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ed may

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If I can save one person from getting into an accident,  this is worth posting.   I was cruising 2 up, 70mph on the highway today after a great tour, heading home and I saw smoke in the near distance in my lane.  I was in the 3rd lane with 2 lanes on my right and 1 lane on my left.  Next thing I saw was the car in front of me coming to a stop.   I slowed down a bit,  but quickly realized I  probably couldn't make the complete stop.   I had checked my mirrors recently but didn't know if someone was coming up on my right side.  I quickly checked the right mirror and I was clear.  Swerved safely around the 4 cars that were stopped in the lane because of a trunk tire tread was laying in the lane.  LESSON, ALWAYS KNOW WHAT VEHICLES ARE IN LANES ON BOTH SIDES OF YOU, AND THEIR PROXIMITY TO YOU.   You can only check your mirrors so often while still watching what's in front,  but do it as often as possible while still paying attention to what's ahead.   Always have an out.  Oh, and having a decent following distance between me and the car in front of me also saved us.

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A good reminder. We get comfortable, and things can change in a hurry. Glad you came out ok. I pride myself on constant situational awareness, and every now and then, something will catch me out and make me just a little upset with myself for letting it happen.

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I am glad the OP had the sense and  skills to head check and swerve right into an escape route. I want to open the discussion beyond constant spatial awareness of surrounding traffic.

 

Interstate lanes are minimum 144" wide with a paved 48" shoulder on the left side and a 120" wide right hand paved shoulder.

 

A Miata is 69" wide, a Ford Taurus is 76" wide, a Ford Expedition is 79" wide, a semi trailer truck or bus is 102" in width. When we come up against a situation where we see "every lane blocked" we have to "see" beyond the imagined solid wall of steel and brake lights. Even when all the lanes are blocked by stopping or stopped cars and trucks........... multiple escape routes are wide open to us straight ahead or nearly straight ahead that are at least a little wider than width of a motorcycle and up to four times the width of a motorcycle.

 

The challenge for us is to train our brains to see the gaps, the wide open escape routes, and not to see the imagined "solid wall' steel and brake lights. This is just another example of target fixation. If we look where we want to go that is where we go. We can do this by continually playing the game in traffic of 'where will I go when things go south'. I'm not smart enough to figure this out on my own but was exposed to this form of mental training in Bernt Spiegel's book The Upper Half Of The Motorcycle.

 

Without recounting the whole long story, it saved my life when a wrong way driver came around a curve on a three lane urban interstate, in my lane, with the lanes to my right occupied. In the roughly two seconds of closing speed I went left onto the paved 48" shoulder and passed the car right side to right side. The wrong way driver hit the pick up behind me and was killed instantly while severely injured the pick up trucks' driver.

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One thing I am passing along is when on the highway, always look far in advance at the traffic and what they are doing.  If cars in your lane are braking or swerving in your lane ahead, there's something in that lane so be ready.  If they are swerving to the right, get in position of the lane or change lanes.  Easy to say while sitting at the keyboard but this story just was a good reminder of that fact.

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