If it’s a choice between riding our bike or trailering it, we’ll take the former any day-even if it’s to a rally in another time zone or on a troll through the local hills in the rain. Sometimes, though-like when wrangling multiple bikes to the dragstrip for this issue’s comparison test-we don’t have a choice.

You know the drill-humping 700 pounds of V-twin magic up a narrow aluminum ramp, gingerly easing ‘er into the truck and strapping the whole enchilada down for a 60-mile haul. Everyone has to do it sooner or later, and we wondered if there was an unofficial bible for this thankless gig. We polled colleagues, our test-fleet manager Michael Candreia (who wrangles a half-dozen bikes on a slow day) and the experts at Steadymate (a securement-product company) for the scoop. Everyone had his own preferences, but we distilled ‘em down to a few basics.

Job One, obviously, is the security of the bike; you don’t want your Precious budging after she’s strapped. The best tools for that job are a series of tie-downs attached to the bike to pull it down and forward in the tow vehicle (preferably against a chock).

Tie-down straps come in two flavors-ratchet or cam buckle-style. Cam buckles use friction created by the strap as it passes through a spring-loaded, cam-shaped buckle to hold the strap in place. Ratchet straps operate in much the same manner, but with a ratchet buckle to progressively tighten the strap. Both allow you to secure the bike yourself and bump up tension on the suspension to reduce shock loading. Shock loading occurs when the vehicle hauling your bike hits a bump in the road, causing the bike’s suspension to compress. When the suspension compresses, the straps go slack, but as it rebounds, the tie-downs snap taut again-which can eventually loosen or break them. The more you load the suspension during tie-down, the less it will compress during towing. Some folks claim that ratchet straps are more effective at maximizing compression, but Candreia says he’s comfortable with the cams because they’re easier to work with.

How you tie down your bike depends greatly on the model you own, but everyone agrees on using either the frame or a solidly mounted part on the frame as an attachment point. Two ties up front and two on either side are adequate for most street bikes, but if you’re paranoid, six ratchet tie-downs-four in front and two out back-will offer max security, even for a Boss Hoss.

The Main Event

The first order of operations is to get your trailer/truck as level as possible. Hook the tie-downs to your floor or frame loops and extend them out as far as you need to attach to your motorcycle (and where you can reach them).

If you’re using extension loop straps around the lower triple tree, have those ready too (the lower triple tree is the most secure location for this setup).

Set up your ramp so it’s in line with the wheel chock in your truck bed and push or ride your bike onto the truck bed or trailer, straight into the chock.

While still on the bike (and in gear), attach the rear straps’ S-hooks (if you’re using them) to a structural member on the bike, gripping the loose end and pulling tight (or ratcheting down).

If you’re not using rear straps, conventional wisdom says to snug the left front tie-down (attached high on the bike) first, just enough to get the slack out.

Repeat with the right front tie-down; at this point the sidestand should be off the floor, with the bike upright.

When tie-downs are snug, check the side of the front tire and brake rotors to be sure they’re clear of the chock. Give the tie-downs a final yank to guarantee they’re even and securely tightened and the bike is vertical.

If you’re loading two dressers and their handlebars or fairings interfere, try reversing one of the bike’s positions in the trailer. It’s usually best to load the biggest bike in the forward position to properly distribute the load.

After you’ve locked down the front, it’s time to strap the rear for extra stability. Pick a high area on the chassis to attach tie-downs to for leverage. The tie-downs should pull down an inch or two forward of your attachment point-make sure the bike doesn’t rock forward, back or sideways. With cam buckle ties, it’s best to have someone compress the rear suspension while you tighten the tie-downs.

Check tie-down points for tightness; the straps should form a 45-degree angle between the bike and floor (see diagram above); your results may vary slightly.

Word On The Street

Some contributors to Honda Gold Wing and Yamaha Venture online owner forums recommend using a soft loop around the triple tree and tying off the loop with two ratchet straps-one pulling forward into the chock and the second pulling forward and out to the side. For the backs of those bikes, the same sites recommend tying a soft loop around passenger handgrips, passenger footpegs or the rear frame.

For some Harleys and other bikes with inverted forks, we’ve noticed a few sites advocating attaching tie-downs to the front of the engine where the frame meets the crashbars and repeating the four-strap tie-down method. The bottom line is you should feel free to experiment with attachment points, as your bike may have parts that interfere with the strap or cut it. And there’s also a long list of don’ts. For example

Don’t …

….use rear bag guards as attachment points; they’ll be pulled off .

….tie down at the handlebars. Some dealers are OK with this, but it’s not kosher with us because a few handlebars are rubber mounted and can compress, causing tie-down slippage. Regardless of the motorcycle, handlebars aren’t designed to deal with stresses generated by hitting a pothole at speed when tied down. (Note the bike in our illustrations is a sportbike; you wouldn’t attach tie-downs to cruiser bars.)

….go for the cheapest straps. The price of repairing your bike will be far greater than the cash you pocketed by buying economy straps.

Steadymate Securement Tips

We also talked to the guys at Steadymate (www.steadymate.com), a securement-product company formed by Kinedyne Canada, and they added their own tips on successful vehicle securement:

1 Securement points Check that the securement points on your truck are structural members of its body. Whichever you choose, the securement point must have the same capacity as the tie-down (see No. 3).

2 Number of straps Regardless of the application, owners should use at least two pairs of straps for vehicles in transit-one securing the front of the vehicle and a second for the rear.

3 Relationship of parts Each component of your system has an impact on every other component. For example, if your tie-down strap has a higher rating than your anchor point, the rating on your strap drops to that of the anchor. (A 1000-pound tie-down with a 600-pound pan fitting reduces the tie-down rating to 600 pounds.) Examine the tag on each part.

4 Manufacturer’s rating When purchasing tie-downs, be sure to look for the manufacturer’s certified rating and make sure the rating matches your needs. Steadymate recommends that one of the straps be rated to secure the “entire” weight of your vehicle. It’s not uncommon that one strap will be called upon to take the brunt of restraining your load during a sharp turn.

5 4×45 rule This method assures the complete securement of your vehicle. Four securement points are the minimum required by law. A 45-degree angle from the bike to the floor at each point creates optimum balance and tension.

Photo Gallery: Securing Your Bike For Transport – TraileringTips – Motorcycle Cruiser Magazine

Motorcycle Cruiser’s mothership, Motorcyclist magazine, recently published the following advice to an overwhelmingly appreciative response. We have decided to republish the list of living-saving techniques-in its entirety-for our own readership.

Assume you’re invisible
Because to a lot of drivers, you are. Never make a move based on the assumption that another driver sees you, even if you’ve just made eye contact.

Be considerate
The consequences of strafing the jerk du jour or cutting him off start out bad and get worse. Pretend it was your grandma and think again

Dress for the crash, not the pool or the prom
Sure, Joaquin’s Fish Tacos is a five-minute trip, but nobody plans to eat pavement. Modern mesh gear means 100-degree heat is no excuse for a T-shirt and board shorts

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst
Assume that car across the intersection will turn across your bow when the lightgoes green, with or without a turn signal.

Leave your ego at home
The only people who really care if you were faster on the freeway will be the officer and the judge.

Pay attention
Yes, there is a half-naked girl on the billboard. And the chrome needs a polish. Meanwhile, you could be drifting toward Big Trouble. Focus.

Mirrors only show you part of the picture
Never change direction without turning your head to make sure the coast really is clear.

