Motorcycle Journal

How can any youngster with only a couple of years driving experience learn to ride a high powered sport bike? How can their reaction time be sufficient at high speeds to combat their lack of recognition of traffic patterns? You wouldn’t let your six year old play with a loaded hand gun, then why do we allow a twenty year old to drive a high powered sport bike? If you are able to ride a motorcycle on a closed circuit at over 100 mph, do you think you can ride the same machine on I-294 in Chicago at the same speed? Can you safely do it even at the posted speed limit with two dozen vehicles in your safety buffer?

Experience decreases reaction time. I believe that when we learn a new skill, the electrical pathway is created in the brain and with repetition, the synapses fire faster and faster. It does not matter whether you are learning a musical instrument, learning a language or driving a car, the more you do it the better you become. Your brain recognizes and analyses the situation from past occurrences and you learn the skill.

I humbly submit that a Duhamel or Rossi would be splatter on the windshield if they drove to their limits in traffic. No one is that good. Many drivers don’t even begin to use all their visual, hearing and smell senses when their driving. You think I’m nuts? Possibly but I know from driving large vehicles that I interpret things many others don’t.

Here is a list of things you can do to improve your driving that is never taught.

1. Shadows. In daylight you may see the shadow of a vehicle in your blind spot long before said vehicle registers in your mirrors. Look at the chrome bumper on the car ahead or beside you as you may just see the reflection of a vehicle in your blind spot. The same holds true with reflected light at night.

2. When driving at night, practice using your peripheral vision. You can see more in low light out of the corner of your eye than you can looking straight at it. Don’t stare at bright lights but look away. Another trick I always used when driving at night is to put on a pair of sunglasses when going inside to the truck stop. Not only do you look cool but your eyes will be good to go when you are back outside.

3. Watch for out of state license plates. They may be more confused than you are.

4. Watch for families with little kids in the back. The driver is already stressed and their level of concentration may be diminished.

5. If you can hear the clown beside you listening to music and banging his head on the dash to keep the beat, there is a good change he doesn’t know that he just blew a tire.

6. Did you know that you can hear a tire up close before it blows? The bigger the tire, the more it will pound just before it goes.

7. Lastly, keep your head and eyes constantly moving. A good looking woman in a short skirt should never get past your door without you knowing that she was approaching. Drive behind you as far as you drive ahead.

I don’t know how anyone can learn to safely ride a motorcycle of any size, if driving a four wheeler or better isn’t second nature. The cards are stacked against you even more when traveling at 100 feet per second and your reaction time to the brake covers seventy-five feet. It only get worse the faster you go!

I have ridden bikes a grand total of approximately of 7,500 kms. and in that space of time over 40 years, I have succeeded in crashing small bikes several times. If a Honda CB125 can hurt that badly, I would hate feel the effects of a 600 cc racer.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 26th, 2006 at 6:07 am and is filed under Motorcycles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.