Motorcycle Safety
Okay, yes this is about RVs and driving safety, because it is about RVers. There are many RVers that are motorcycle enthusiasts. In Canada, motorcyclists have been dragging their two-wheeled freedom machines out of storage for the last few weeks, and I am seeing more and more of them out on the streets again. Those of you who live where you don’t get three feet of snow are lucky enough to ride your motorcycles year round. Either way, we could all use a few reminders about motorcycle safety — even if you don’t ride one, as we all share the road.
Sadly, I investigate at least one fatality every riding season where a motorcyclist loses his (or her) life because of careless driving. Usually, that carelessness is firmly on the shoulders of the victim himself. These are typically young males who enjoy the adrenaline rush a fast motorcycle can give them for relatively few dollars compared to a sportscar that still wouldn’t come close to the acceleration of a motorcycle at 3x the price. I can recall travelling west of Calgary on the Trans-Canada highway at 115 Km/h in my pickup, and being passed like I was standing still by a sportbike with a lone rider. Doesn’t sound too uncommon until I tell you that he was only on the back wheel at the time! Craziness! That young man was one golf ball sized stone away from death.
In other cases, though not as common, the motorcyclist is the victim of the inattention of the operator of a 4 wheeler (cars and trucks).
What I most often hear when I interview the driver of a car or truck involved in a collision witha motorcycle is, “I didn’t see him”. It’s all too common – not right, but common. For the last number of years, motorcycles (at least in Canada) have had to be equipped so that the headlight illuminates whenever a forward gear is selected. This is an attempt to make the bike more noticable to other drivers. If yours isn’t so equipped, I suggest you turn the headlamp on any time you’re riding. Any help you can have to be seen is a plus.
Here’s how to stay safe when riding a motorcycle:
- Be extra attentive. You may have to watch on behalf of those that are not. This is doubly important at night. Single motorcyle headlamps are often confused for a car’s dual headlights. You know how when a car or truck is far away, the two headlamp beams kind of melt together and appear to be a single source? It’s only when the car gets closer that two headlights are discernable. Many people think a motorcycle’s single headlight is a car approaching that is far away and end up pulling out into the path of travel of the motorcyle.
- Wear the proper safety gear. Helmet (whether it’s the law or not where you live), gloves, leather outer clothing, proper boots, eye protection, helmet, helmet, helmet.
- Check to ensure all of your lights function.
- Signal your turns and lane changes.
- Check your tires. A motorcycle rides on two contact patches that are each roughly the size of a credit card. That’s it. You’d be wise to ensure that your tires are in good shape. Motorcycle tires are quite often made of a softer compound than passenger car tires, and therefore, they wear quicker. Check them often for wear and proper inflation pressure.
- Pay attention to your speed. It’s all too easy to attain illegal speeds on a motorcycle, and often it doesn’t “feel” as though you are going as fast as you are.
Another thing I’ve seen a lot is rear wheel lockup (and in a few, front wheel lockup) in panic situations. This is a no-no. Obviously, if your front wheel locks, you’re headed for a “wash out” situation, and you’re going to lay the bike down. However, a rear wheel lockup can be just as dangerous. The force that keeps a motorcycle upright is called centrifugal force (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_force for more info). That force is genrated by the spinning rear tire/wheel mass. If the rear tire locks up, there’s no more centrifugal force, and therefore nothing holding up the rigid part of the motorcycle, and that either results in a “high side” or a wipeout. A high side occurs when the rear tire of the bike slides sideways initially, then after it gets to a certain point, it grips and “throws” the rider over the seat. Newer models are coming equipped with ABS, and that’s a great leap forward in motorcycle safety.
Have fun and stay safe out there!
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Recently in the Tampa Bay area decals and bumper stickers are appearing that caution, “Watch out for motorcycles.” This is obviously excellent advice for drivers in cars or other vehicles . However, on a recent drive (at 65mph) in our 37-foot Winnie on I275 South thru St. Petersburg a group of 5-6 motorcycles tore past us and other drivers at an extreme rate of speed. They were weaving in and out and passing in between cars.
This incident causes me to ask, “What are motorcycle groups doing to educate and inform motorcycle drivers to obey the speed limits?”
I have always wondered why motorcycles have to pass every other vehicle on the road. The single headlight you refered to would not be a problem if the motorcycle was traveling at the speed limit, not passing every vehicle in front of them and passing between vehicles. Maybe the bumper sticker should say “Motorcycles, watch out for cars”.
It seems to me that the motorcycle groups are not doing to educate their members.
This is a good summary of what to do to be safer on a bike, except for your last paragraph. First of all, your physics is wrong. What keeps a motorcycle up is not centirfugal force. To simplify it, when traveling in a straight line, the force that keeps it up is gravity — i.e., keeping the center of gravity over the contact points of the tires. Centrifugal force doesn’t play any part. You may be thinking of gyroscopic forces that the wheels do generate, and that do have some effect on balance, but they are not dominant.
More importantly, however, reading this paragraph would suggest to a rider that if he locks his rear wheel, he’d better unlcok it right away. This is WRONG. As an MSF instructor, one thing we always taught was that if you lock your REAR wheel, keep it locked until you come to a stop. Once the rear wheel locks, it probably slides sideways at least a little. If you then release the brake and the wheel grabs, the bike is misaligned and you get the dreaded high-side, a very dangerous event. However, if it is kept sliding, you can keep control with the front wheel until a stop. If your FRONT wheel locks, you do want to release the break at once — with the front wheel locked, you have no control over the balance of the bike and you will go down.
The above is perhaps oversimplified, but I hope I have gotten the important parts clear — if y our rear wheel locks, keep it locked and come to a stop. If your front wheel locks, unlock it immediately.
When I went to South America (Santiago, Chile) I chose http://www.samttours.com to hire a motorcycle tour through the desert. A tour rental is better than solo renting couse you have a guy that knows the roads and a backup truck just in case. Extraordinary trip on the Andes. Life changing expereince. Fernando.