting us off in traffic, tailgating … you name it, we motorcyclists have complained many times about the cagers who seem to enjoy raising our level of danger. There is some irony in this picture.
You (I do) find it rather ironic that we as motorcyclists will complain about these sorts of bad driving techniques when cagers do them, but then we do the very same thing — to other motorcyclists. Here is an example.
This was part of my 45-mile commute home from work last Friday. Traffic is always heavy on I-10 in Phoenix and this Friday was no different. Traffic was crawling at around 30 miles per hour and I was keeping a vigilant eye on the traffic directly to my right. What’s wrong with this picture? The picture does show a problem – but not the problem I’d like to discuss. In this case, the rider in the rear on the right is following too close to his fellow motorcyclist.
Even if there is some level of staggering, there are three problems with this formation. First, by being so close to the rider in front, the rear rider significantly diminishes the front rider’s emergency egress routes — he limits the front rider to one egress – to the left. Second, these two riders are not on a group ride as friends who ride together and know each other’s riding mannerisms. Nope–the motorcyclist in the rear actually had just swerved into this lane disregarding the closeness of his fellow motorcyclist. How many times have you seen or experienced a group of riders who end up crashing because one didn’t realize another was going to do something? YouTube is littered with such videos. Check the video above to see just how close this motorcyclist is when he cuts into this lane. Finally, this fellow motorcyclist does exactly what would probably enrage him if a car did to him what he did to me. Watch the video and see how he cuts over two lanes, across a car’s path and into my lane taking away my 2-second safe following distance.
So I offer that as motorcyclists please consider what pisses us off and try not to do the same thing – especially to our fellow motorcyclists.
