I was riding along on a twisty road yesterday with a passenger and was
coming up behind this volvo station wagon when they pulled over to the
side of the road... Not too unusual, it's not oncommon for a car to
pull over to let a bike past. Then as I'm just about to pass their
rear bumper their nose starts swinging out into the lane....****,
they're doing a u-turn! I accelerated past them before they could
block the whole lane... it wasn't too close but only because the
driver didn't agressively perform the U-turn. Still, I don't like
being in a position where a driver could have acted differently and
ended up nailing me!

I went back over what happened and realized a few things..

1. When they first pulled over, I remember thinking that it was a
little odd that their angle towards the side of the road was more than
I was accustomed to seeing with drivers pulling over to let a bike
past. I later realized that this was a giveaway to their next action,
as they were getting into position for a hard circle.

2. They swung closer to the very edge of the road than I was
accustomed to for a car letting a bike past... another thing to
remember as a possible heads-up that they aren't just pulling over to
let you past.

3. I also realized that I was a little distracted by having my
passenger on board, and while I was riding much slower than I would
have if riding alone, my focus was a little split so I wasn't
processing the environment around me (Other drivers) as fast as I
normally would have......lesson learned, even if riding slower with a
passenger, if I'm not keeping 100% focus on my riding it is probably
less safe. :-\

Just thought I'd share that experience/thoughts with the idea that
somebody might add the experience to their list of 'things to watch
out for'. I pride myself on being an alert skilled rider but could
have gotten taken out in this....glad I learned this lesson without
payinga price for it!
Brett
01 Yamaha R1
89 Katana 750

BNM <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I was riding along on a twisty road yesterday with a passenger and was
> coming up behind this volvo station wagon when they pulled over to the
> side of the road... Not too unusual, it's not oncommon for a car to

For some reason Volvo's deserve more than normal scrutiny.

> pull over to let a bike past. Then as I'm just about to pass their
> rear bumper their nose starts swinging out into the lane....****,
> they're doing a u-turn! I accelerated past them before they could
> block the whole lane... it wasn't too close but only because the

Perhaps this is a practical reason for the little "thank you" beep
many overtaking drivers and riders offer.

"_Bob Nixon_" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:VykvP7nqjeAbutzI9bDfImA7tRe+@4ax.com...
: On Tue, 05 Aug 2003 00:38:06 GMT, BNM <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
:

:
: Motorcycles, double yellow ignore zone.
:

As Bannon is fond of saying...
"The double yellow line means Motorcyclists: Use Caution when passing."



--
Andrew
00 Daytona
00 Speed Triple
http://ultrasupercool.com

The Bikes of Reeky
http://www.ultrasupercool.com/reeky/bor.htm

All Volvo drivers are idiots, bar none. When I see a Volvo I get as far away
as I can and NEVER assume anything about what the driver will do next.





"BNM" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I was riding along on a twisty road yesterday with a passenger and was
> coming up behind this volvo station wagon when they pulled over to the
> side of the road... Not too unusual, it's not oncommon for a car to
> pull over to let a bike past. Then as I'm just about to pass their
> rear bumper their nose starts swinging out into the lane....****,
> they're doing a u-turn! I accelerated past them before they could
> block the whole lane... it wasn't too close but only because the
> driver didn't agressively perform the U-turn. Still, I don't like
> being in a position where a driver could have acted differently and
> ended up nailing me!
>
> I went back over what happened and realized a few things..
>
> 1. When they first pulled over, I remember thinking that it was a
> little odd that their angle towards the side of the road was more than
> I was accustomed to seeing with drivers pulling over to let a bike
> past. I later realized that this was a giveaway to their next action,
> as they were getting into position for a hard circle.
>
> 2. They swung closer to the very edge of the road than I was
> accustomed to for a car letting a bike past... another thing to
> remember as a possible heads-up that they aren't just pulling over to
> let you past.
>
> 3. I also realized that I was a little distracted by having my
> passenger on board, and while I was riding much slower than I would
> have if riding alone, my focus was a little split so I wasn't
> processing the environment around me (Other drivers) as fast as I
> normally would have......lesson learned, even if riding slower with a
> passenger, if I'm not keeping 100% focus on my riding it is probably
> less safe. :-\
>
> Just thought I'd share that experience/thoughts with the idea that
> somebody might add the experience to their list of 'things to watch
> out for'. I pride myself on being an alert skilled rider but could
> have gotten taken out in this....glad I learned this lesson without
> payinga price for it!
> Brett
> 01 Yamaha R1
> 89 Katana 750

