IN_NO_OH

The only serious road motorcycle accident I witnessed in person was a rider on Lakeshore Drive in Chicago. He flew through traffic, with a passenger, and just didn't take the curve at the right speed. He must have been doing somewhere around 60 when he lost it He went down and slid. There was a big SUV behind him, a Tahoe or something, but somehow he didn't get run over. I felt for him, but you really can't bring a passenger down just because you're going through an obvious curving section of public highway too quickly. There are enough hazards one can't control. He and the passenger were all right, amazingly.

To return to the issue of the speed limits, I approve. The change to 70 on the turnpike—a year and-a-half ago?—made a noticeable difference in the riding experience, I thought. Traffic seems to flow more quickly. Or, so I think. The turnpike has high OSP presence, but they seem institutionally indifferent to 75mph or so. 71between Cleveland and Cbus and then between Cbus and Cin definitely could have a higher limit than 65. It’s always had a higher speed stream. The change is long overdue. I don’t see why 90 can’t be 70 mph, too, outside of Cleveland. Traffic is high speed on that highway as it is from Lakewood all the way to the merge with the turnpike. There are cities along the way, but there aren’t that many exits and entrances after Crocker Park. I take it Ohio is not imposing split limits for trucks and cars along these routes, too? 60 on the rural roads is an obvious and good change, too. That is long overdue as well.

I went out for about eighty miles today, the first significant ride of the year for me. I was out in the afternoon in Cleveland and thereabouts. The roads are clear and dry, but the air is chilly. I guess it was somewhere near 40, but I was kitted out so it didn't feel all that cold. The RT is a good cold weather bike, and I've got decent gear. So, temperature wise I could ride more weeks than I do, but I don't take chances with ice. I don't want road salt on the bike, either. This time of year is about the earliest I can get back on the road, usually. On the other hand, when the weather’s better a lot of you will be able to go much faster than I can. It was good to get back out again. The bike needed it. I have to put a new battery in the bike sometime soon, so I should probably do that on one of these last days of winter weather. I didn't see anyone else out in the area, but there might be a few who are back on two wheels.

This isn't what you'd call exactly, spot-on topic, but someone I know has a recumbent bicycle-- the on your back, legs-in-front kind. He's got a fairing on it that forms an aero wedge so only his head and the bottoms of the wheels are directly visible. He says when he's out on the road he gets a fair number of bikers giving him the wave. He doesn't know anything about motorcycles so he didn't understand what was going on for a while. 'Why are all these bikers waving at me?' He doesn't really know the difference between Harleys and other kinds of motorcycles, so no help there.

There have been a number of articles in Ohio papers over the last year touting OSP's drug seizures. I don't have anything else to go on, but the news suggests OSP is deemphasizing run-of-the-mill speeding tickets in favor of trying to get busts. That's not a question of their total presence, per se, but it might speak to priorities. That said, I don't know that I've noticed more presence than normal on the turnpike. That highway and 70 are always well-patrolled in comparison to more local routes like 480, but it seems about what it always is.

