Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Apr 4, 2007

Ride weirdness

Filed in Blog

You’re in a city, riding in the right hand lane of a three-lane road.

In the center lane is a car, which you’ve just passed.

In the left lane is another motorcyclist, who’s also just passed the car.

You stop at a light, and the bikers lean around the car and wave cheerily at one another. The light changes, the three vehicles move right on.

Ahead of you is a stop-light just before the overpass that you’re about to ride under.

Not even half a block further along, at the other side of the overpass, is a second stop light. These stop lights are seldom either green together or red together. It’s annoying, but it happens that way.

As you ride up to the first stoplight, in the space of a few elegant seconds, you merge from the right hand lane into the left, the other bike merges from the left into the right, and the car pulls forward. You all wave cheerily at one another. It’s oddly symmetrical and amusing–one of those nice little biking momemts that seems so fun.

Then it goes a little sour.

The far light turns to green. The near light, where all three lanes are occupied by these dancers, is still red.

Within a split second of one another:

The biker in the right hand lane pulls all the way out, cuts diagonally across all available lanes to his left turn lane, narrowly missing a car turning left from the opposite direction. There is a honk. It’s close.

The car pulls away, stopping abruptly about halfway through the crosswalk. His brain has kicked in. It’s not my light.

You, in the left hand lane, feel your hand go for the throttle. Then your brain kicks in. It’s not my light.

Still, there’s adrenaline.

Only when the light-jumping biker is in the left-turn lane to get onto the fast road does he appear, from his body language, to have his brain kick in.

Gee. That wasn’t my light.

In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, it could have all been so very different.