Wow, that would have been a scary moment! What I've often said is 'if you want to take chances with your own safety/life, that's your choice........just don't include my safety/life in that decision'. Glad everyone's okay.

Shirley

Just when I think nothing surprises me anymore I hear of something that just makes me think WTH were they thinking?? Good gosh. What if he misjudged and nudged a car while in between or coming up behind them? He'd have been dead and the drivers of the vehicles left to wonder if they could have done something differently!
I've had a few close calls with cars passing and I get po'd! I think to myself if its that important you get there faster then leave earlier buddy! I can't imagine how mad I'd be had someone pulled that one on me! I don't agree with all the people that call from their cellphones and report every little driving infraction, but I'd have been really tempted in this case!

I've had that happen many times in 5:00 o'clock traffic in Houston. It makes me so angry.

There needs to be an Intelligence Test to ride one of those things. What I hate on the back roads around here are the "Croch Rockets", they don't know these roads well enough and we have seen many a rider "eat it". One fatally.

There is usually a pack of them and one pointer guy who gives them the signal to pass. Scares the crap out of me.

Isn't it really just amazing that you can get anywhere and back without being in an accident? People are crazy on the highway!

We have the same problem here. There was an article about it in the paper over the weekend and they have clocked motorcycles going over 250 km/hr. My question is why are they made to go that fast??? There is no protection and if you hit something going at that speed, a helmet is not going to do much good. Just crazy people doing crazy things!!

It makes me shudder to think of what could have happened. The worst part is if there had been a fatal accident you would have relived that moment forever and it wouldn't have been your fault at all. Thank heavens nothing happened- although who knows what other risks that fellow will take.

Scary, reminds me of a time last year when Alex was driving us back from the movies in Frankfort. He had barely started driving. We were in the slow lane, multiple cars were in front of and in the fast lane next to us when a big ole car comes barreling towards us from behind. He was going too fast and weaving in and out of traffic. I told Alex to slow down and let him pass. Well, he did and the guy started to go right by us and in between two cars in front of us. Told Alex to pull off and stop. He did and the guy hit one of them spinning it into the medium and he went off the side of the road. Luckily no one was hurt. When we got home we found out the guy he hit was Alex's friend's brother.

Apparently the guy was driving irratically in Frankfort too because when I called 911, they had multiple reports from there and from that accident scene already.

The same thing has happened to me many times. Motorcycles squeeze between two cars in two lanes. I think there's a name for this - "Death Alley". When it happens, it really shakes me. What if I had moved just a little to the right? I could have killed someone!

That's heart attack material. A lot of bike riders seem to have a death wish alright. It happens here all the time too and I remember a case where a boy lost a foot trying to go between two buses travelling in opposite directions, near a blind corner. Senseless.

That's scary and sad at the same time. People like that will either end up killing themselves or someone else.

That's extremely common behavior here on the Long Island Expressway (NY)!

Carol

Wow--I guess I live a sheltered life here in the country. I never heard of this practice before.

I thought briefly of reporting him, but it happened so fast I could never identify him--plus he was with another rider who had the good sense not to follow suit. I couldn't tell them apart.

If the kid had miscalculated--or if the SUV driver reached for his CD player or GPS or whatever--and there was an impact of any kind, that could have set off a series of disastrous reactions. I don't suppose there's any way to stop another motorcyclist from doing this......brake if you see him coming? My cars are V8's and great at taking off when they're already going at a decent clip, but I sure wouldn't want to try to outrun one of those guys! I don't know.......

My youngest son rides a Harley and I worry about him so much. Not really him, I know at 43 and with a wife and three girls he is careful. It is the other people I worry about. At one time my brother rode a cycle and was run off the road by a car full of teens on purpose. He had a lot of road rash and a broken collar bone. Vique.

Lets not forget the 'golden oldies' who pull out into traffic doing 25 mph when the rest on the road are doing 75mph.Next to teens they are the most dangerous drivers on the road.

Ah, yes. I've had some close encounters with elderly drivers in Florida. And I recently heard about a 92-year-old woman (still driving!) who talks about running motorcycles off the road.

what the rider did was called "splitting lanes" and not illegal in most states. now if you go back and read the second sentence of your original post you will get some idea why he performed that maneuver. He had no choice because your vehicle was blocking the road.

He had no choice because your vehicle was blocking the road.

My vehicle was blocking the road?? He had no choice??? I hope you're joking.

what the rider did was called "splitting lanes" and not illegal in most states

To date as far as I know California is the only state that allows lane splitting. The only caveat is that it be done in a safe and prudent manner.

By Alisande' account the guy's maneuver was pretty squid-like.

But we weren't really there and there are 3 sides to every story. People tend to perceive motorcyclists as "threatening" etc. even when they are just riding along safely.

That said I don't know of any state that allows one to stay in the left lane when someone coming from behind is moving faster than they are. Even if the person in front is moving at the speed limit or over. Slower traffic MUST move over to the right. The prudent and safe thing for Alisande to have done would be to turn on her blinkers to signal her intent and to slow or speed up to move over the moment she saw traffic gaining on her.

