I took my CB750 up Geiger grade this evening. On the way down it was raining pretty good but my new tires were gripping very well so I was doing a pretty spirited run back down when I came upon one of those cars that don't like to yield to motorcycles so I backed off about 150 feet and let him run. He was going fairly quick so it was still a nice ride. We came up on a truck that was loaded up and taking it easy. Towards the bottom he pulled off to let us by. After passing the car really took off. I kept my distance. When he came to one of the sharpest corners on the mountain he drifted a little wide and the car coming up was riding the center line. They both panicked and the car coming up hooked it right and spun right into the outer guardrail the car going down also hooked it to his right and went into the inside ditch and folded his front tires over. I slowed to a stop then drove between them and about a couple hundred feet down to get out of the corner to a section of straight road and called 911 then warned the cars coming up.
I had a conversation with my daughter just yesterday about following too close. I was moving her back home from college and a couple of guys on Hardleys got behind us and were riding our tail. She asked if I do that on my motorcycle, I explained to why you don't do that because it doesn't give much time to react to anything at all if something happens.
No doubt!
I have seen entire exhaust systems drop out from under a car going down the road! I've hit crap on the road twice (in cars thankfully) that cut the tire from sidewall to sidewall.
Site distance will definitely save your life!
Lately (last few years) I've noticed the trend of a driver up ahead not paying attention and doesn't see traffic slowing in front of them - so an easy slowdown turns into panic braking that sets up a chain reaction behind them. Having extra room for you to slow down means the guy behind you also gets extra room - even if they were following too closely! It also gives you time to evaluate the car behind you and decide if you need to take the shoulder or go between lanes to stay alive.
We were doing a road trip a few years ago in outback Australia where the morning brings a swath of dead kangaroos laying everywhere on the road after being hit by truck road trains the night before, anyway we were driving along early one morning constantly swerving one side to the other dodging them when a car came up behind and sat about 6/7 car lengths behind us, suddenly I had to swerve to miss a giant roo laying in our lane and the car behind didn't have time to react and hit it which put it on two wheels nearly tipping the car over, they soon backed off after shitting themselves and then followed a couple of hundred meters behind.
Last year or the year before dont remember i was driving on a 2 lane highway
I was in left lane and a little honda civic was in right lane going in same direction as i was.
the speed was about 90-100 km hour. i was about 200 meter behind the car traveling a little faster than the car .I was going to pass the car soon in my lane .Then i was distracted by something happening to my right i heard a bang and something going on on a construction site
so i automatic turned my head to the right for about 1 second.
when i turned my head back again the little car had shifted into left lane i was travelling for no reason as there was no other cars around ,but the funny thing was that it had suddenly stopped there on the highway !
I was able to just throw the bike to the side and was very lucky not hitting it.
i then braked hard and saw that the driver was a very old lady with big curly hair.
The strangest thing was that about 15 minutes later when i was almost home on the small city road where i live the same little car was driving slowly in front of me. Same old lady same car !!!??
i dont understand how she was able to get there before me ?? there are no faster roads to get there as i know of. strange !