Be patient
Always take another second or three before you pull out to pass, ride away from a curb or merge into freeway traffic from an on-ramp. It’s what you don’t see that gets you. That extra look could save your butt.

Watch your closing speed
Passing cars at twice their speed or changing lanes to shoot past a row of stopped cars is just asking for trouble.

Beware the verge and the merge
A lot of nasty surprises end up on the sides of the road: empty McDonald’s bags, nails, TV antennas, ladders, you name it. Watch for potentially troublesome debris on both sides of the road.

Left-turning cars remain a leading killer of motorcyclists
Don’t assume someone will wait for you to dart through the intersection. They’re trying to beat the light, too.

Think before you act
Careful whipping around that Camry going 7 mph in a 25-mph zone or you could end up with your head in the driver’s side door when he turns in front of you.

Beware of cars running traffic lights
The first few seconds after a signal light changes are the most perilous. Look both ways before barging into an intersection.

Check your mirrors
Do it every time you change lanes, slow down or stop. Be ready to move if another vehicle is about to occupy the space you’d planned to use

Mind the gap
Remember Driver’s Ed.? One second’s worth of distance per 10 mph is the old rule of thumb. Better still, scan the next 12 seconds ahead for potential trouble.

Beware of tuner cars
They’re quick, and their drivers tend to be young and aggressive, therefore potentially hazardous

Excessive entrance speed hurts
It’s the leading cause of single-bike accidents on twisty roads-some cruisers can make unheard of amounts of power. Use it on the way out of a corner, not in.

Don’t trust that deer whistle
Ungulates and other feral beasts prowl at dawn and dusk, so heed those big yellow signs. If you’re riding in a target-rich environment, slow down and watch the shoulders.

Learn to use both brakes
The front does most of your stopping, but for a lot of heavy cruisers a little extra rear brake can really help haul you up fast.

Keep the front brake covered-always
Save a single second of reaction time at 60 mph and you can stop 88 feet shorter. Think about that.

Look where you want to go
Use the miracle of target fixation to your advantage. The motorcycle goes where you look, so focus on the solution instead of the problem.

Keep your eyes moving
Traffic is always shifting, so keep scanning for potential trouble. Don’t lock your eyes on any one thing for too long unless you’re actually dealing with trouble

Come to a full stop at that next stop sign
Put a foot down. Look again. Anything less forces a snap decision with no time to spot potential trouble.

Raise your gaze
It’s too late to do anything about the 20 feet immediately in front of your fender, so scan the road far enough ahead to see trouble and change trajectory.

Get your mind right in the driveway
Most accidents happen during the first 15 minutes of a ride, below 40 mph, near an intersection or driveway. Yes, that could be your driveway

Never dive into a gap in stalled traffic
Cars may have stopped for a reason, and you may not be able to see why until it’s too late to do anything about it.

Don’t saddle up more than you can handle
If you weigh 95 pounds, avoid that 795-pound cruiser. Get something lighter and more manageable.

Watch for car doors opening into traffic
And smacking a car that’s swerving around some goofball’s open door is just as painful.

Don’t get in an intersection rut
Watch for a two-way stop after a string of four-way intersections. If you expect cross-traffic to stop, there could be a painful surprise when it doesn’t.

Stay in your comfort zone when you’re with a group
Riding over your head is a good way to end up in a ditch. Any bunch worth riding with will have a rendezvous point where you’ll be able to link up again.

Give your eyes some time to adjust
A minute or two of low light heading from a well-lighted garage onto dark streets is a good thing. Otherwise, you’re essentially flying blind for the first mile or so.

Master the slow U-turn
Practice. Park your butt on the outside edge of the seat and lean the bike into the turn, using your body as a counterweight as you pivot around the rear wheel.

Who put a stop sign at the top of this hill?
Don’t panic. Use the rear brake to keep from rolling back down. Use Mr. Throttle and Mr. Clutch normally-and smoothly-to pull away.

If it looks slippery, assume it is
A patch of suspicious pavement could be just about anything. Butter Flavor Crisco? Gravel? Mobil 1? Or maybe it’s nothing. Better to slow down for nothing than go on your head.

Bang! A blowout! Now what?
No sudden moves. The motorcycle isn’t happy, so be prepared to apply a little calming muscle to maintain course. Ease back the throttle, brake gingerly with the good wheel and pull over very smoothly to the shoulder. Big sigh.

Drops on the faceshield?
It’s raining. Lightly misted pavement can be slipperier than when it’s been rinsed by a downpour, and you never know how much grip there is. Apply maximum-level concentration, caution and smoothness.

Everything is harder to see after dark
Adjust your headlights, carry a clear faceshield and have your game all the way on after dark, especially during commuter hours

Emotions in check?
To paraphrase Mr. Ice Cube, chickity-check yo self before you wreck yo self. Emotions are as powerful as any drug, so take inventory every time you saddle up. If you’re mad, sad, exhausted or anxious, stay put.

Wear good gear
Wear stuff that fits you and the weather. If you’re too hot or too cold or fighting with a jacket that binds across the shoulders, you’re dangerous. It’s that simple.

Leave the iPod at home>br />You won’t hear that cement truck in time with Spinal Tap cranked to 11, but they might like your headphones in intensive care.

Learn to swerve
Be able to do two tight turns in quick succession. Flick left around the bag of briquettes, then right back to your original trajectory. The bike will follow your eyes, so look at the way around, not the briquettes. Now practice until it’s a reflex.

Be smooth at low speeds
Take some angst out, especially of slow-speed maneuvers, with a bit of rear brake. It adds a welcome bit of stability by minimizing unwelcome weight transfer and potentially bothersome driveline lash.

Flashing is good for you
Turn signals get your attention by flashing, right? So a few easy taps on the pedal or lever before stopping makes your brake light more eye-catching to trailing traffic.

Intersections are scary, so hedge your bets
Put another vehicle between your bike and the possibility of someone running the stop sign/red light on your right and you cut your chances of getting nailed in half.

Tune your peripheral vision
Pick a point near the center of that wall over there. Now scan as far as you can by moving your attention, not your gaze. The more you can see without turning your head, the sooner you can react to trouble.

All alone at a light that won’t turn green?
Put as much motorcycle as possible directly above the sensor wire-usually buried in the pavement beneath you and located by a round or square pattern behind the limit line. If the light still won’t change, try putting your kickstand down, right on the wire. You should be on your way in seconds.

Don’t troll next to-or right behind-Mr. Peterbilt
If one of those 18 retreads blows up-which they do with some regularity-it de-treads, and that can be ugly. Unless you like dodging huge chunks of flying rubber, keep your distance.

Take the panic out of panic stops
Develop an intimate relationship with your front brake. Seek out some safe, open pavement. Starting slowly, find that fine line between maximum braking and a locked wheel, and then do it again and again.

Make your tires right
None of this stuff matters unless your skins are right. Don’t take ‘em for granted. Make sure pressure is spot-on every time you ride. Check for cuts, nails and other junk they might have picked up, as well as for general wear.

Take a deep breath
Count to 10. Visualize whirled peas. Forgetting about some clown’s 80-mph indiscretion beats running the risk of ruining your life, or ending it

So there you are, enjoying a great ride on your bike, breeze in your face, when suddenly a good day turns bad. You hear the yelp of a siren, and your heart sinks as you look to find the flashing lights in your mirrors. You pull over, wondering, perhaps, what you did and how much this stop is going to cost you. Depending on the infraction, the cost could be significant. If you are guilty of some serious offense, like excessive speed, you may even get arrested, be taken before the magistrate, make new friends at the local bonding agency and meet some of your community’s finer denizens in the local lockup. Even for more benign stops, there can still be some steep expenses. There’s the fine itself and the likely multiyear northward bump in your insurance premiums. But wait, there’s more: You may be required to come to court and burn a vacation day in the process.

