Almost hit a fellow-rider!

[POE-BOY SAMICH]

On my way home from work yesterday in my truck. I am on a highway with three lanes going in my direction. I'm on the right (slow) lane.

Because of congestion, the left and center lanes start slowing pretty quickly. I see some guy riding 2-up with his lady on the left (fast) lane dart into the center lane cutting some car off. I know he cut the car off, cuz the car's rear-end goes up when it slams the brakes to avoid rear-ending the bike.

My lane is now cruising about 30mph, left & center lanes are down to about 20mph, and I've got an suv in front of me (I'm keeping decent spacing between us). Just as the suv's front bumper is about even with the bike's rear tire, the dumb-a$$ rider tries switching into the right lane! Suv honks and the biker swerves back into the center lane just in time to avoid trouble.

Of course, this happens quickly, so now I'm coming alongside the rider when, wouldn't you know it, the dumb-a$$ tries switching into the right lane AGAIN! I'd already gotten so far enough by him that my FRONT TIRE was running pretty-much NEXT to HIS rear tire. I hit the horn and swerve to the right shoulder and I notice this time the guy doesn't switch back to the center lane. He just stays in the right lane and slows enough to give me the room to get off the shoulder and into the left lane between him and the suv in front.

Now, traffice slows to about 10mp and even stopping in some places on all three lanes and I'm watching this guy in my rear view mirror cuz I don't trust what he might do next. The whole time he seems to be laughing and patting his lady on the leg as if to calm her down or console her. I don't know about the other lane changes, but I know when I swerved to miss him on that last lane change, that poor lady was scared. I saw her mouth open (maybe she screamed) and she grabbed her guy tight in fear.

I felt like getting off the truck and slapping the snot outta that guy. I felt bad for his lady and I pray they don't have kids cuz those poor children will be orphans soon if the dip keeps riding 2-up with his lady.

Before anyone draws the wrong conclusions, I did not do anything to contribute to the situation (like speed up or slow down unnecessarily). If anything, what saved us all is that I was keeping a close eye on him as I passed. Hell, I was more watchful of the bike than of the suv IN FRONT of me, and that may have helped. I'm not one of those that "tries to teach people lessons" on the road. I let LIFE do that.

I thought I'd post this to vent a little because I can NOT keep the look of that scared lady out of my mind, and it gives me the shivers to think of how terrible I'd be feeling (as a motorcyclist myself) to have hit them. The guy never turned his head to look before attempting ANY of the lane changes and each attempt was overly agressive. I hope he re-evaluates his riding habits for his own sake. Needless to say, both were in t-shirt, jeans, and no helmet. At least they weren't in sandals.

BE SAFE EVERYONE. Sorry for the long post.

[Firedog]

The shame is, when life does teach him the lesson, it will probably adversely affect others...
on him...

[Atlas68]

Sounds like another Darwin award candidate. Hope you had an opportunity to give him an attitude adjustment. Blast him in front of his woman. Guys like him give all of us a bad name.

[SNAFU]

+1