How to Safely Ride a Motorcycle in Heavy Traffic

Video Transcript

"Alright so what we are going to talk about now is learning how to ride a motorcycle safely in traffic. Now when you bought your motorcycle you were probably thinking 'Oh yea, I'm going to be riding this thing like a mad dog'. I'm going to be weaving in and out of cars, believe it or not it is tempting. I've done it many times but it is not the thing to do in traffic. I know you are probably thinking I can get there faster but you know you probably would rather be alive than dead. So I am going to go over a couple of things about how ride a motorcycle safely in traffic. One of the things is when you are riding your bike in any lane you are going to want to kind of be kind of to the right side of the yellow dotted, not the yellow dotted but the white dotted divider. You are going to want to kind of sit to the right of that as close to that as possible because if you have got a car behind you or in front of you the cars that might be merging into your lane can see you easier the closer you are you know to the white dotted divider. You want to basically make yourself as visible to other cars as possible. That is one of the principles of riding in traffic so that's what I find is one of the easiest ways to do that is to be kind of toward the right within the lane that you are at so other cars can see you. Some important things are also don't ride in a car or a truck whatever's blind spot. If you can't see them in their rear view mirror they are not going to see you so you are definitely running the risk of them trying to merge into you and they're not going to see you. A motorcycle is very small compared to other vehicles on the road and they have a hard time seeing you so what you want to do is make yourself as visible as possible whether it be wearing bright colors, something you can do that is reflective gear like those orange and yellow vests I think the construction workers wear. You can throw one of those on over your motorcycle jacket if you want. The more visible you are the less chance you are going to have other cars trying to merge into you but at the same time you need to be aware of your surroundings as a motorcyclist more than as a car driver because as a motorcyclist you are going to find yourself sometimes getting out of some hairy situations and you want to leave yourself an escape route. What I mean by that is if you're riding in the left most lane on a highway the chances are it is not going to have a shoulder. Sometimes it does and that's fine but if it doesn't have a shoulder you are right against the median or barrier or some sort of a thing. If you have got a car on your right or a truck and you are in the left lane and they don't see you and they go merging into you they're just going to smash you into the median unless you can gun it and get out of the way but if there is a car in front of you you are kind of screwed so the best way to ride if you have a condition like that on the highway is in the middle lane or on the right lane. On the right lane you have an escape route to go because you have a shoulder, typically so if a car merges into you, you can just gun it and get out of the way or if there is a car right in front of you you can just move over on the shoulder slightly, the car will merge and then you can get back in. If you are in the middle lane try to make sure you don't box yourself in with cars on both sides of you because if they both merge into you and you have a car in front of you or behind you you can't hit the brake or the gas to accelerate so basically always be aware of the cars around you, have an escape route, be as visible as you possibly can, also make sure that you know what's going on around you so that you can have an escape route. Don't be thinking about you know what I'm going to do with my girlfriend or you know what's going on at work. You are out riding your bike have some fun so put your attention on your environment but that's basically how a person can ride safely in traffic."