As a longtime motorcyclist and a cop who’s written his fair share of tickets, here are a few thoughts from behind the mirrored sunglasses that may help you avoid an unwelcome encounter with the boys (and girls) in blue. This is a difficult discussion because the relationship between motorcyclists and police is, and must be, at best, difficult. After all, each group’s goals are mutually exclusive. Motorcyclists are all about independence, and they willingly deal with the inherent risks on the road to enjoy their passion. On the other hand, police enforce conformity-in this case, the rules of the road-and the controlling of risk.

Still, there are some things that can override this tension and work to your benefit. First off, and this may seem obvious, don’t get my attention. Don’t be zealous about breaking the law. Stay off my radar, both literally and figuratively. Based on a jurisdiction’s population density, your average cop may see thousands of vehicles during a day’s tour of duty. Your goal, simply, is to avoid standing out. Be invisible, and let me nab the other guy.

How do you avoid this unwanted attention? First, and obviously, don’t break the law too egregiously. Remember that traffic enforcement is a major source of income for any jurisdiction, but this income is even more important for smaller jurisdictions and those without a large tax base. In other words, tickets are the bread and butter of many rural jurisdictions, the very places where one finds the twisty roads and great scenery so loved by riders.

Generally, if the weather and road conditions are good, I’ll give a rider 10 mph over the posted limit because I recognize that bikes are more maneuverable than cars (and because I’m basically a nice guy). However, speed in a school zone, weave in and out of traffic, pop a wheelie or do a burnout, and I’ll be meeting you on the side of the road.

Now for a few things beyond the obvious. Picture me, sitting in my air-conditioned cruiser, eating a cream-filled doughnut and doing my damnedest to keep powdered sugar off my uniform. All of a sudden, you go screaming by me with pipes loud enough to rattle my fillings. You just got my attention. Or maybe your helmet or T-shirt features obscenities. I’ve just become interested in you. Or that turtle helmet doesn’t look like it meets code. Again, you just got my attention. You’re riding in the left lane. I’m interested. Your headlight is burned out, you fail to signal a turn, you flip off a motorist, you’re wearing shorts and sandals…you get the picture. What you don’t want to have is my attention.

At night, there’s an additional dynamic at work. After dark, and especially between the hours of 1 and 5 A.M., most cops assume that unless you’re going to or coming from work, you’re probably up to no good. It may sound unfair, but arrest statistics and experience say we’re right. We’re interested in everyone on the road at these hours, and doubly so if there’s a bar nearby.

Remember my 10 mph over the limit generosity? Forget about it at night. And sometimes, after seeing only two or three vehicles go by in the wee hours of the morning, I get bored. In this instance, go just 7 or 8 mph over the limit, and I may light you up, if only to give myself something to do to pass the time faster.

All of this useful perspective aside, let’s say you do see my dreaded flashing lights behind you. Now what? You’ve already failed in your efforts to avoid my attention, so let’s see if you can make it one out of two. Your new goal is to make me comfortable. Remember, more officers die conducting traffic stops than in any other activity, so there’s no such thing as a “routine traffic stop.” Every officer approaching you, especially at night, will be thinking about what to do if the stop goes bad. Even though he knows your bad-boy biker image is probably cultivated, his hand is probably resting on his pistol.

So how do you put me at ease? First, let’s consider some things not to do. Don’t point to a sticker saying you support law enforcement. Those don’t count for squat. After all, your fines do support law enforcement, so why are you complaining? And don’t make jokes or excuses. I am not amused if you ask me to hold your beer while you search for your license, or you tell me there’s no way you could have been doing 90 because your recently calibrated speedometer only indicated 85. The following, however, will help. Pull over to an area that’s safe for both of us. Take off your helmet and your shades. We are trained to watch your eyes for our safety, and we get nervous if we can’t see them. Most important: Do Not Get Off Your Bike. Keep your hands on the handlebars and let me come to you. If you get off your bike and approach me, I must assume, for my safety, that you may have running or (worse yet) fighting on your mind. And if I feel threatened, I’ll be unsnapping my holster. At the very least, you’ve just made me disinclined to cut you a break.

Carry all your paperwork in a place that’s readily available and accessible. If you make me stand around while you fumble through all your stuff looking for your registration, you’re getting a ticket. If these documents are in a pocket, tell me which pocket and ask my permission to reach into it. By the way, I recognize that huge folding knives with pocket clips seem to be an essential fashion accessory for many riders, but they make me nervous. They are useless when you’re riding anyway and can easily be stored in a saddlebag or interior pocket until they’re needed. Another word to the wise: If you’re riding with a few buddies, tell them to continue on their way and you’ll meet them down the road. I don’t like to be outnumbered.

A few words about attitude. A traffic stop is not personal. I’m just out there doing my job. I can give you a ticket while also recognizing you’re a good and decent person. You don’t have to “sir” me to death; just be pleasant and courteous. If you think I’ve made a mistake or am being unfair, go to court and tell the judge. The side of the road is no place to argue about a ticket. Frankly, if you bust my chops, I’m going to stroke you for every violation I can find, and I can find a lot: defective equipment, unapproved equipment, tire-tread depth, headlight alignment, leaking fluids, the location and visibility of your stickers, volume of your pipes, etc. And whatever you do, don’t suggest I stopped you because I have to fill a quota. I have no quotas; I’m allowed to write as many or as few tickets as I want.

If you do get pulled over, try to make my traffic stop safe and pleasant, and I may give you a warning. Even if I issue a citation, I may write you for failure to obey a highway sign, which carries a smaller fine and fewer points than speeding or blowing through a stop sign. I have discretion on how I deal with you, and it’s your goal to encourage me to exercise this discretion to your benefit.

Finally, I always advise people to go to court rather than pay their fine by mail. If your driving record isn’t too hideous, the prosecutor may allow you to plead to a lesser offense or allow you to avoid a conviction by attending a driver’s school. If you were courteous to me, and cops remember because we make notes about such things on our copies of the tickets as you’re driving away cursing us, I may go to bat for you with the prosecutor.

There you have it. Get out there, ride safely and have fun. I have indeed met the nicest people on Hondas… and Harleys, and Suzukis, and BMWs, and Kawasakis and Yamahas. Hopefully, when I meet you, it will be at the doughnut shop and not on the side of the road.

Photo Gallery: Avoiding Traffic Ticket Tips – Motorcycle Cruiser Magazine

This spring, when Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger collided with a car that turned left in front of him, breaking his face and causing a concussion, it triggered a media uproar about the need for helmet laws. Few remarked on the irony or hypocrisy of the situation, the fact that the soapboxes came out when a sports star merely sustained recoverable injuries, but not when dozens of other riders in the same state died because they weren’t wearing helmets. The life and death of Joe Rider apparently doesn’t much interest editors and readers of general-interest publications, but the chance that a star quarterback might not be fit for football season is a big deal, one that should be prevented with helmet laws or even banning all players from riding motorcycles, as some teams do.

The press devoted much less attention to the revelation that Roethlisberger, who had previously said he didn’t believe he needed a helmet because he rode carefully, didn’t even have a license. Riding without a license isn’t smart. In fact, unlicensed riders are more likely to crash than those who get properly licensed. In Pennsylvania, you have to be licensed before you can ride without a helmet. So not only is riding without a license not smart, it’s also breaking the law. One witness to the accident reportedly said the quarterback seemed to be looking somewhere other than at the car that was preparing to turn left, which also doesn’t sound very wise.