Deer cause me anxiety. They are unpredictable and they can appear with no warning whatsoever. Nothing brings on icy terror like spotting one of those animals at the roadside at the last second. There just isn't a lot you can do if a deer leaps out at the wrong time. There's no defense other than hoping you won't hit one. So, I ride a lot less at night than I would because of deer. I go slower, night or day, in areas where I've seen deer before. It's a drag. It's not only deer, though. A fat raccoon could bring the bike down, as could, perhaps, even a opossum. These are pretty much night time animals, though, so, again, less night riding and slower speeds. These tactics are out where I live. One advantage of the city proper-- Cleveland, say-- is less worry about these animals. A real danger. No question.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/02/congress-motorcycle-checkpoints.html An article above with some relevant information. (I hadn't realized the Congress was seriously considering nationally mandated mc checkpoints... ??.) According to this article, which itself draws on NHTSA information, 22% of riders involved in fatal crashes did not have a proper mc license. I don't know what the breakdown of that 22% is in terms of riders with no vehicle license whatsoever as opposed to those who, Schwarzenegger and Rothesberger-style, have a driver's license without an mc endorsement. Still, the 22% is a remarkable number. I'm guessing that unlicensed riders are much more likely to be involved in fatal crashes, because the alternative is that about 1/4 of all the riders on public roads don't have a mc license. That would seem to me to be an incredibly high fraction. So, it might *seem* like it's a legitimate safety issue to cite non-licensed riders. On the other hand, as many of you are pointing out, it's not clear what riding safety benefits accrue from the licensing process itself, especially in OH. It might be that the fact of not having a license is a signal of other accident-causing inclinations, but making non-licensed riders get a license would not obviously make that group any safer on the road. A further note about MSF classes. I don't know that all states, even today, require a mc endorsement. There might be a mountain state or two that still lets you ride a mc with just a regular driver's license. The states that do require an endorsement, though, will let you have one upon completion of a motorcycle safety course. And it's common advice to new riders that they should take the course. There is a fair amount of information that these courses don't reduce accident rates, though. There is also a study from Indiana which shows that those who completed the course have higher accident rates than those who did not. A nice summary of a lot of studies on basic safety courses is here: http://wmoon.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/motorcycle-safety-puzzle-piece-training-part-ii/ Looking over the summaries, the one thing that might be said for the basic safety course is that it does probably have the beneficial effect of discouraging riders who cannot pass the course from getting a license. Otherwise, it doesn't seem like it does very much. It's a shame, because it would be good if there were some program that would significantly reduce accident rates among new riders. I'm not sure what that would be. An important barrier in the U.S. is that no mc safety course could take novice riders out on the street to teach them the important elements of riding in traffic. It would be too risky. But traffic-riding skills are easily the most important safety skills. For what it's worth, I took a basic safety course to get my license. It wasn't in OH, and it was back in the last century. I think I wasted a weekend and $100 or so, or whatever I paid. Sometimes it ticks people off when I say this, but the fact is that I didn't think the course taught me anything useful about riding. I had had a permit for months and I already was competent in the basic maneuvers taught in the course. The instructor did lecture us loudly and aggressively about traffic law, but he was wrong about a lot of what he was saying, so I can't say there was any benefit there, either. In the U.S., pretty much all practical motorcycling is self-taught, or is taught with help from friends, books, or internet advice. There's no legal possibility for formal instruction on the street, and there is really no substitute for riding experience. I suppose the thing to say is to urge caution on new riders until they have skills appropriate for more demanding traffic conditions. Finally, all of the above said, it has still struck me as strange to hear from time to time from riders who don't have a license. On some of the V-twin forums, if you look, you can see this is a common topic of discussion. It's not hard to get a mc endorsement, and it doesn't seem there is any real upside to not having one. There is the downside, too, of ongoing static from the cops. Why go through that?

The V-Strom 1k is a lot like the Beemer in its intended use and performance, though the RT version I ride has absolutely no offroad capability. So, I mostly appreciate where you're coming from. I hope you enjoy the bike. I found I like the twin engine a lot for touring. It's more like a motorcycle should be, it seems to me, and somehow the vibration from a twin is more soothing than tiring. Not as smooth as the fours, though. Is there a full faring for the Strom? I'm not sure it's the whole story, but the Beemer's fully fared and it cuts through dirty air completely true. There are a lot of stroms on the road, but, as is true of most bikes, I don't see many of them up by the lake! Milwaukee iron seems to be the overwhelming mount up hereabouts.

