The OC Rider

Everyone knows that motorcycle riding is riskier that driving a car or should I say more dangerous? How ever you frame it the bottom line is riding a motorcycle requires a higher level of skill and attentiveness than driving a car.

The statistics regarding motorcycle accidents and deaths are are well documented and like most statistics can be spun to give you what ever result you’re looking for but some pretty common numbers I’ve read are that you are twice as likely to be involved in an accident on a motorcycle than in a car.  And if you are involved in an accident on a motorcycle you are four times as likely to be killed (or kilt if you’re from LA) as you would be in a car.

Excluding alcohol and untrained riders there are a number of factors that contribute to motorcycle accidents.  I’m not gonna talk about those right now. What I am gonna talk about is one very simple way to get yourself killed (or kilt if you’re from LA) on your motorcycle: Forgetting to cancel your turn signal! Things are tough enough for motorcycle riders. Why make it worse by giving the wrong information to the few drivers around you that actually do see you?

Forgetting to cancel your turn signal may seem like a rookie mistake and in large part it is. However there is a good percentage of seasoned riders that have not developed this habit.  And that’s exactly what it is, a habit, just like looking over your shoulder before you change lanes.

Personally I’ve only been riding five months so I’m no “Old-Timer” or Motorcycle Guru.  What I am is teachable.  I read, I watch and I listen. We spent about a half an hour at the MSF course I took just talking about turn signals.  Seems to me with all the stuff they had cram into two days that turn signals would be simply glanced over if mentioned at all.  The reason they talked about it is because not canceling your turn signal can get you killed (or, you know).  It’s tough enough out there, give yourself a fighting chance.

I took me a month to get the habit down but I did and I rarely forget.  Signaling to change lanes never was a problem for me because it all happens so quick my thumb doesn’t really come off the signal button.  It was being stopped at a light, usually making a left turn when I’d have plenty of time to forget that I even had the damn thing on.  Two miles down the road, look down and the green light is blinking. Man I hate that.

What I did to cure myself was I made canceling the signal part of the turn.  Stopped at the light I signal and wait.  Green light go, look through the turn, shift into second, cancel the signal and a quick glance down to check the indicator.  It has become all one action for me.  Four steps but all in one.  Now I’m not perfect and still forget but it happens less and less because I practice and I’m conscious of it.

This whole topic may seem trivial but it won’t seem that way the next time you’re cruising down the road with your right turn signal on. You approach a busy shopping center filled with OC trophy wives in their shiny white Escalades, Starbucks in one hand, cell phone in the other, in a hurry to get to their therapists, nail salon or pottery class. IF they even notice you they see you’re signaling to make a right turn and out they go into your line of travel.  Now its not so trivial, especially if you crash and make them late for their once a month volunteer gig. Think about it.