No one paid much attention to the guy who said that even if there had been a helmet law and Roethlisberger had been wearing a helmet as a result, it might not have made a lot of difference. You should note it, however, because the guy who said that was Harry Hurt, the lead author of Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures (a.k.a. the Hurt Report), which 25 years later is still the most comprehensive study of motorcycle crashes in America. Hurt also runs the Head Protection Research Laboratory (www.hprl.org), which tests and studies helmet performance and motorcycle accidents.

In a letter to a Pasadena, California, newspaper, Hurt commented that the Roethlisberger crash was not an unusual one in terms of the events that caused it, the way the rider went facefirst into the car’s relatively soft windshield (colliding with the front of the roof or one of its pillars could have resulted in much more severe brain injuries), and the injuries sustained by the rider. Hurt went on to say that merely complying with a law that required motorcyclists to wear a helmet wouldn’t necessarily have made a difference. Unless Roethlisberger had worn a full-coverage helmet with an EPS chin bar, his uncovered face would still have been susceptible to the same sort of injuries. In such face-first impacts, wearing a helmet with a chin bar can also save your life by keeping facial bones from being pushed into your brain.

Nonetheless, open-face helmets offer some real comfort advantages over the full-face helmets I and the rest of this magazine’s editors favor. They tend to be slightly lighter than full-face-coverage hats. Oddly, they are sometimes quieter than full-coverage models. Because it’s exposed to the world, your face cools off better on a hot day. Of course, that also exposes it to bugs, gravel, and rain. I don’t even like to think about being caught in a hailstorm with an open-face lid or what an errant bird could do.

I bought my first full-face helmet back in1968, when Bell put the first one, the Star, into production. (Yeah, it was orange too.) It took me a few days to adjust, but then I used it for a three-month ride through Mexico. That first Star was a work in progress back then, mostly because of the eyeport. It was substantially smaller than the eyeports on today’s full-coverage shells, and the faceshield was fixed inside the molding of the eyeport. You couldn’t flip it up for cooling or to put on sunglasses. If you wanted to use a dark shield, you had to pry out the clear shield and coax the tinted one into the eyeport’s molding. But there was EPS foam (the material that actually absorbs the energy of an impact) all the way around your head and on the chin bar. I was very pleased to have it when a bird smashed into the top of my chin bar at about 60 mph.

By the time we returned from the ride through Mexico, wearing an open-face helmet made me feel unprotected. I wore one around the block once after that and never went back. (Actually, that’s not true. I sometimes wear an open-face motorcycle helmet while riding my bicycle.) However, the flip-up-shield kit that was soon available was a real advance, and the second Star I owned had a larger eyeport, so my peripheral vision was no longer limited.

Folks who have never really spent time in one imagine that full-face helmets create all sorts of problems, like muting the world around you so you can’t hear other traffic or limiting your view. There is some truth to the concern about limiting vision, but just vertically. On a cruiser with tank-top instruments, the chin bar sometimes blocks your view, so you have to tilt your head forward slightly to read them. It’s not enough to block your view of the road ahead, though. In some helmets, I can’t even see both sides of the eyeport with my eyeballs at full-lock, so peripheral vision is not compromised. While a helmet does muffle external sounds some, that’s generally a good thing, since most of the ambient noise is just that, noise. It’s the sound of your engine, drivetrain, exhaust and most of all the wind passing your head. The sounds that you need to hear-the tire or engine sounds of approaching vehicles, emergency sirens, the voices of pedestrians, a change in your bike’s drivetrain, something falling off the bike-have to be picked out from the general din, and that’s easier when the ambient noise is knocked back a bit. In particular, a properly designed helmet shell can make your passage through the wind smoother and therefore reduce the wind’s roar compared with your bare head, which is not as streamlined. Riding without a helmet or other ear protection will quickly cost you hearing capacity from the effects of wind noise. If you have a loud exhaust, the loss will happen even faster.

I can understand some of the common complaints about helmets with more coverage. Riding in stop-and-go traffic in a hot, humid climate can make more coverage less pleasant. If you are actually claustrophobic, it might get to you (but you need to try a 1968 Bell Star to get the full effect). I am less sympathetic to complaints about weight (in fact, if you ride behind a windshield that buffets, a heavier helmet can sometimes damp out the buffeting). Helmets used to be a lot heavier, and I never thought of it as an issue, though I suppose some neck conditions could make it one. I have never found a rider who says that helmets are uncomfortable who has actually tried a lot on. The complaints about full-coverage helmets may be valid if you shop at a discount auto-parts store, but there are a variety of shapes and sizing options these days, and motorcycle-helmet makers have gotten much more sophisticated about making their products comfortable. These days you no longer have to deal with tight spots, lifting at speed, faceshields that rattle and are hard to change, heavy shells or lack of ventilation. It used to be that just two or three high-end brands offered consistent comfort. These days you can find that sort of comfort and protection down in the budget end of the spectrum. With all the advances in fit, venting, faceshields and materials, finding a comfortable, convenient, well-vented, lightweight full-coverage helmet is no longer a challenge.

The universal take of the Motorcycle Cruiser staff is that full-face helmets are significantly more comfortable and convenient than other types, and certainly much more pleasant than riding any distance bareheaded. But the real payoff comes on the first bounce. Of course, no one ever expects that to happen to them, not today, not on this ride. Roethlisberger obviously didn’t. Lots of folks who ended up on slabs or in long-term care from head injuries didn’t. Many of them probably didn’t appreciate how effective a helmet can be and what sort of devastation it can prevent.

Wearing helmets will provide protection, although a novelty helmet-that is, one without DOT approval-will do virtually nothing for you in a crash, and some riders have even been injured by fragments. You’re just fooling yourself if you wear one in the belief that they will protect you from anything beyond light abrasions. Shorty helmets with DOT certification offer significant protection…if your head impacts on the area that’s covered with EPS foam. That area is extended with a three-quarter, open-face helmet. But your face is right up there in front, pointed at what you will probably hit when things go wrong.

If you do a Roethlisberger and hit face-first, you may only appreciate what a full-face helmet can do for you if you aren’t wearing one. Helmet wearers who take a hit that would have scrambled their eggs if they had been bareheaded often just think, “I’m glad I had that on.” But it’s hard to fully appreciate what you avoided.

Roethlisberger has said that if he rides again, it will be with a helmet. I’m guessing it will be a full-face helmet, since he now probably understands its value. None of his comments that I read suggest he ever bought into the BS about helmets breaking necks or contributing to accidents. He just never thought it could happen to him, at least not that day. Every day in the U.S., riders die because they didn’t think they’d be in a crash or need helmets. Others see their lives devastated for the same reason. It’s hard to believe any of them would have been there without the best full-coverage helmet they could take a mortgage out on had they known what was coming.

Yet every day thousands of riders still bet everything that nothing will go wrong out on the road when they decide to ride without a good helmet strapped on securely. I’m a pretty optimistic person, but I’ve never been starry-eyed enough to take that bet, especially since I don’t see any upside. And there have been a few days when that decision has kept me from being wiped out for good.

Riding a motorcycle isn’t dangerous,but crashing is. Sooner or later, most riders crash. Once that event begins, the only decision that matters on a life-changing level is whether or not you chose to wear a good helmet.