On 05 Aug 2003 16:46:46 GMT, "Janik Colby"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>All Volvo drivers are idiots, bar none. When I see a Volvo I get as far away
>as I can and NEVER assume anything about what the driver will do next.

hey, I resemble that. My wife drives a Volvo S90, and sometimes I have to
drive her old 240 (which is our spare car).

On 5 Aug 2003 12:04:16 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) (r_kleinschmidt)
wrote:

>BNM <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed)>. ..
>> I was riding along on a twisty road yesterday with a passenger and was
>> coming up behind this volvo station wagon when they pulled over to the
>> side of the road... Not too unusual, it's not oncommon for a car to
>> pull over to let a bike past. Then as I'm just about to pass their
>> rear bumper their nose starts swinging out into the lane....****,
>> they're doing a u-turn!
>
>I think part why that happened was because you'd recently overtaken
>the driver. Incredibly clueless as it is, he obviously believed he
>had the road to himself, probably because he'd checked his mirror a
>minute or two earlier.
>
>While you need to be careful all the time, when you overtake, never
>assume that you've gotten the attention of the driver ahead of you.
>This might be the one case where loud pipes really do save lives.
>
>I had that happen to me once on Skyline. Wonder if it was the same Volvo.

It rarely is, but I've been cut off by the same Buick on two separate
occasions. I'm sure that it is the same because it had consular
plates.


R, UB

>> > I was riding along on a twisty road yesterday with a passenger and was
>> > coming up behind this volvo station wagon when they pulled over to the
>> > side of the road... Not too unusual, it's not oncommon for a car to
>> > pull over to let a bike past. Then as I'm just about to pass their
>> > rear bumper their nose starts swinging out into the lane....****,
>> > they're doing a u-turn!
>>
>> I think part why that happened was because you'd recently overtaken
>> the driver. Incredibly clueless as it is, he obviously believed he
>> had the road to himself, probably because he'd checked his mirror a
>> minute or two earlier.
>
>I read it like this: BNM was behind the Volvo. Unbeknownst to BNM, Mr.
>Volvo realized he was going in the wrong direction and was looking for a
>good spot to turn around. Distracted by his navigational duties, Mr.
>Volvo didn't see the motorcycle behind him and had absolutely no reason
>to look for a Big Mack truck on his 9 when turning.
>
>BNM, how fast were you going? You're concentrating on the road ahead,
>and are ready to react to obstacles in the road. You've trained yourself
>in what to do when you see one. However, there are deer, volvos, dogs,
>and small children that don't have a clue. Their reaction time is likely
>to be much longer, and what they will do is unpredictable. (Your
>reaction time for what you see ahead translates directly into someone
>else's reaction time on seeing you appear.)

I was not going very fast, they had partially repaved the road so I
didn't trust the traction due to the black material that came off the
new surfaces and onto the old pavement in between. I suspect that
most of their attention was to find a good place to turn around and if
they looked behind they probably didn't do more than a quick glance.
>
>> While you need to be careful all the time, when you overtake, never
>> assume that you've gotten the attention of the driver ahead of you.
>
>Agreed. in that situation I'd slow down, cover the brakes, and look for
>an escape route.

