Motorcycle Safety Tips 2: Stop light positions, cars as shields, rear view awareness, visability

The other thing to do, to always make sure of, and this is just common sense, and everybody probably knows this, but when you're on a motorcycle, and you come to a thing like this, I curve in the middle of the lanes, and I'll curve, I'll try to get in front of some of the cars. So I wouldn't be in the right lane here, I'd stay in the left, because there's a car there. And then, in most states in the United States, it's illegal to split traffic. So I can't go up in between those two cars as kind of a buffer or a shield, if somebody was going to ram me from behind, but what I can do, is I can continually watch what's happening when I leave you there, and if somebody looks like they're coming too fast, I just hit the throttle a little bit, and I always keep it in first with my hand on the clutch. I just hit the throttle a little bit, and I can get over between these guys and use them as a shield, in case it gets dicey. Another thing that I can do, that I like to do, is wear ridiculously bright things like this. And another thing that I like to do, is I have a brake light, and whenever anybody's coming towards me, like this truck is coming towards me now, I don't know if you can see that, but I'll just lift up and pump my brakes, and I have some auto strobing brake lights that make people stop way back, which is really nice. That guy in the truck is wondering, who the hell is this guy talking to? I'm talking to myself, that's right. Anyway, so I'll just strobe it. Another thing you need to do is get out of the oil puddles. When you're stopped at places like busy stop lights and traffic lights, get out of the oil puddles in the middle. Stay where the car's tires go, and that way you're not going to put your foot down in some slippery crap, or worse yet, put your tires into some slippery crap that can affect your performance. That sounds like a nail enhancement drug commercial. So another safety tip, on a left turn like this, I'll stay as left as I can, see how I'm in that guy's tire track, not over here in the garbage that's on the ground. I'm keeping track of what's behind me in the mirror, as I kind of look forward to what's happening up there. Because you never know, people on their cell phones today, they can drive right through you, and you can be a bloody cracked windshield. All they'll think is, oh, did I hit a bump? As they're talking to their ex-wife or something, I don't know.