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It could be that my favorite thing about riding motorcycles is the way they turn, leaning over to balance all the forces involved in making a single-track vehicle change directions and go right where you want it. Even after riding through corners hundreds of thousands — probably millions — of times, the process of riding a motorcycle around a turn in the road or racetrack is still exciting and challenging. I’m also sure that there haven’t been more than a handful of times in more than 40 years and a million miles of riding that I arrived at the entry to a corner and entered it just perfectly, with exactly the right amount of handlebar pressure, body English, throttle opening and lean angle to deliver me to the ideal point at the apex of the turn without minute adjustments. You virtually always have to make some sort of adjustment as you commit to a line around the turn. To keep all those forces balanced, you can’t make any violent changes or you’ll quickly find yourself flat-side-down. To avoid doing that, you need to to be sure of what lies ahead .

Yet the moment of commitment to a corner is the crucial one, and the way you do it should depend almost entirely on what you see as the corner appears ahead of you. Maybe you have ridden it thousands of times. Maybe this is your first time drawing an arc on this particular stretch of pavement. But even in a corner that I ride every day, one where I know every crack and ripple in the asphalt, I can’t commit until my eyes have evaluated the surface first. Even if you have ridden through just minutes before, the situation may have changed. A car might have stopped just behind the embankment or bushes that hide the exit to the corner, or a passing vehicle could have left oil, water, sand, tacks, a ladder, an inflatable wading pool or hundreds of other things in the corner that will upset the perfect balance you created on your last pass.

So before I commit, I need to be able to observe and evaluate the entire surface I will ride across while I’m leaning over. Many turns don’t permit you to see completely through them as you arrive. Any number of roadside objects can block your view of the road ahead. So what do you do? Well, I don’t commit myself to more than I can see. I reduce my speed and, if conditions permit, enter the bend on the outside of my lane, which normally gives me the best and earliest view of the road ahead.

However, there are circumstances where entering a curve wide may not be the best approach. A wide entry to a right-hander means you are closer to the centerline and therefore more likely to come eyeball-to-hood-ornament with a car (or another rider) that has crossed the center line to straighten out the corner. And if the corner is questionable — say it looks sandy or greasy — straightening up in response to that squirming sensation from your tires could make you cross the center line. In that situation, I’ll forego the added up-the-road visibility and tiptoe around the inside of my lane at a speed that permits me to respond to anything I might encounter. Just imagine that there may be a boulder up ahead and you’ll probably approach at a safe speed. I have learned that this is easier to visualize once you have actually come around a turn and found a recently arrived boulder there to greet you.

As I proceed around the corner, my eyes repeatedly trace the line I plan to take as far as I can see up the road and back to a short ways in front of the bike. The standard recommendation is to look as far as you can up the road, but perhaps because my vision is less than perfect, I want to double-check and reevaluate the road surface as I get closer. When I can see all the way to the exit, only then do I commit to leaning over hard.

Unfortunately, not all hazards are visible. Freshly spilled diesel fuel and some coolants are virtually invisible on the road surface, though your nose can often alert you to their presence. A thin sprinkling of sand can reduce traction but can be very hard to spot, and you certainly won’t smell it.

Lighting can also limit you. A low sun glaring into your eyes can make it very difficult to see much of anything, and I frequently end up riding one-handed as I use my left hand to shade my eyes in this situation. A low-hanging sun can also throw shadows across turns. On more than one occasion I have watched a rider dive into a shady corner and emerge sliding on his butt after encountering sand, leaves or some other slippery material hidden in the shade.

Shade can actually create a hazard. The coastal mountains around Los Angeles frequently get a nice coating of dew overnight, and the winding roads that traverse them are often slippery until the sun reaches them and dries the dew. However, during the winter months, the sun may never get high enough to remove the dew from a corner, so the shaded portion remains wet all day. These moist patches will often exactly match the shaded area, making it very difficult to tell that the road is wet unless you are aware of this situation. In colder places, the shaded area may hide black ice, and in fact this dew sometimes freezes on cold nights, even in the SoCal mountains.

Anyway, whether it’s shaded dew, sand, oil or a warthog, any hazard that you discover on your intended line as the turn reveals itself requires an alternate plan. If you have entered the corner at a reduced speed, you should have enough reserve traction to do some braking, even though you are leaned over. The slower you are going, the more options you have, including perhaps stopping. And if your only option ends up being an off-road excursion, reducing your speed means you will do less damage to the guardrail or tree that you hit.

If you are going slow enough, you can simply straighten up and ride across something slippery. If the hazard is in the middle of the lane, with some reserve in hand you can go around it. I prefer to tighten my line and go inside, because that allows me more options for the rest of the turn if there are further hazards. Also, if I misjudged, I can straighten up and still have pavement left to use for further slowing and changing my line. Going around a hazard on the outside often leaves you leaning over close to the edge of the road, so there is no room to straighten up and remain on the road if things don’t go according to plan.

Fortunately, there are plenty of brightly lit, perfectly clean corners that you can see all the way through before you have to commit to a line and speed. Those are what make all the dirty, slimy, frog-infested ones worthwhile.

Photo Gallery: Motorcycle Cornering Safety Tips in Turns with Hazards – Motorcycle Cruiser

Experts say that fatigue contributes to between a fifth and a sixth of all car accidents. That may not be true in motorcycle accidents across the board, but fatigue is definitely an issue for riders on trips of three days or more. It’s something that you need to consider and prepare for. If you are riding with other people, it is an issue that you should discuss and accommodate as you plan your trip. Different riders will have different requirements for rest, and if the trip is to be a safe one, all members of the group should be willing to accommodate each other.

Before you head out on the highway looking for adventure, coniser a few steps that you can take and plans you can make to avoid having one of your adventures involve falling asleep on your motorcycle.

Rest:
Adequate sleep can be a bit hard to come by before and during a multi-day ride. I am always thinking of things I want to do or remember to bring as I try to get to sleep on the night before I depart. I also have trouble getting to sleep while traveling. Many people also have trouble getting a full night’s sleep as they get older. If I combine that with early departures, I quickly have a sleep deficit. For that reason, I like to plan to allow myself to sleep late every two or three days, setting no departure time.

Don’t use alcohol as a sleep aid; it actually tends to reduce both the quantity and quality of sleep. You might think that you can’t fall asleep on a motorcycle, but I have known riders who simply fell asleep while riding, waking up as they bounced through a ditch — or in the hospital. Riders who experienced these sorts of adventures often said they didn’t even realize they were tired.

Experts say that you’ll have “tired times” during every 12-hour cycle, most often between 3:00 and 5:00 (a.m. and p.m., you local time). You may want to plan to arrive by that point or stop for an early dinner. If you can or need to, take a day off just to relax and catch up on your sleep.

Physical Preparation:
Unless you ride your motorcycle almost every day or take rides of three hours or more almost every weekend, you may not be completely adapted to your bike. After a full day or two of riding, you will become acutely aware of muscles that you are using full-time to ride. You may be able to overcome some of this discomfort by properly setting up your bike and fitting components, such as a good aftermarket saddle, that make it more comfortable. However, you also need to give your body a chance to adapt. Taking breaks every hour or two, especially during the first few days of a long ride, will help this adjustment.

Calm:
Extended exposure to wind and sun dehydrates and fatigues you much more than your routine two-hour weekend jaunt. Riding in a tanktop and open-face helmet may seem like the best way to deal with the heat, but will actually wear you out and heat you up much faster than if you wear a vented or mesh jacket and a helmet that protects your face from the wind. Perspiration gets a chance to stay on and cool your skin if the wind flow is reduced but not eliminated. You will sharply reduce sunburn and windburn and their fatiguing effects by covering yourself fully. A windshield also reduces the amount of wind that’s tearing at you but leaves enough to cool you.