Hmmnn... If this what you conclude you need to consider the matter more carefully. The thread is a discussion about whether motorcyclists are especially reckless on the roadways. Yet, you say that the fact that half of all of the motorcycle fatalities are the fault of automobile drives is "pretty useless" in the discussion. Well, no. For one thing, even if we ignored single-vehicle deaths, which are, in fact, a large fraction of motorcycle fatalities, the "roadkill" remark would be pretty offensive to the large fraction of motorcyclists killed who are the victim of automobilist negligence. For another, "all" includes single-vehicle wrecks. So, if we assume that motorcyclists are at fault in the majority of single-vehicle fatalities, it follows that car drivers are at fault in the majority of multiple-vehicle motorcycle fatalities. I'd say that in a discussion in which some columnist is complaining that motorcyclists ought to be left like roadkill this fact is both relevant and important. Actually, since about 1/3 of the motorcycle deaths are single-vehicle collisions, and the very large majority of these are the fault of the motorcyclist, it follows-- as someone like yourself keen on drawing inference will see-- that something approaching 2/3, a large majority, of multiple-vehicle motorcycle fatalities are the fault of automobile drivers. In case the point still is not clear, notice that the fraction of multiple-vehicle motorcyclist fatalities in which motorcyclists are at fault could have been higher. It could have been half, which would have implied equal fault in causing multiple vehicle collisions as compared to automobilists. It could have been a large majority, which would have implied on average more recklessness in operation as compared to automobile drivers. It isn't either of those fractions, which anyone interested in the discussion and paying attention should say is informative. The real point, I would say, is that motorcyclists as a group are not reckless simply for getting on bikes, even if some are involved in reckless single-vehicle wrecks and even if some cause multiple vehicle collisions, whatever the likelihood of doing either compared to car drivers. Still, surely it's relevant to the public policy discussion that it is automobile drivers who, as a group, disproportionately cause multiple-vehicle motorcycle fatalities. One might more plausibly on this basis argue, for example, that the appropriate response is better training or licensing restrictions for drivers, rather than complaints about motorcycle helmets.

About 1/2 of fatal motorcycle accidents are the result of automobile drivers violating the motorcyclist's right of way. These collisions are the fault of car drivers, in other words. Rather than comment on the dangerous behavior that causes about half of motorcycling deaths, though, the "brain injury" spokesperson reserves his vitriol for the victims of the wrongful harms. The victims did not do as much as they could have to mitigate the injuries others wrongfully caused to them. Ah, ok...

It looked, anyway, like a motorcycle-involved accident of some kind on eastbound 80 at the junction with 280 out west of Woodville. The crash would have happened sometime before 1 p.m. Saturday. As I passed the aftermath of whatever this was, there was a large group of bikes stopped on the shoulder, along with OSP cars, in the vicinity of an obvious crash site. By "large" group I mean at least 30 bikes. Something had burned at the site, too. Entry to eastbound turnpike at I-280 was closed off for a while in the aftermath, which is how I came to be acquainted with this crash. It looked as if some sort of large club were riding to BikeWeek in Sandusky from points west and had a rider involved in a bad collision. Does anyone know any further details about this crash? I couldn't find any online news posted. No news might mean that no one was injured. We can hope.

I've got the Gerbing heated jacket. The thing is great. I do prefer it to the heated vest, because even on the big Beemer, with its fairing and tall shield, there's cold air rushing over my shoulders and upper arms. On cold days those are trouble spots. The jacket makes everything more comfortable. I have taken long rides-- 7 hours plus-- in sub 40F temperatures with no heating, just layering. It's doable for me, for sure. It's much more comfortable with the electric gear, though. The Beemer's got 12v DC outlets, and I prefer to use those rather than to connect the jacket directly to the battery via the cradle. I don't have to open the seat up to plug in, for one thing. No current will be drained, either, if I leave the jacket plugged in with the bike off. I would suggest plunking down extra for a dual controller. For one thing, the cradle that comes with the jacket has no graduated setting. It's on or it's off. For another, the dual controller would allow you and your passenger to have independent temperature controls.

I rode out to NYC from Elyria a couple of days ago. Beautiful ride. Cold and rainy in NO OH that day, as many of you will recall. I've got good gear, though, and the big Beemer's got good wind protection, so all was fine until the sky brightened up in central PA. The leaves are changing all throughout OH and PA. It was a gorgeous day. Beautiful views, a look at a couple of deer that was much *too* good, but, all in all, the kind of ride that one buys a bike for. I am always struck by how lightly traveled 80 is between Cleveland and NYC. There's always much less traffic than on the PA turnpike. Not so much car traffic, almost no LEO presence. It's weird. This is the major highway that connects Chicago and NYC, after all. Where are all of the cars? About 7:40 from rolling on the throttle near 80/90 to sidestand down in Manhattan. That's with some time for a bite to eat at a Taco Bell in PA and two fuel-ups. Making good time but not going all out. There must be people who've gone from CLE to NYC on the road in under seven hours.