Agreed, my biggest mistake here was to assume that he was pulling over
to let me pass. I normally would never trust them that much but as I
mentioned earlier the biggest lesson that I took away from this
experience is to never compromise your 100% focus when riding, which I
had done by allowing myself to be distracted by the presence of my
passenger.
>
>> This might be the one case where loud pipes really do save lives.
>
>This would work best of the exhaust pipes were aimed forward instead of
>back. The way they're usually set up, they announce to all the traffic
>behind that they are about to pass an annoyingly loud Harley Davidson.
>Alternatively, you could tape the horn button down.
>
>The disadvantage to loud pipes is that they annoy the **** out of
>everybody else, including people who bought property put in the
>wilderness to get away from all the noise in the city. They also leave
>us sewing-machine riders to deal with rules against motorcycles in
>apartment and condominium complexes and resort towns, the kinds of
>places that you guys wouldn't visit anyway -- except with your loud
>exhausts roaring down the nearby highway.
>
>I'd recommend running with brights and a headlight modulator. Those
>things will make you visible faster and with greater likelihood. On a
>sunny day, Mr. Volvo might not have seen you at all in the glare.

I considered using my horn but decided against it because I didn't
want to risk startling the driver into doing something out of panic
and hitting the gas by mistake when they intended to hit the brake and
I was too close at that point to do a 'hey I'm here' honk.
>
>> I had that happen to me once on Skyline. Wonder if it was the same Volvo.
>
>Plausible, if you accept that there is a Volvo on Slykine whose driver
>gets lost all the time and never realizes that there are motorcycles on
>that road.

Brett
01 Yamaha R1
89 Katana 750

Timberwoof <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<timberwoof.spam-(E-Mail Removed)>...

>
> > I had that happen to me once on Skyline. Wonder if it was the same Volvo.
>
> Plausible, if you accept that there is a Volvo on Slykine whose driver
> gets lost all the time and never realizes that there are motorcycles on
> that road.

A couple of years ago, an elderly couple drove off the road near there
and were stuck for several days until they were rescued.

The biggest problem was that when they called for help on a cell phone,
they believed they had been traveling on the Montague expressway when
and got stranded in the woods. Uhh..lemme see now, Montague is a flat
6 lane expressway with stoplights, 20 miles away and running through an
urban setting while they were on a 2 lane rural mountain highway running
through groves of redwoods. Easy to confuse the two I guess.

So yeah, a Volvo on Skyline whose driver gets lost all the time and never
realizes that there are motorcycles on that road is a possibility that
I certainly wouldn't rule out.

BNM <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed)>. ..
> I was riding along on a twisty road yesterday with a passenger and was
> coming up behind this volvo station wagon when they pulled over to the
> side of the road... Not too unusual, it's not oncommon for a car to
> pull over to let a bike past. Then as I'm just about to pass their
> rear bumper their nose starts swinging out into the lane....****,
> they're doing a u-turn! I accelerated past them before they could
> block the whole lane... it wasn't too close but only because the
> driver didn't agressively perform the U-turn. Still, I don't like
> being in a position where a driver could have acted differently and
> ended up nailing me!
>
> I went back over what happened and realized a few things..
>
> 1. When they first pulled over, I remember thinking that it was a
> little odd that their angle towards the side of the road was more than
> I was accustomed to seeing with drivers pulling over to let a bike
> past. I later realized that this was a giveaway to their next action,
> as they were getting into position for a hard circle.
>
> 2. They swung closer to the very edge of the road than I was
> accustomed to for a car letting a bike past... another thing to
> remember as a possible heads-up that they aren't just pulling over to
> let you past.
>
> 3. I also realized that I was a little distracted by having my
> passenger on board, and while I was riding much slower than I would
> have if riding alone, my focus was a little split so I wasn't
> processing the environment around me (Other drivers) as fast as I
> normally would have......lesson learned, even if riding slower with a
> passenger, if I'm not keeping 100% focus on my riding it is probably
> less safe. :-\
>
> Just thought I'd share that experience/thoughts with the idea that
> somebody might add the experience to their list of 'things to watch
> out for'. I pride myself on being an alert skilled rider but could
> have gotten taken out in this....glad I learned this lesson without
> payinga price for it!
> Brett
> 01 Yamaha R1
> 89 Katana 750


Get thee some headlight modulators, makes this kind of thing _almost_ non-exsistant!

>Get thee some headlight modulators, makes this kind of thing _almost_ non-exsistant!

I've heard that advice from several people now. My biggest question
about a modulator is what does it dobut the life of a headlight?
Brett
01 Yamaha R1
89 Katana 750