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> Brake with a wheel on a piece of cardboard and chances are you'll just slide. Same for an oil slick. Also autumn leaves. Like sheets of graphene. It's worth

> Brake with a wheel on a piece of cardboard and chances are you'll just slide. Same for an oil slick. Also autumn leaves. Like sheets of graphene. It's worth remembering that a car will always brake faster and turn more sharply than a motorbike. It's also worth remembering that after every rain, the road is slick for a half hour or so while all the oily crap and rubbery crap washes off.

i_am_proteus 3y ago
Cars always brake faster, except when the car is behind you, in which case it will brake slower than you in a straight line (and you'll get rear-ended if you stop too quickly). If I ever need to stop very quickly, I try to end up in the "lane split" position, stopped in between two stopped vehicles. This has saved me from some nasty rear-end collisions a few times.
- stef25 3y ago
  That's a ninja move my mom once did - cars rear ending each other in front, doing an emergency swerve in to the next lane and the guy who was behind her slamming in to the ones who were in front. That was in car. It's very difficult to suddenly swerve at speed on a motorbike.
  - davisoneee 3y ago
    It's very _easy_ to swerve at speed on a motorbike. In fact, it's part of the UK's motorbike license test ('hazard avoidance'). You are required to go through a speed trap at 50km/h+ and swerve approx 1m out of your riding line and come to a controlled stop. I did the swerve at 63km/h. All it takes to swerve at speed is a small shove on the appropriate side of the handlebar, and 1m should be enough to put you either into the 'lane split' or into the other lane entirely.
  - GoldenRacer 3y ago
    I'd be way more hesitant to recommend that move in a car. With a motorcycle splitting lanes, there's a low chance anyone will be between lanes and if there is someone there, it's the motorcyclist that will likely suffer the consequences so they'll have a high level of awareness. On top of that, being squished between two cars is a much riskier place to be for a motorcyclist then a car. I say this because I had a friend who was killed when another driver swerved into her lane while trying to avoid rear ending another car. In that case, rear ending the other car would've been way safer. So yeah, just be absolutely certain the lane you're swerving into is clear. That should go without say but apparently it didn't for the woman that killed my friend (and I bet she thought she was pulling off a ninja move until it was too late).
  - djmips 3y ago
    I've seen two people try to do the same ninja move and they just ended up hitting each other.
throw0101a 3y ago
> Also autumn leaves. Like sheets of graphene. Zebra pedestrian crossings as well after it has rained: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_crossing Wet road paint can be slippery AF (also applies to bicyclists).
- SoapSeller 3y ago
  It's because of bad paint. Some places use cheap, generic paint and some will use the one with proper grip. You can sometimes tell in advance by the texture. It's a gamble I personally wouldn't take.
- ce4 3y ago
  Not sure why this was downvoted, i really agree with that. And patched cracks (using bitumen with a lower melting point than asphalt's) are also slippery af in the summer heat. I keep doing some controlled slips to stay somewhat accustomed to the gut feeling which prevents driving errors when a minor slip happens (like going over man hole cover when leaning, or having a slight/controlled slip on mended cracks in a corner).
  - djsavvy 3y ago
    How are you practicing your controlled slips?
    - ce4 3y ago
      Only when I'm in the mood. There's a bit of a lower than street/asphalt-level manhole cover in a calm corner here. I just go over this one with a bit of an angle, started very gentle and increased speed/leaning angle a bit over time. Not for race bikes, though. Then, when I see long-drawn-out mended cracksin a corner when its hot, sometimes I try to induce a slip on those. Takes some courage though, but the slip wont be as bad, because the patches are only one to two centimeters wide (the cracks are parallel to the road). I ride a light dualsports bike, a KTM 790 Adventure. It has spoke wheels and takes the abuse without an issue. And it also has all the electronic features (6-axle IMU, traction control, etc). It's just that my bum knows how a slip feels and to prevent a bad reaction in case an (semi scary) involuntary one happens. That has served me well so far, saved me from reacting badly when I was surprised in a shady & moist corner and so on. Edit: added more text to clarify + typos corrected
bayindirh 3y ago
> It's also worth remembering that after every rain, the road is slick for a half hour or so while all the oily crap and rubbery crap washes off. Advice from my dad (who's an ex rally driver) is "if you can see tires leaving tracks in the rain, it's not safe". Also, black ice is something.
- yencabulator 3y ago
  Finland has a running joke about "black ice surprised drivers this morning" as an annual news headline that really shouldn't surprise anyone anymore.
  - klyrs 3y ago
    I'm in Canada. There are teenagers and immigrants from warmer climes encountering black ice for the first time every year.
    - yencabulator 3y ago
      Last I checked, training for slippery conditions was part of the mandatory driver education for getting a license in Finland, so "new driver" is a relatively poor excuse for that over there. (The annual rear-ending fest seems to mostly cater to the "I've driven this route to work for years" audience.)
      - klyrs 3y ago
        Indeed, there are certainly more accidents than new drivers. Likewise, in the pacific northwest, first rain after summer is a perpetual learning experience. But you've got me curious: do drivers experience slippery conditions before they get their license or are they merely lectured about them?
        yencabulator 3y ago
        Yes. "Hazard recognition" is a separate 8-hour block of education that includes slippery conditions and darkness, and is done "on the track", not in a classroom. As far as I know e.g. the moose evasion maneuver is still part of that, and you'll be in a tailspin at least a couple of times during that day. Before you get to that, you'll have completed minimum 4 h classroom safety training, 10 h driving with instructor, and whatever amount of theory training gets you to pass the theory test (generally two calendar months studying on the side of being in high school). Slippery conditions aren't really hard to find in Finland. I think the black ice phenomena is really more about distracted driving.

