I recently experienced a situation that reminded me of something an old motorcycle sage told me years ago, and thought I’d share it.
As part of normal situational awareness while riding, consider thinking about what “the other guy” is CAPAB LE of rather than what they’re likely to do. It might seem like a small distinction, but it will cause you to prepare differently.
I was riding in slow moving traffic recently, and was approaching a curve with a wide entrance that headed off to the right (my normal exit). This is on a side street where the normal speed limit is 35, but traffic was moving at about 15 at this time of day. As I approached the curve and the lane began to open up into it, I first thought about what the car ahead of me would likely do. They weren’t signaling, they were driving past the curve, and every indication was that they would be going straight. Since about half the entrance to the curve was exposed and there was enough room for even a car to enter it, the temptation was to turn and be on my way. But the entrance is wide, and the car wasn’t yet beyond the point of entering the curve. They were CAPABLE of turning into it, even though it appeared they weren’t likely to... So I waited. Sure enough, at the last moment, the car made a hard right turn into the curve and accelerated. What could have been a dangerous situation or even a collision, ended up with nothing more than me mumbling a few choice words to myself.
Another common situation, as an example: That car in the oncoming traffic lane at the red light with his left signal on (or maybe there’s NO signal on)… What is he going to do when the light turns green? He’s most likely going to wait until all traffic going your way is clear before turning, but we’ve all seen the guy in a rush that punches it to make the left turn in front of oncoming traffic. A good approach would be to plan for what he’s likely to do, but be prepared for what he’s capable of. If you think this way, you’ll probably have your hand on the brake and have a few escape routes planned. You may even hesitate just a moment longer when the light turns green so you know what he’s doing before committing yourself. In any case, if he DOES do something unexpected, you’ll be at least a little prepared for it, and be able to execute some sort of evasive maneuver. If you don’t think this way and he does something unexpected, your mind will have to process the OMG response before even beginning to think of a way to avoid the problem, losing critical time that could have been spent getting out of the way.
I’d like to open this up for a discussion that we can all learn from. Does anyone else have an experience you’d like to share where you either were or weren’t prepared for what the other guy was capable of?
