Motorcycle awareness season
Motorcycle awareness month (May) is nearly over, but the sentiment is valid all year. In climates (like ours) with a winter that generally prohibits motorcycle riding, the pent-up demand creates a dense “motorcycle season” during spring, summer, and fall.
Please keep in mind that motorcyclists have all of the same rights and privileges as every other motor vehicle driver on the roadway. Drivers of all other vehicles and all other road users are encouraged to observe the riders’ mantra, “Share the road.” Be extra alert to help keep motorcyclists safe.
Experienced motorcyclists drive defensively, since it’s difficult for a rider to absorb a hit from another vehicle without injury to themselves. But novice riders occasionally need accommodation from other motorists, and expert ones still depend on predictability and conformity to the law by others.
Since drivers are generally looking for other cars, some have been known to see, yet not mentally register the presence of a motorcycle. Other times, due to their size, a smaller motorcycle or scooter may actually not be seen. Riding survival requires rider vigilance, but also relies upon an alert general motoring populace.
Motorcycles are very maneuverable, and most of them have superior acceleration to average cars. They come to a halt very quickly in a controlled stop, but don’t do well at all in a panic stop. That’s a reminder to riders to keep speeds and following distances within reason.
Just as there are good and bad automobile drivers, motorcyclists’ experience levels and riding behaviors vary. There are definitely riders who take too many chances, cut off other vehicles and squeeze into too-small spaces. But don’t let those riders influence your opinion of all motorcyclists, since the majority ride responsibly. In fact, it’s the scofflaws that you should watch most for; they may be behaving like idiots, but I don’t think anyone wants to run over them.
Along with motorcycles, this season generates increased bicycle and pedestrian traffic on our roadways. Washington RCW 46.61.110 states: The driver of a vehicle approaching a pedestrian or bicycle that is on the roadway or on the right-hand shoulder or bicycle lane of the roadway shall pass to the left at a safe distance to clearly avoid coming into contact with the pedestrian or bicyclist, and shall not again drive to the right side of the roadway until safely clear of the overtaken pedestrian or bicyclist.
That’s a law reader A.P. would like drivers to keep in mind, because he wrote, “I spend a lot of time in the street moving in the direction of traffic as a runner and cyclist. As either, I have as full a right to the road as any driver, and by necessity need to be there (pretty much have to run in the road in Spokane in the winter, there is no where else to go). I have on many occasions felt the brush of a passing car on my leg while riding my bike in Spokane. Unlike the tendency of Spokane drivers to slam on their brakes for pedestrians who might want to cross the road, Spokane drivers would never dream of crossing the midline (or even giving a few inches) to a runner or cyclist using the road. I have run and biked in multiple cities, and what I have found in other places is that drivers don’t slow down for you, they just go around you. Why can’t Spokane drivers do that?”
I agree that many drivers here (but likely everywhere) seem to make a game of coming close to bicyclists and runners as they pass by in motor vehicles. It’s a function of the thoughtful versus the thoughtless. Thoughtful drivers purposely give adequate room to others who have legal rights to use of the roadway; thoughtless ones, through either lack of attention or malicious intent, are mainly concerned with their own rights to the roadway.
Please follow the Golden Rule and treat others, whether they are in a similar or dissimilar transportation mode, the way you would wish to be treated. Like it or not, cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians all have rights to the roadways!
Readers may contact Bill Love via email at precisiondriving@spokesman.com.