Quiet:
Wind noise (and exhaust noise if you have loud pipes) will not only permanently damage your hearing, it will fatigue you quickly. Both noise sources are at their worst if you don’t wear a helmet, but even a full-face helmet that seals your ears well won’t attenuate these noise sources sufficiently on an extended ride, so you should wear earplugs as well. If nothing else, you’ll appreciate them when you try to go to sleep at night and the roaring in your ears isn’t as loud. A windshield can also reduce wind noise.

Clear:
Vision clarity can be an issue on extended rides too. About 15 years ago we did a comparison test where one bike had significant distortion in the top of its windshield. Several riders said riding it made them feel disoriented or tired or gave them headaches. If your windshield creates this problem, or if you have a faceshield or sunglasses that are optically imperfect, you should find a replacement or eliminate the problem, perhaps by trimming the top of your windshield. If your vision has changed so that your prescription is no longer adequate, update it before you leave.

Caffeine and Alcohol:
A coffee or cola can briefly boost your alertness, but isn’t a substitute for adequate rest. Having a beer before or during a ride is a bad idea for many reasons, but especially if you are slightly tired or fatigued. Discouraging your riding companions from having one also does both of you a favor.

Good Habits:
Those boring admonitions about diet and exercise also apply to fighting fatigue. They increase your energy level, which makes you stronger and more alert. Of course, drinking adequate water is important too, especially considering that you are being dehydrated more rapidly because of your exposure to the wind. I don’t hold with the theory that you aren’t drinking enough if you don’t have to urinate every 30 minutes though.

Fighting fatigue provides benefits that go beyond safety. If you are alert and refreshed, the ride itself is more enjoyable, and you’ll get more out of the sights and experiences that you came to enjoy.

Photo Gallery: How to Avoid Fatigue on Long Motorcycle Rides – Motorcycle Cruiser

Get a group of motorcyclists talking about crashes and safety, and you will almost certainly hear some of them—popular misconceptions, incorrect assumptions, urban legends, and intuitive explanations about motorcycle safety that turn out to be wrong when you actually check out the facts. The problem is that believing these misconceptions can increase your chances of being involved in an accident or getting hurt when you do crash.

Maybe you know BS when you hear it, but maybe you have heard some myths repeated so often or by people whose expertise you respect that you think they are actually true. Unfortunately, there are a lot of motorcyclists who do believe them. We thought that some of these fallacies should be brought out into the light of day so that riders have the right information upon which to make informed riding-safety decisions. We also hope it will keep more motorcyclists from repeating such misconceptions to riders who turn to them for advice.

These are the Deadly Dozen, the motorcycle safety myths and urban legends ones that we hear most frequently.

Myth 1: Other Drivers Don’t Care About Motorcyclists

It may seem hard to believe at times, but other drivers almost never actually want to hit you. Most of those near-misses come about because they don’t always know you are there, even when you are right in front of them, seemingly in plain view. You can be obscured or completely hidden by glare, by other things on or along the road, by the cars roof pillars, the handicap hangtag, or by other traffic. Of course, not all drivers “think motorcycles” and make the effort to look that extra bit harder to see if there might be a motorcyclist hidden by that obscuration or in their blind spot.

Instead of assuming that they will ignore you even when they see you, you should help make it easier for drivers to spot you, especially as the population ages and more drivers have greater difficulty in picking you out. To overcome the fact that you might be hard to see and harder to notice, wear bright colors, especially on your helmet and jacket. Run your high beam during the day. Think about things that can hide you and your bike from other drivers, things that can be as common as the sun behind you, the car ahead in the next lane, or a couple of roadside poles that line up on the driver’s line of sight toward you. Make an effort to ride in or move to a location where drivers with potentially conflicting courses can see you before they stray your way.

Myth 2: Loud Pipes Save Lives

Yeah, there are a few situations—like where you are right next to a driver with his window down who is about the to change lanes—where full-time noise-makers might help a driver notice you, but all that noise directed rearward doesn’t do much in the most common and much more dangerous conflict where a car turns in front of you. Maybe it’s the fatigue caused by the noise, maybe it’s the attitudes of riders who insist on making annoying noise, or perhaps loud bikes annoy enough drivers to make them aggressive. Whatever the reason, the research shows that bikes with modified exhaust systems crash more frequently than those with stock pipes. If you really want to save lives, turn to a loud jacket or a bright helmet color, which have been proven to do the job. Or install a louder horn. Otherwise, just shut up.

Myth 3: Motorcycle Helmets Break Necks

It seems logical—you put more weight out there on the end of your neck and when you get thrown off the bike, that extra weight will create more pendulum force on your neck. Turns out, it doesn’t work that way. In fact, the energy-absorbing qualities of a DOT motorcycle helmet also absorb the energy that breaks riders’ necks in impacts. Studies show that helmeted motorcyclists actually suffer fewer neck injuries when they crash compared to riders who crash without helmets.

Myth 4: Helmets Block Your Ability to See or Hear Danger

The thing you learn when you dig into the research is that motorcycle riders who use helmets crash less frequently than those who don’t. Maybe that happens because motorcyclists who decide to wear helmets have a better or more realistic attitude about riding. Maybe it’s because putting on a helmet is a reminder that what you are about to do can be dangerous and the act of accepting protection puts you in the right mindset. Maybe it’s because a helmet provides eye protection and cuts down wind noise so you can actually see and hear better. Maybe its because, by cutting wind pressure and noise, a helmet reduces fatigue. Whatever the reasons, wearing a helmet clearly does not increase a motorcyclist’s risk of having an accident and wearing one correlates to reduced likelihood of an accident.

Myth 5: A Helmet Won’t Help in Most Crashes

People look at the seemingly low impact speeds used in motorcycle-helmet testing and assume that if you are going faster than that, the helmet will no longer be up to the job. That ignores a few critical facts:

I was motoring along southbound on a four-lane Oregon road, barely overtaking another motorcyclist who I’d first seen over a quarter-mile ahead of me. By now the distance had shrunk by about two-thirds and, even over the wind noise I could tell from the considerable rumble that he was riding a big twin. I was still a few hundred feet behind when he gradually overtook a van towing a big house trailer. This rider had been favoring the right side of the lane, and when he got right up behind the trailer, he made a quick flick into the left lane, again on the right side, close to the van-trailer. It was going almost as fast as we were, and I could hear that he didn’t accelerate when he drew alongside of it. He had probably been in passing position for almost a minute when the van-trailer signaled, then began to move over (a deer carcass lay in the road ahead). The rider apparently didn’t see the signal and didn’t react until the vehicle began crowding him. Then he pulled ahead next to the driver and gestured angrily. I saw the brake lights on the trailer, then the bike, illuminate, as the rider apparently tried to stay next to the vehicle as it braked. But the driver still had the obstacle to avoid and continued to move over while trying to brake to get behind the bike. The rider wanted to express his anger though and didn’t get out of the way until he was finally on the shoulder, and both he and the other vehicle had slowed to less than 30 mph, and I’d had to brake to stay clear.

It was probably the worst pass I’ve ever seen. The rider was probably used to being heard by other drivers, and I don’t know why he didn’t see the van signal (he was ahead of the trailer and maybe the signal on the van itself wasn’t working or visible). But he did almost everything he could to get into trouble. He and his bike were dull colors (black and blue, respectively and appropriately), his lights were not on, he stayed close to the vehicle he was passing, perhaps in a blind spot. Relying on loud pipes didn’t work either, maybe because the van was loaded with several people and music was playing loudly.