i_am_proteus 3y ago

Cars always brake faster, except when the car is behind you, in which case it will brake slower than you in a straight line (and you'll get rear-ended if you stop too quickly). If I ever need to stop very quickly, I try to end up in the "lane split" position, stopped in between two stopped vehicles. This has saved me from some nasty rear-end collisions a few times.

stef25 3y ago
That's a ninja move my mom once did - cars rear ending each other in front, doing an emergency swerve in to the next lane and the guy who was behind her slamming in to the ones who were in front. That was in car. It's very difficult to suddenly swerve at speed on a motorbike.
- davisoneee 3y ago
  It's very _easy_ to swerve at speed on a motorbike. In fact, it's part of the UK's motorbike license test ('hazard avoidance'). You are required to go through a speed trap at 50km/h+ and swerve approx 1m out of your riding line and come to a controlled stop. I did the swerve at 63km/h. All it takes to swerve at speed is a small shove on the appropriate side of the handlebar, and 1m should be enough to put you either into the 'lane split' or into the other lane entirely.
- GoldenRacer 3y ago
  I'd be way more hesitant to recommend that move in a car. With a motorcycle splitting lanes, there's a low chance anyone will be between lanes and if there is someone there, it's the motorcyclist that will likely suffer the consequences so they'll have a high level of awareness. On top of that, being squished between two cars is a much riskier place to be for a motorcyclist then a car. I say this because I had a friend who was killed when another driver swerved into her lane while trying to avoid rear ending another car. In that case, rear ending the other car would've been way safer. So yeah, just be absolutely certain the lane you're swerving into is clear. That should go without say but apparently it didn't for the woman that killed my friend (and I bet she thought she was pulling off a ninja move until it was too late).
- djmips 3y ago
  I've seen two people try to do the same ninja move and they just ended up hitting each other.

throw0101a 3y ago

> Also autumn leaves. Like sheets of graphene. Zebra pedestrian crossings as well after it has rained: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_crossing Wet road paint can be slippery AF (also applies to bicyclists).

SoapSeller 3y ago
It's because of bad paint. Some places use cheap, generic paint and some will use the one with proper grip. You can sometimes tell in advance by the texture. It's a gamble I personally wouldn't take.
ce4 3y ago
Not sure why this was downvoted, i really agree with that. And patched cracks (using bitumen with a lower melting point than asphalt's) are also slippery af in the summer heat. I keep doing some controlled slips to stay somewhat accustomed to the gut feeling which prevents driving errors when a minor slip happens (like going over man hole cover when leaning, or having a slight/controlled slip on mended cracks in a corner).
- djsavvy 3y ago
  How are you practicing your controlled slips?
  - ce4 3y ago
    Only when I'm in the mood. There's a bit of a lower than street/asphalt-level manhole cover in a calm corner here. I just go over this one with a bit of an angle, started very gentle and increased speed/leaning angle a bit over time. Not for race bikes, though. Then, when I see long-drawn-out mended cracksin a corner when its hot, sometimes I try to induce a slip on those. Takes some courage though, but the slip wont be as bad, because the patches are only one to two centimeters wide (the cracks are parallel to the road). I ride a light dualsports bike, a KTM 790 Adventure. It has spoke wheels and takes the abuse without an issue. And it also has all the electronic features (6-axle IMU, traction control, etc). It's just that my bum knows how a slip feels and to prevent a bad reaction in case an (semi scary) involuntary one happens. That has served me well so far, saved me from reacting badly when I was surprised in a shady & moist corner and so on. Edit: added more text to clarify + typos corrected

bayindirh 3y ago

> It's also worth remembering that after every rain, the road is slick for a half hour or so while all the oily crap and rubbery crap washes off. Advice from my dad (who's an ex rally driver) is "if you can see tires leaving tracks in the rain, it's not safe". Also, black ice is something.

yencabulator 3y ago
Finland has a running joke about "black ice surprised drivers this morning" as an annual news headline that really shouldn't surprise anyone anymore.
- klyrs 3y ago
  I'm in Canada. There are teenagers and immigrants from warmer climes encountering black ice for the first time every year.
  - yencabulator 3y ago
    Last I checked, training for slippery conditions was part of the mandatory driver education for getting a license in Finland, so "new driver" is a relatively poor excuse for that over there. (The annual rear-ending fest seems to mostly cater to the "I've driven this route to work for years" audience.)
    - klyrs 3y ago
      Indeed, there are certainly more accidents than new drivers. Likewise, in the pacific northwest, first rain after summer is a perpetual learning experience. But you've got me curious: do drivers experience slippery conditions before they get their license or are they merely lectured about them?
      - yencabulator 3y ago
        Yes. "Hazard recognition" is a separate 8-hour block of education that includes slippery conditions and darkness, and is done "on the track", not in a classroom. As far as I know e.g. the moose evasion maneuver is still part of that, and you'll be in a tailspin at least a couple of times during that day. Before you get to that, you'll have completed minimum 4 h classroom safety training, 10 h driving with instructor, and whatever amount of theory training gets you to pass the theory test (generally two calendar months studying on the side of being in high school). Slippery conditions aren't really hard to find in Finland. I think the black ice phenomena is really more about distracted driving.