3 ms·

My commute from Oakland to SF was 20-25 minutes in rush hour (1hr in a car), without having to do anything particularly sketchy, just by filtering/lane splittin

My commute from Oakland to SF was 20-25 minutes in rush hour (1hr in a car), without having to do anything particularly sketchy, just by filtering/lane splitting. If you're looking at USA stats, you should know that there are many, many people in this country that will regularly get on their Harley, which they've never bothered improving technical handling skill on, after five or six beers, wearing a small plastic hat that resembles a WWI infantry helmet more than a proper ECE/DOT/Snell rated helmet, with jeans and a cutoff leather jacket, and wrap themselves around the nearest telephone pole trying to impress some chick. If you ride with technical skill, good protective gear, and a respect for the machine and the unpredictability of drivers, you have much better prospects than the stats would suggest.

UltraSane 1y ago
But you are fundamentally at the mercy of a single driver turning left with or stopping in front of you with no warning.
- 7402 1y ago
  When I learned to ride, I was to taught to assume that I was invisible, particularly when at a stop light and an oncoming car was turning left. And proper following distance - for both cars and motorcycles - is to leave enough room to stop if the person in front slams on the brakes.
- 0_____0 1y ago
  Yes, and. You always leave yourself an out. Oncoming unprotected lefts are the most dangerous feature of city streets, and good motorcyclists learn to be extremely wary of their users. Re: stopping in front of you - this is one reason why lanesplitting can actually be safer. If a car in front of you does an emergency braking maneuver, you're not pointed at the back of them. Additionally, you're not in the way of the car behind you who was watching Harry Potter on his phone and hasn't yet noticed what's happened. We call the longitudinal gap between cars the "squish zone."
  - UltraSane 1y ago
    There is nothing you can do about someone ramming you from behind though.
    - 0_____0 1y ago
      Do you ride motorcycles or is this just conjecture? You seem to be reaching for things to convince yourself of the danger. You can reduce the danger of rear impacts on the highway, again, by lane splitting at a bit over the prevailing speed of traffic. At stops, you shelter next to, and between, larger vehicles.
    - oyashirochama 1y ago
      And is one of the primary reasons lane splitting should be legal everywhere, it keeps bikers in the safe no man or car land of the dotted white and lets them not take a full car spot on the red light.

UltraSane 1y ago

But you are fundamentally at the mercy of a single driver turning left with or stopping in front of you with no warning.

7402 1y ago
When I learned to ride, I was to taught to assume that I was invisible, particularly when at a stop light and an oncoming car was turning left. And proper following distance - for both cars and motorcycles - is to leave enough room to stop if the person in front slams on the brakes.
0_____0 1y ago
Yes, and. You always leave yourself an out. Oncoming unprotected lefts are the most dangerous feature of city streets, and good motorcyclists learn to be extremely wary of their users. Re: stopping in front of you - this is one reason why lanesplitting can actually be safer. If a car in front of you does an emergency braking maneuver, you're not pointed at the back of them. Additionally, you're not in the way of the car behind you who was watching Harry Potter on his phone and hasn't yet noticed what's happened. We call the longitudinal gap between cars the "squish zone."
- UltraSane 1y ago
  There is nothing you can do about someone ramming you from behind though.
  - 0_____0 1y ago
    Do you ride motorcycles or is this just conjecture? You seem to be reaching for things to convince yourself of the danger. You can reduce the danger of rear impacts on the highway, again, by lane splitting at a bit over the prevailing speed of traffic. At stops, you shelter next to, and between, larger vehicles.
  - oyashirochama 1y ago
    And is one of the primary reasons lane splitting should be legal everywhere, it keeps bikers in the safe no man or car land of the dotted white and lets them not take a full car spot on the red light.