"Jay Honeck" wrote in news:1151811765.345086.45160
@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com:

I now take active, positive, and if necessary, aggressive
control of my driving situation. If I sense even the
slightest hint of danger (the list of hints is huge),
then I do something to remove that danger from my presense.
I now have the attitude on the road that I *DO* own it
and to hell with everybody else and to hell with the
laws.

I agree with you...to a point.

There are many, MANY hints of impending danger when riding, and many
little tricks that I've learned to spot it well in advance.

Yes, and although one could write them all down for others
to memorize, experience is the best teacher.

For example, when I see a vehicle stopped on a cross road
or driveway, I look at the front wheel. It's much easier
to notice the wheel turning slightly than it is to notice
the vehicles forward motion. If the wheel is turning, the
vehicle is moving.

These new fangled spinning hubcaps should be banned IMNSHO.
My first encounter with them caused me to slam on my brakes.

Another one is that I somehow can sense when a person is
about to make a lane change. There've been many times my
"spidey sense started tingling" and I had the hunch that
a vehicle was about to change lanes. Sure enough they did.
This one bugs me as many times I cannot figure out what
the clue was that I was obviously picking up on. I do have
a habit of looking in peoples mirrors in the vehicle I'm
following, so maybe I'm noticing them looking around. But
I don't always notice it consciously.

Another favorite tactic is white lining. In a perfect
scenario I white line to the front while everyone is stopped
at a red light. Then, I take off fast enough to stay ahead
of everybody, only to catch up to the next block of cars
stopped at the next red light. This one works best on
routes that one travels frequently and knowledge of the
timing of the signals along that route. The upshot is that
I am only near other vehicles when they aren't moving.


These
hints, when detected, require action to be taken NOW, without
hesitation -- whether it means flashing your bright lights, beeping
your horn, or hitting the binders. He who hesitates is lost,
especially when you're surrounded by brain-dead motorists.

Absolutely. Again, this only comes with experience, but you
must become the bike. You can't think about what you need
to do. It must just happen. You decide you need to maneuver
to a certain position and it just happens. A person doesn't
normally think about how to pick up a leg and how to bend
the joints in order to step forward. They just do it.

I may have forgot to say this, but this is why my tactics
work for me, and may not work for anyone else.

There have been times I've reacted to a situation only to
pause and wonder how on Earth I did it.


Luckily, my only riding since the kids were born (16 years ago) has
been largely rural, cross-country cycling -- and damned little of that.
Of course, there was a guy my age that was killed here last week when
a deer jumped out in front of him -- so "rural" doesn't always mean
"safe", either...

Lately I have not been riding as much as I used to. I used
to ride every day. It was my primary transportation. In fact,
I've ridden so little lately that my clutch hand has got weak.
Harley's are known for their tight clutches. After 20 minutes
my arm is killing me now.

Brian
--
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