Ever notice that almost every story of a motorcycle accident in the paper states the “speed was a contributing factor”? Well Duh if he weren’t moving he would not have hit the tree right?
Speed along with following distance and lane position works to make your ride a safe one. It can be tempting to just open her up and let her fly down the highway. We all have to resist this temptation. I set my speed more by the traffic I am riding with than the posted speed limit.
Many times I have put on my blinker to signal a lane change to the left, checked my mirrors, checked visually to confirm my mirrors, looked at the vehicle in front of m to be sure they are where I thought they were, made a second head check and seen a vehicle flying by that was not there a second ago. I believe many a time when we make the statement “They didn’t see me coming” in truth it is a situation like this. When our speed takes us drastically over the speed of surrounding traffic we become even harder to see. I am not talking about being drastically over the speed limit either but drastically over the surrounding traffic speed.
When the right hand lane is slowed down there is usually a reason. If you neglect to slow also in the left lane there is a good chance one of many things will happen; to include but not limited to. The dog that is meandering around in the right lane will cross over to the left lane in front of you or a vehicle from the right lane will change to your faster moving lane right into your path.
Please adjust your speed to take into consideration that of surrounding traffic.
