Motorcycle Insanity

I have nothing against motorcycles – except for the ones driven noisily down my residential not-a-through-street signed street. Really, I think they’re fine. I’ll probably never ride one because I don’t think it’s safe in my current condition, but that’s me. But sometimes I have to wonder about some of the people who do ride them.

I was coming home from my Mother’s yesterday, and as I neared my exit on the highway a half dozen motorcyclists entered the roadway from an on-ramp. Here is the scene. It is dusk, the road is pretty crowded, cars are entering and jockeying for an exit that comes up in less than a mile. The three lanes of high-speed traffic have to rearrange themselves to exit and those cars that enter the highway have to get out of the far right lane because that will become an exit very quickly.

Enter 6 motorcyclists who are speeding (OK, they’re not alone in that) and then cutting across lanes to get out of the exit lane. But they are not leaving enough room, they are cutting people off and they are passing between cars, not in lanes. They eventually spread out over three lanes – and then suddenly decide that they really did want the exit after all. Four of them start cutting back through traffic while one of them overshoots and makes it onto the shoulder to make a roundabout turn back onto the ramp. One rider misses the exit completely and by the cloud of smoke I thought he had wiped out but it was just smoke from his tires (I looked so I could call 911 if I had to). High speed panic braking in the center lane of a crowded highway is not my idea of safe driving.

I was paying close attention because I needed to get over into the exit lane. If I hadn’t been watching and anticipating their crazy riding, I could have killed 3 of the riders all while signaling and legally changing lanes. I didn’t really want to do that.

One of the reasons I’m posting about this is because I’m not sure that it qualifies as the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen by motorcycle riders on that same highway. The other contenders are 2 guys speeding down the same highway during a weekday evening rush hour. They’re in the running because they were popping wheelies in the middle lane.

I have seen some weird shit on that road.