Routine Danger

Passing other vehicles is one of those things we do routinely and rarely think twice about, but there is always danger there. It seems that at least once a week I read about motorcyclists killed when other cars (or motorcycles) cross the centerline and hit them. And I can’t help but believe that some of those “single-vehicle” fatal accidents where a rider runs off the road and crashes for no apparent reason are caused by another driver that he dodged before he crashed. There was just nobody else there to see it. Cars cross centerlines unexpectedly because their drivers are drunk or distracted or don’t see the oncoming bike.

You can’t do anything about keeping other drivers from getting wasted or answering the phone, but you can make yourself visible and easy to pick out from your surroundings. In particular make sure your headlight is working and that you use the high beam during daytime. That high beam not only makes you appear closer, but it can also separate you from the car behind you with its headlights on. Your headlight your headlight is particularly likely get lost in those of the cars behind you near dawn or dusk, leaving an oncoming driver unable to see you when he decides to pass. If you have driving lights or spotlights, this is a good time to use them. Your high beam or other forward lighting can also help a driver that you are overtaking identify you in his mirror before he changes lanes. During midday, bright, solid colors on your helmet and jacket are probably most effective in making you conspicuous.

Overtaking another car usually involves passing through the driver’s blind spot, and making yourself conspicuous will help him see you before you hide there. However, you can also protect yourself by accelerating as you come alongside to minimize exposure time and by moving away from him, perhaps to a more distant lane, as you pass. And if you want to be heard, a good horn (which projects its warning in the right direction) is more friendly and effective than loud pipes.

You can often predict when a driver is likely to move into a different lane on a multi-lane road by watching traffic ahead of and around him. If he is overtaking a slower car or cars up ahead in his lane are slowing, you can expect him to jump lanes. Cars also tend to change lanes when following a large vehicle they can’t see past. Sometimes these slower vehicles catch them by surprise, making them more likely to lane-leap without fullu checking thier blind spots. You can teach yourself to predict these events with a little practice and by payuing attention to what’s happening way up ahead.

Distracted drivers sometimes move over unintentionally and won’t always correct because they don’t recognize that someone is beside them. So drivers talking on cell phones, applying make-up, or holding a large cup in their steering hands should be given a wide berth. Even undistracted drivers don’t always take a real look before they move.

Dont Look, Don’t Tell

Here in Southern California the only drivers who signal lane changes are a) tourists, b) safety freaks, c) those who forgot to cancel their signal after starting the car that morning, or d) folks who believe that signaling legally entitles them to change lanes without looking, because, hey, they have like given fair warning that they are coming, dude. There are also those who cross the line and then begin to signal about halfway into the next lane. In any event, turn signals are not always meaningful indicators of what the driver actually plans to do (unless the car has Iowa plates). A shift of hands on the wheel, a slight turn or the head, or a slight drift from the lane position thay have been holding are sometimes the only indication that they are coming your way.

But the strategy for passing all these sorts of drivers is the same. Minimize your time next to them, particularly in their blind spots, and stay wide (on the far side of your lane) as you do. This applies to two-lane roads as well as those with more than one lane going your way. There may seem to be no reason for a driver you are passing on a two-lane road to cross the centerline, but be ready anyway—they might just be unaware you are there and drift across. In particular, be wary if a vehicle you are overtaking begins to slow as you pull out. He could be making your pass easier or he could be preparing to turn into a drive you haven’t seen on the left. I have heard of several riders who were taken down by this scenario.

The driveway or road on the left could also hold a vehicle that is planning to turn out onto the road opposite your direction of travel. It is something to consider and look for before you commit to passing.

Still, the likeliest source of danger is the car you are passing, so the best set-up for passing on a two-lane road is try to ride in a position where the driver can see you in the mirror while you wait for a safe opportunity to pass. Signal before you start to accelerate, pull into the left side of the left lane as you pass, keep an eye on the car you are passing as well as potential sources of conflicts (he is more likely to run you off the road than to collide with a vehicle that pulls out from the right, for example), and continue to accelerate after you are ahead of him to open up a gap.

Don’t Dawdle

This is definitely the time to use all that power you paid for. Downshift a gear or three before you start to pass and rev it to the max before each shift. The reasons you want to open up a gap between the car you’re passing and yourself are 1) slowing down right in front of him is likely to annoy the driver, 2) opening a gap gives you a cushion if you have to brake for an obstacle up the road, and 3) it “sells” the pass—the driver isn’t likely to think about re-passing you. If other riders are behind you, the gap you create should be even larger so they have enough room to pull back into the right lane and still leave a gap.

On busy four-lane roads, you want to make a quick pass because there are likely to be faster vehicles overtaking you in that left lane. Going past a long truck at 0.5 mph faster than its speed while traffic backs up behind you and then taking your time to get back in the right lane is asking for trouble and creates potential conflicts. You may have to go faster than you like for a quarter-mile or so, but do it anyway. And when you are done passing, get the hell out of the way and back in the right lane even if traffic isn’t stacking up behind you. Even if you are the fastest vehicle on the road, staying in the left lane simply advertises that fact to the cops.

What about overtaking a slower vehicle that won’t get out of the left lane on a four-lane road? The potential for a driver to move over into you as you pass him on the right is greater than when you pass on the left, and if you come up behind them and give up on him changing back to the right, wait a few seconds after you move to the right before you accelerate to pass to be sure he hasn’t recognized that you want to pass and decided to move over. Other than that, the standard rules apply: be conspicuous, avoid blind spots, accelerate hard, and ride wide to give you a cushion as you pass.

Being Passed

You need to get out of the way any time you are holding up traffic behind you. If you don’t let them by, the vehicles you are holding up may get impatient and make an unsafe pass that takes you out. On a two-lane, I pull over whenever I have more than two vehicles behind me waiting to pass and I can do so safely. And when a vehicle pulls out to pass me on a two-lane road, I slow down and move to the right to minimize the passing time and potential for contact. I slow down even more when the vehicle passing me looks like he might have cut it tight and could come back into the right lane before has completely passed. However, I am careful not to invite the vehicle behind that one to pass unless I am comfortable that it can do so safely. There are also times when it seems prudent to speed up until I can safely move over.

If a vehicle passing you starts to move right while still next to you, it’s no time to get territorial. Brake hard (unless another vehicle is breathing down your sissybar) and move right. Ride on the shoulder if there is one. Get indignant later; get out of the way now. You have a nice narrow cross-section, so take advantage of it.

Being narrow can also serve you if you find yourself in that most horrifying of situations—passing a car on a two-lane when another one appears up close going the opposite direction. Crowd right up against the car you are passing and hope that it and the other car move over enough that you don’t clip the on-comer. It is less dangerous to stuff yourself against the car you were passing than to barely nick the one with a 120-mph speed differential. The good news is that, on most two-lane roads, there is enough space to do this. I have seen it done on several occasions on U.S. roads. In some parts of the world, riders do it routinely and other drivers just move over and let them through.

Passing errors that would be mild fender-benders if two cars are involved can be fatal when one of the vehicles is a motorcycle. But if you help other drivers see you and minimize their chances to connect by staying alert and using your bike’s size and acceleration, you might make all your passes uneventful.