Lane splitting is as good a case study as you'd like as to the difference between explicit, codified law and common practice. To put it more bluntly, lane splitting is a good illustration of the difference between what the law says, explicitly, and what you can, as a matter of fact, plan on doing without penalty. I started riding in CA, a supposed lane-splitting legal Eden. In Ca, especially in southern CA, one can ride between the cars when they're stopped at a light, when they're backed up on the freeway, or even when they are traveling slowly in a traffic jam-- all without fear of getting a ticket. Indeed, the cops are the first to move aside when they see a bike coming up between the lanes in any of these situations. But the law in CA is close to silent on lane-splitting per se. There is a provision in the motor vehicle code that no vehicle can occupy two lanes at one time. ("Occupy" is consistent with changing lanes-- the transient being in two lanes at the same time during a typical lane change is not "occupation" as per CA law.) Otherwise, there's nothing addressing bikes or any other vehicle moving between lines of cars. There's nothing, for example, that forbids or even addresses two vehicles riding abreast in a single lane. (A provision forbids more than two bicycles riding abreast.) This last may come as a surprise to some California riders. When I lived there, I encountered a vast urban legend understanding of the traffic law-- complete with entirely fictional segments of the vehicle code that supposedly addressed lane splitting. Supposedly, the law permitted lane splitting only by air cooled bikes, at no more than 15 mph faster than auto traffic, and at no more than 25 mph by the motorcycle, and so on. I can't tell you how often I listened to earnest lectures along these lines from well-intentioned people who actually had no idea at all what they were talking about. I was even told something like this was in CA law by the instructor of my AMA safety course, for chrissake. None of it was true. To the extent any of it had anything to do with legal reality, it might have described the rough guidelines that police had in deciding who to ticket for occupying two lanes at one time. It certainly had nothing to do with traffic law as a judge would understand it. In principle, a state government determined to hammer bikers could enforce existing law in CA to prevent lane splitting. Even the tip of a handlebar in the space above one lane on the road while the rest of the bike is in another lane long enough to count as "occupation" of two lanes could be ticketed-- and it was, occasionally, to punish bikers for insufficient sucking-up to cops, or so my friends said. But this wasn't done as any kind of regular practice. That this was not, and is not, done is more a testament to what is, in fact, accepted than what authorities are compelled to do by explicit law. So, in other places, the toleration, if it can be called even that, for the practice is not all that far from what actually goes on in CA. I'm here in NYC now, for example, and I've got my bike. Car drivers are plainly used to lane splitting. I notice that many of them will move to make room for me when I'm coming up behind two lanes of stopped traffic. I have no idea what the law in New York state actually is, though, as far as lane splitting goes. I'm guessing there is nothing in the statutes that explicitly permits motorcycles going between marked lanes of traffic among backed-up cars. Probably there are statutes that one might read as forbidding this practice. In fact, though, it happens, and drivers of cars are obviously used to it. If this goes on long enough, sooner or later the practice of police will solidify into something like CA practice. Back in Ohio, though--- we are Ohio riders, after all--- it's not nearly as hospitable. Rolling between lanes in Cleveland or Columbus in anything like the way accepted in NYC would have horns blazing and curses shouted. Or so my experience has been. But if this sort of thing happens often enough, and people come to accept it.... well, we'd have a situation pretty close to the California of actual fact, if not of urban legend. The point here is that the facts on the ground as regards lane splitting, even the fact of the threat of legal penalty, are not at all exhausted by what's in the state code. If the cops are used to cracking down on the practice, they'll find a reason in the statutes to do it. If not, they'll cut you slack, even if the statutes can plainly be read otherwise. (This last case, again, is exactly what the situation is in CA.) So, getting a read on the situation is at least as much a function of finding out what actually goes on as it is a function of reading the state vehicle codes.

Do you mean modulators, too, on the headlight, or just the colored lights?