I'm not OP but I do ride and experienced the same.
If you're taking it seriously and respect the danger, you learn how to drive as if you are invisible. You learn to pay attention to and anticipate the movements of other drivers, to look at their wheels and not their eyes. Eyes lie, wheels do not.
You learn just how careless a shocking majority of people are behind the wheel of a two ton vehicle. You peek into every window for the glimpse of a hand reaching for a turn signal stalk, and all too often see a horrifying lack of attention paid to the road and a surplus of attention paid to a phone, eating, putting makeup on, putting contact lenses in, and smoking pot.
You learn to never hang out in a bind spot. Never!
You avoid situations where a car turning left in front of you (USA) has poor visibility. Usually due to a left turn lane and tight conditions. This exact scenario is responsible for a large percentage of moto accidents and anecdotally I have had two close calls myself, and I'm a highly cautious rider.
You avoid positions on the road which are statistically dangerous for riders.
Obviously these are things you can learn in a car, but it's just different. The stakes are higher for small accidents and you really are invisible to many people, even with hi-vis gear, motorcycles are just smaller at the end of the day and Americans are not used to them nor trained to keep them in mind on the road.
Thanks for the reply. I agree not hanging out in someone's blind spot and anticipating other drivers' actions are extremely important things to keep in mind while driving.
- We're trained to look and anticipate much further down the road than car drivers are.
- Unlike car drivers, we don't get to space out and rely on our mental autopilots to wake us up when something goes off-nominal. It's a much more active and deliberate process.
- We develop a "sixth sense" for when cars are going to change lanes without signaling (there are lots of cues: driver head movement, matching speed to find an open space, wheels turning, etc) and tend to catch these events far, far ahead of our current positions.
- Rounding curves is a highly deliberate process for motorcyclists, one of the biggest components being "look all the way through the turn." Since learning to ride, I no longer get surprised by developments around a corner, because I've been looking at and planning around them since before I entered the corner. I also get more frustrated by my A-pillar thwarting this attempt, lean so I can see around it, and would be less likely to buy a car with a dangerously enormous A-pillar like a Prius.
- Less safety-related, but I also now drive the way you're supposed to ride: slow down approaching the corner to create plenty of distance from the car ahead of you, look all the way through and plan your path through it, then accelerate through that path. Decelerating through a curve/turn is horrible for motorcycle stability and I get pissed off when people brake through curves in front of me, even in a car.
Not the parent, but a fellow motorcyclist. The biggest thing for me was learning to better anticipate the actions of other motorists. A couple of other things you quickly learn are to always leave yourself an out and always be watching/scanning your surroundings.
Car drivers should be doing the same, but it's entirely too easy to get complacent.
I learned that car drivers cannot see motorbikes, so when I'm driving a car, I specifically look for them; every time I check the mirrors, or am waiting to pull out or across, I'm specifically looking for a motorbike, and when I shift lane I turn my head to see what model of motorbike is sitting in my blind spot.
There are not many motorcycle drivers near where I live and I noticed that they are more difficult to spot than other vehicles when you're changing lanes. I'll make sure to keep that in mind.
THE_PUN_STOPS|8 years ago
If you're taking it seriously and respect the danger, you learn how to drive as if you are invisible. You learn to pay attention to and anticipate the movements of other drivers, to look at their wheels and not their eyes. Eyes lie, wheels do not.
You learn just how careless a shocking majority of people are behind the wheel of a two ton vehicle. You peek into every window for the glimpse of a hand reaching for a turn signal stalk, and all too often see a horrifying lack of attention paid to the road and a surplus of attention paid to a phone, eating, putting makeup on, putting contact lenses in, and smoking pot.
You learn to never hang out in a bind spot. Never!
You avoid situations where a car turning left in front of you (USA) has poor visibility. Usually due to a left turn lane and tight conditions. This exact scenario is responsible for a large percentage of moto accidents and anecdotally I have had two close calls myself, and I'm a highly cautious rider.
You avoid positions on the road which are statistically dangerous for riders.
Obviously these are things you can learn in a car, but it's just different. The stakes are higher for small accidents and you really are invisible to many people, even with hi-vis gear, motorcycles are just smaller at the end of the day and Americans are not used to them nor trained to keep them in mind on the road.
viral_krieger|8 years ago
closeparen|8 years ago
- We're trained to look and anticipate much further down the road than car drivers are.
- Unlike car drivers, we don't get to space out and rely on our mental autopilots to wake us up when something goes off-nominal. It's a much more active and deliberate process.
- We develop a "sixth sense" for when cars are going to change lanes without signaling (there are lots of cues: driver head movement, matching speed to find an open space, wheels turning, etc) and tend to catch these events far, far ahead of our current positions.
- Rounding curves is a highly deliberate process for motorcyclists, one of the biggest components being "look all the way through the turn." Since learning to ride, I no longer get surprised by developments around a corner, because I've been looking at and planning around them since before I entered the corner. I also get more frustrated by my A-pillar thwarting this attempt, lean so I can see around it, and would be less likely to buy a car with a dangerously enormous A-pillar like a Prius.
- Less safety-related, but I also now drive the way you're supposed to ride: slow down approaching the corner to create plenty of distance from the car ahead of you, look all the way through and plan your path through it, then accelerate through that path. Decelerating through a curve/turn is horrible for motorcycle stability and I get pissed off when people brake through curves in front of me, even in a car.
viral_krieger|8 years ago
pmh|8 years ago
Car drivers should be doing the same, but it's entirely too easy to get complacent.
EliRivers|8 years ago
viral_krieger|8 years ago