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[laramie LC4]

even though my bike will be here on tuesday, i just had to go for spin yesterday. so i went down to my dealer buddy, signed the paper again, and he handed me the keys to the demo FX-S. it had been awhile since i had ridden the FX-S and wanted to remind myself what it was like. well, it just as awesome as i remember but the silence really messes with other people. i almost got ran over 2 times yesterday because they did not hear/see me. the last one was a gma with a kid, came right over into my lane and almost took me out with the back of the car. i was able to honk, get on the brake, then blast around the other side of the car and let them know of my displeasure. i think i might have scared gma a little, the kid just looked terrified already. 

anyways, it was fun and i'm getting better at the speed control. cant wait till tuesday....

laters,

laramie 

[JaimeC]

I think my one survival advantage here is that before I got into motorcycles, i rode BICYCLES everywhere.  Not even getting my driver's license changed how often I rode my bicycle.  With that in mind, I was quite well versed in being completely invisible in traffic, and that carried over to motorcycles as well.

Never had a need for "loud pipes," that just gives the rider a false impression that everybody now knows he's there and will avoid him.  Yeah... right.  No, the ONLY person responsible for keeping you safe is YOU.  You can't count on ANYONE else to take responsibility for YOUR safety in traffic; so you have to constantly be aware of what is going on around you.

At this point in time I don't even think I can explain HOW I know someone is about to do something stupid to endanger my life, I just "KNOW."  Probably a real-life "Spider Sense" or something.  Either that, or I always expect other drivers to do something stupid and I'm rarely disappointed...

[quixotic]

i almost got ran over 2 times yesterday because they did not hear/see me. the last one was a gma with a kid, came right over into my lane and almost took me out with the back of the car. i was able to honk, get on the brake, then blast around the other side of the car and let them know of my displeasure. i think i might have scared gma a little, the kid just looked terrified already. 

Do you wear brightly colored clothing and helmet?  The black/yellow combo is your friend. That was one of my main criteria when I last hunted for a new helmet.

[morimaxx]

Indeed yellow black combo is visible even when dark or foggy

[Semper Why]

At this point in time I don't even think I can explain HOW I know someone is about to do something stupid to endanger my life, I just "KNOW."  Probably a real-life "Spider Sense" or something.  Either that, or I always expect other drivers to do something stupid and I'm rarely disappointed...

It's not terribly strange. It's your experience from driving & riding over the years giving you a deep pattern set.

All learning is essentially pattern recognition. Everything from figuring out how to catch a ball to your language skills to your ability to do basic math is the result of you being shown information and being able to recognize similar events when they occur again. After many years of being on the road, your brain now has a wide and deep set of events to draw from. When you were new at it, you wouldn't have been able to recognize the subtle clues, such as the way the car starts to slightly drift in the lane, the slight slowdown in speed, the change in the shadow in the wing mirror as the driver turns their head, etc. before the driver decides to come over.  But after years of seeing little clues like this and correlating those clues with the movement of the vehicle, you recognize the patterns. It seems like a sixth sense, but it's mostly a lot of pattern recognition that is won through long experience.

[Doug S]

I'm still of the opinion that it's a pretty poor rider that tries to keep himself safe by relying on other people seeing or hearing him. It's YOUR job to keep YOURSELF out of the way of stray vehicles/animals/pedestrians, and if anything, loud pipes make that more difficult to do. If it's a matter of them hearing my loud pipes, or myself being able to hear them because I ride a very quiet bike, I trust myself far more than I trust every other driver out there.

[melbrader]

Doug S  I agree  with everything your said. so true and so correct. I have an SR and if I was counting on my loud pipes to keep me out of trouble I would be In a lot of trouble. I feel so much safer with my quite motorcycle then with any of my 8 gas bikes I rode for years.

[Kocho]

Obnoxiously loud pipes do indeed tend to warn drivers of motorcycles incoming from behind. I often hear them far enough away before I ever see them. But only in relatively slow traffic and if I don't have the radio cranked-up. So yes, I would not rely on that in the least.

What I have noticed very clearly though is that motorcycles are "invisible" due to the small head-on profile and because some of us tend to change position/lanes so quickly that car drivers assume we are not where they looked for space a moment ago - a car would not have filled-up that space but a motorcycle could.

Finally, I see a very noticeable increase of awareness of where I am by other drivers when I dress with a bright hi-vis jacket vs. when I am in my plain riding clothes. More drivers would stop for me at intersections rather than try to get in front of me when I have the right of way - simply because they see me coming from farther away. Same holds true for when I was riding the much more visible white and with large fairings Vectrix vs. the slim profile and mostly black SR.

[quixotic]

Here's a very timely link stressing the importance of bright clothing:
http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/study-bright-colors-save-lots-motorcyclists-lives

[johnphillips390]

At this point in time I don't even think I can explain HOW I know someone is about to do something stupid to endanger my life, I just "KNOW."  Probably a real-life "Spider Sense" or something.  Either that, or I always expect other drivers to do something stupid and I'm rarely disappointed...

It's not terribly strange. It's your experience from driving & riding over the years giving you a deep pattern set.

All learning is essentially pattern recognition. Everything from figuring out how to catch a ball to your language skills to your ability to do basic math is the result of you being shown information and being able to recognize similar events when they occur again. After many years of being on the road, your brain now has a wide and deep set of events to draw from. When you were new at it, you wouldn't have been able to recognize the subtle clues, such as the way the car starts to slightly drift in the lane, the slight slowdown in speed, the change in the shadow in the wing mirror as the driver turns their head, etc. before the driver decides to come over.  But after years of seeing little clues like this and correlating those clues with the movement of the vehicle, you recognize the patterns. It seems like a sixth sense, but it's mostly a lot of pattern recognition that is won through long experience.

Very, very true