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8 February 2006
HOW CLOSE IS CLOSE...

This has been an amazing week. I have survived two very exciting close calls. I call them close calls simply because I managed to avoid being used as a decoration on someone's car and only by some twist of fate they turned out in my favor.

Motorcycling is not without risk, neither is driving your car or truck in rush hour traffic, but we motorcyclists are exposed to even greater risk during our commute back and forth to work. Our commute back and forth is never routine or dull; there is always something that makes it exciting or unforgettable.

Over the recent weeks the commute has been well rather uneventful without any thing super exciting happening, that has lead me to get comfortable until Thursday.

At the end of the day on Tuesday and Thursdays the days I go to school, I leave one end of the shipyard and travel up to the other end. It's a very short ride of a mile and a half, on a one way street, Huntington Ave. Then I turn onto another one way street and park. The traffic at quitting time is well very dense with allot of parking lots emptying into Huntington Ave. The traffic doesn't move fast, mostly about ten feet a minute with lots of idling time. And yes everyone is in a hurry and have forgotten all about good road manners. You're constantly guarding your space and trying to dodge cars as they pull out of the lots.

Last Thursday I made my way up Huntington Ave as I normally do, I must be the only one who isn't in a hurry. I made my turn onto the one way street I park on, right behind a pickup truck. This one way street is two lanes. He moved to the right lane and I got behind him in the left lane. Motorcycle parking is on the left hand side of the street. Speed limit here is 25 mph, and for some reason we were not going much more than ten mph.

At the time my mind was on parking, and getting ready for class after all I was less than 50 feet from my parking spot; when the pickup truck driving fellow employee decides to pull into the parking spot on my left. With out warning or a signal of any kind, he just pulled over. Now we are breaking a basic law of physics; both of us cannot occupy the same space at the same time…..

Lucky for him and me, I was fast on the brakes and kept my cool, angry yes but not out of control, trust me if I wasn't wearing a full face helmet he would have heard all of my comments about his intelligence, and his lineage.

I try not to carry grudges over these kinds of things, just the lesson about keeping my attention focused and upgrading my riding plan. One way streets present a unique set of problems especially with parking lots on both sides, which I haven't given much thought to.

On Friday evening on my way home was the second incident, this one was far more surreal. I was approaching the Main Street and Jefferson Ave intersection. I was behind another motorcycle favoring the right side of the left lane. I fell in line with him figuring we would both be better off and it would help both of us to be seen. I got comfortable riding behind him; maybe too comfortable… Scanning the road ahead of us I noticed a black Firebird or Camaro type car sliding sideways, tires smoking and screeching coming down the Avenue on the opposite side.

It seemed to me it took minutes for the car to come up even with us, he was moving very slowly, until his tires got traction. Now he's on a new course, instead of straightening out and continuing down Jefferson Ave he was headed across it at 90 degrees right at me.

Now I am in traffic which is slowing down for the red light at Main Street and I have no place to go, all I can see now is the grill of the black car getting larger, I do remember his chin spoiler breaking off when he hit the curb, I saw his front end bounce up and then down digging up the grass on the center meridian.

The words that where in my head at the time was "Oh F@$#, this is gonna hurt". Just then the traffic moved up a couple of car lengths and I went full throttle. The rider in front of me was looking at me in disbelief he heard me throttle up; "Piglet" Flo's Sportster is equipped with 2" diameter un-baffled drag pipes. He never did see the black car as "Piglet" and I pulled past him and then came to a well executed panic stop splitting the lines of cars in front of me.

My head snapped around to see the black car now sitting in the space I just vacated. My heart rate hadn't gone up; I wasn't excited or even mad. The traffic in front of me started moving and I did too. A block or two later the excitement of the thing caught up with me. At the next light I pulled up alongside the other rider and asked him if he saw the black car and he just nodded his head. I wasn't sure if he understood me or not but with an anxious feeling I continued on home, being thankful that the ride was coming to end and I could see the safety of my own driveway…

My riding plan never included a black car changing directions 90 degrees in the middle of the street and jumping a center divider trying to get me, nor did I ever think about one way streets being as dangerous as they are. But I can tell you my plan includes them now…