OK,
I have tried for days now to just let this go, but I am thinking that I'm going to have to write a letter to
one of our state newspapers to see if anything beneficial might be precipitated from it..
Last Friday, I was riding to work - my main client's office is 80 miles from my home, and the weather was
beautiful. I usually take the interstate to get to their office in a timely fashion, and then take all back roads
home for some variety at the end of the day. Anyhow, I was riding along with traffic on I-89, doing 70-75, and noticed
that a large group (I would estimate between 50 - 60) of motorcycles were leaving a roadside truck stop and
were heading onto the on-ramp ahead. Seeing the potential for merging problems, I pulled into the left lane
(only 2 lane wide interstate highway in this section) as did most of the group of traffic around me, expecting to give
them the right lane to merge and for us to pass by on the left, as normal. Well, this group of bikers had at least a handful of
complete idiots that almost ruined everyone's day..
I have nothing against riders of any brand of bike in general, but these people all happened to be riding a particular
American-brand V- twin bike and they demonstrated utter disregard for the rules of the road and for the other citizens
using the road with them. Once their group gained entrance to the highway, a couple of their group instantly pulled into
the left lane and slammed on their brakes, while some in the right lane group did something similar in an effort to try to let their ENTIRE string of bikes onto the highway at once in a contiguous cluster. Those in the left lane refused to yield way, and almost got mowed over by some folks in a BMW sedan traveling just in front of me - fortunately for them the sedan had ABS. The tour bus that was behind me loomed frighteningly large in my rear view mirrors as I tried to weigh the options
of rear ending a sedan at 60+mph or becoming the grille ornament on the greyhound behind me. The swarm of bikers, riding 2 abreast in a lane, also began
passing us in any manner to try to get out front, this included lane splitting, passing other vehicles within the same lane, running on the shoulder/breakdown lane, etc.
Did I mention that this was all while over a dozen vehicles (including me) that they CHOSE to intercept by their speed on the on-ramp, were swerving to try to avoid running them over and running into each other.
Not one of pack of riders bothered to use turn signals of course, simple pointing - or having their female pillion passengers pointing fingers in various directions, generally well after they had already swerved into the place they intended to be. By some miracle, no collisions occurred, though at least one SUV had to pull off the side to avoid taking out half a dozen of these idiots. I think that a number of us had to check our underwear after we got to where we were going, and I was jittery for the whole day without drinking any caffeine. Had I been in a car I might have taken down some license plates, but on my bike I needed all my limbs to keep from
dominoe-ing through the pack of Harleys or becoming the meat in a sedan-bike-bus sandwich. On the plus side, I think that some folks in one of the cars or the bus
made a cell call to the police, but I don't know, and where they were headed could have taken them onto interstate highways going in at least 4 different directions.
After several miles of this foolishness - and being forced to miss my exit while dealing with these bastards/bastardettes, all the rest of us managed to find a lower speed
and position so that the swarm of loud obnoxious locusts would fly away in the distance, like out of a Max Max movie. Thank goodness I didn't crash, cause in the unlikely event one of the "swarm" bothered to stop to help I would have put a 12" inch Crescent wrench through his "do-rag" protected skull. good riddance !
I think that this large group of idiots were doing one of those "poker runs", which seems to be especially appealing to the H-D riders of this area. They almost got
their chips cashed in. I 'm thinking of writing a letter to the paper to just remind bikers to respect the rules of the road and highway regulations, and if they
cannot travel on a limited access interstate highway without getting lost from each other, that they should either get a parade permit or hire a police escort. With any luck, maybe these fools did/will end up with several police escorts whether they wanted one or not.
This sort of behavior can make all bikers appear as law breaking idiot scum in the eyes of the general automotive public.
Well, I feel slightly better now. Thanks for letting me rant.
nhmaf
Topic: Warning Will Robinson - Rant approaching ! (Read 5755 times)