I think the majority of motorcyles are very good drivers. It is always those few that give them a bad rap. Traveling with a trailer for many many years, we experienced both truckers and cyclists, and probably less that one persent caused troubles. I have also heard that motorcycles are better car drivers because they have learned to look every which way before they change lanes.
And yes many do have 2 way radios to keep in touch, but have not seen one with a cell phone or texting.
Stay safe all of you.

I didn't explain the layout very well. I was in the left lane because it was about to turn into an Exit Only lane where it veers off onto another road. The guy next to me was actually in the middle lane. There was a right lane, and that's where Speedy Gonzalez's wiser companion chose to go.

My DH rides a motorcycle and he is always trying to stay just ahead of traffic. He hates it when traffic comes up on him from behind. Too many crazy people hate motorcycles. Have you seen the bumper sticker: "Start SEEING motorcycles". Too many are unaware that a cycle is coming up on them from behind and pull into the other lane and run them off the road.

In California, they call that "lane splitting". It is illegal in most other states for obvious reasons.

Maybe his village was missing its idiot and he was hurrying back to correct the situation.

Susan, we had the same thing happen this weekend only it was with a car, not a motorcycle. We were in the mountains towing a 27' travel trailer. Narrow road, lots of curves, double yellow lines, several cars coming toward us in a curve. Out of nowhere a Corvette passed between us and a line of cars. He was gone in an instant. I still don't know how he managed to squeeze between the camper and those cars without hitting anyone. Very scary.

Linda

that's one reason i hate going anywhere on a 3 day holiday...we took a lot of back roads this weekend for our 3 hour drive for dgd's 10th...

Maybe his village was missing its idiot and he was hurrying back to correct the situation.

Jem, that's funny! I never heard that one before.

Gayle, I think this guy was driving something they call a "crotch rocket." It didn't have the deep rumble of a Harley, for instance. It sounded more like an angry mosquito.

There is pending legislation in Texas to make lane splitting legal.

It is legal in most of Europe and is for the safety of the biker. Lane splitting allows the rider to avoid being sandwiched in by cars. Many motorcycle accidents on highways are cause by the cyclist getting rear ended in backed up traffic. Lane splitting addresses this problem of being locked in traffic like a sitting duck.

Like Pawsitive says, a biker with clear space around himself/herself is a safe biker. One sitting in traffic is a target.

What's strange is when someone broadsides a motorcycle or turns in front of them they claim A. They didn't see it or B.It appeared to be going slow enough for me to make my maneuver.

But any motorcycle that passes a cager is seen as a reckless speed demon.

The motorcyclist Alisande encountered sounds like a squid (billowing shirt with no jacket is a clue) but then I don't know what other traffic conditions were to make a judgment. It could be a good reaction on his part to lane split rather than veering into the far right lane from the lane he was in. It could be the other rider was safer or it could be he was just less experienced. Without being there and knowing who else was on the road no one could really know.

In reading the above comments from people more knowledgeable than I about motorcycles, one thing I don't understand is this: What makes it okay for him to be going that fast? He wouldn't have had to do any sort of maneuver for his safety if he'd been traveling at a reasonable rate of speed.

I'm not sure if the speed limit on that stretch of road was 55 or 65. I assume it was the latter, but it goes down at some point around there, so it might have been 55. Of course, like everywhere else, most people drive above the speed limit. Unlike a lot of other places, our highways seldom get jammed with traffic. So the conditions were freely moving vehicles, and not very many of them, going at a rate of speed either 7 or 17 mph above the speed limit.

I take that route home from work, and I looked at it last night. The Exit Only sign appears one mile before the actual exit, so we were definitely in Exit Only territory on Friday when this incident happened.

I was the only one in that lane until I saw the bike coming up behind me. He shouldn't have been in that lane at all, since he had no intention of exiting. Jimrbto said he had no choice. Of course he had a choice! He could have slowed down from the 100 mph or whatever he was doing. He could have gotten out of the exit lane and waited (my God, what a concept) for me to exit. At that point the road would turn back into a three-lane highway, and he could have passed the SUV if he'd wanted to.

I still like Jemdandy's theory.

Jemdandy- there must be entire villages missing their idiots because I swear they're all out there on the roads! I'm amazed that lane splitting can be legal anywhere, it just doesn't seem safe. It can be difficult to even see a motorcycle in your rear view/side view mirrors and unless you're planning on changing lanes you might not turn your head to see what's behind you. And you can't always hear them either. But then I think helmets should be required too.

What's really scary is that a fatal accident could have easily happened. My nephew was driving a tractor trailer and hit a sedan head on and the driver died at the site. He kept seeing her screaming in horror as he drove into her. She was speeding up the curved entrance ramp to the interstate, lost control, spun around and ended up facing him in the far left lane. He tried to avoid her by maneuvering his rig into the grassy division between the north/south lanes. He couldn't avoid the collision and both vehicles ended up in the grass. But it nearly destroyed his livelihood. The police confiscated his tractor trailer for months, he had to cancel contracts at great expense, he had drug and urine tests, and was too distressed to drive his truck for well over a year. Even though it was completely the other driver's fault it still has a tremendous impact on the innocent driver.

Susan was so fortunate that nothing happened.