Related Articles
Taking Charge on the Road
Invisible Me
Smart Lane Position
Dress for Excess
Are You Ready for the Other Guy
The Conspicuous Motorcyclist
Lane Splitting
The Danger Zone

For more information on safe-riding equipment, strategies, techniques and skills, see the Street Survival section of MotorcycleCruiser.com.

Photo Gallery: Safely Passing and Being Passed – Surviving the Streets – Motorcycle Cruiser

By now, four days after the event, at least 97% of the world’s population must know that California’s celebrity governor had a minor motorcycle accident on January 8, 2006. Almost that many have probably heard that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t have a motorcycle license at the time of the crash but escaped a citation because of a loopy loophole in California law that lets you ride a sidecar with just a driver’s license to operate a car.

Perhaps the Governator’s convincingly performed mea culpa for never having a motorcycle license and his promise to get one will end the media’s interest in the event, but there are a lot of issues that have been largely ignored. There are also some lessons to learn or recall.

Basic Motorcycle Safety

If you missed the reports, here’s the thumbnail. On a Sunday afternoon, Gov. Schwarzenegger was riding his sidecar-equipped Harley down Mandeville Canyon Road, a winding, two-lane, dead-end residential street in an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood. His 12-year-old on was in the sidecar. A car pulled out in front of him (most reports say it backed out.) The Governor was unable to stop or avoid and hit the car. Both he and his son suffered minor injuries. Schwarzenegger sustained a cut lip that required stitches. (One website suggested that there really was no traffic accident, that the crash story was just a coverup to conceal what really happened—his “collegen filled lips exploded.”)

For years, safety experts have been telling us to make ourselves and our motorcycles conspicuous. One study found that simply wearing a white helmet instead of a black one could lower your crash risk by 24%. However, photos of the Governor’s sidecar rig show an olive-drab Harley and matching sidebar with mock-military markings. It’s a color-scheme that, especially when combined with the blacks and browns that Schwarzenegger likes wearing when he rides, makes a motorcycle hard to see, especially in the leafy environs of Mandeville Canyon. If he’d painted his bike and helmet yellow instead, that other driver who interrupted his ride would have had a much better chance of seeing him. Running the Harley’s high beam would also have made him much easier to see approaching.

Like many other celebrities, Schwarzenegger likes open-face helmets, presumably so he can be recognized. Photos of Schwarzenegger show that he prefers shorty or half-helmet designs. However, if he’d been wearing a full-face helet, it probably would have prevented him from cutting his lip. Hopefully, he at least provides his kids with full helmet coverage when they are riding with him. The added benefits of the full-face helmet’s extra coverage are well documented.

Proper Licensing

Although different sections of the California vehicle code have conflicting language, Schwarzenegger was apparently riding legally when he hit the car because he was riding a three-wheeled vehicle, which in California only requires that you have a license to drive a car. However, less than three years before, he had another crash, rear-ending a car on a two-wheeled Harley. He had no license then either. One wonders why he wasn’t cited then. I presume it was because of his celebrity.

However, letting him slide after he slid into the back of that car didn’t do the actor any favors. Research clearly shows that unlicensed riders, experienced or not, are more likely to be involved in an accident and more likely to die riding than licensed riders. In addition, riders who have crashed recently are more likely to crash again. Perhaps a citation or two who have made Schwarzenegger give riding a bit more thought and take it more seriously.

Sidecars Are Not Safer

People tend to assume that sidecars are safer, probably because they don’t tip over as easily as a two-wheeler or the enclosure of the sidecar appears to offer some protection. And they are a bit less of a handful on ice or snow than a single-track vehicle. But as famed motorcycle-accident researcher Hugh H. Hurt Jr. pointed out to the authors of an article in the Los Angeles Times, in most situations they aren’t as safe as a regular motorcycle.

The dynamics of a sidecar are totally different than a motorcycle’s. When you brake, it turns away from the sidecar. Under acceleration, the drag of the sidecar makes the rig turn into it. Turn into the sidecar, and it tries to lift. Turn hard enough, especially with an empty sidecar, and it will flip over. However, you can turn away from the sidecar very hard, until the tires slide. These sort of maneuvers require much more steering force than a two-wheeler.

When you have to swerve or brake hard and quickly in an emergency, a sidecar becomes quite a handful. If you want to swerve hard, you have to quickly apply a lot of muscle, but not too much if you swerve toward the side where the `car is mounted. Panic braking requires you to muscle the steering to keep stay straight. And you can’t rely on the two-wheeler’s old fallback escape route between lanes of cars. A sidecar’s width gives it few more escape lanes than an automobile.

After the accident, the Governor jokes that “I knew if I would turn left, that the Republicans would get mad. And if I turned right, my wife would get mad, so I just crashed right into the car.” In fact, with the right-side sidecar that he was apparently riding, turning sharply right while braking hard would have been quite difficult, especially with someone in the sidecar.

If you are going to ride a sidecar (or a trike), a motorcycle training course won’t give you the information and skills you need. Except for engine operation, sidecars and trikes are completely different beasts than motorcycles. They are also fairly different from each other. A sidecar is asymmetrical. The symmetrical trike has somewhat different issues. When you consider that fact, California’s decision not to require a motorcycle license to operate a three-wheeler actually makes sense. Because the three-wheeler-riding population is so small, it would be hard to advocate a special licensing and training system (or systems) for them. However, at the least, the state could create an M3 license and require potential sidecar and trike operators to show they can safely and smoothly negotiate the simple, low-speed motorcycle pattern available at most DMV offices.

Instead, prospective sidecar or trike rider should contact the trike’s builder or an organization like the United Sidecar Association, which can direct you to resources directed toward sidecar users. You should plan to ride one before you buy and if possible go through some sort of training or at least arrange it after you buy. You should also find a local dealer in your area, especially if you buy a sidecar, since they require special set-up and rigging.

I used to own a sidecar, but got rid of it when we decided to have kids. I expected that kids would want to ride in it, and, even though I felt comfortable carrying them on a two-wheeled motorcycle, I didn’t want them on the street in a sidecar. On one vacation the whole family rode around rural Wisconsin in a Harley sidecar. The kids loved it and wouldn’t even get into a friend’s car when it started raining (although my wife did). For about two years they pleaded with me to get a bike with a sidecar, but I never gave them any hope.

Sidecars are a unique experience in a wacky, off-center (literally) way. Dogs love them and they draw attention like no other vehicle. However, they need to be approached with care and specialized preparation, which means more than motorcycling expertise, and, no, bodybuilding, acting, and politics won’t help either.

For more information on safe-riding equipment, strategies, techniques and skills, see the Street Survival section of MotorcycleCruiser.com.

Photo Gallery: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s motorcycle sidecar crash – Surviving the Streets – Motorcycle Cruiser

Back in college, a friend was riding down the road one day when he thought he saw a motorcycle handlebar end sticking up from the weeds in the ditch. He went back for a second look and discovered an “old guy” (in college I guess that might have been someone in his 40s) pinned under a brand new Harley Sportster. The man lived right across the rural road my friend was riding, and had been there for a few hours. According to my friend, the rider had been leaving his driveway and lost control of his bike—perhaps because of a wheelie—and shot across the highway, crashing when he hit the ditch, and ending up in tall grass under his bike on the other side of the road. His injuries were apparently minor, and he was fortunate that it had not rained recently because the water level in the ditch was low so drowning wasn’t an issue. He was also lucky my friend saw him because it was only a hour or so before sundown.

Since then I have heard of motorcyclists in similar circumstances. They crashed or ran off the road, and because of injuries or other circumstances, couldn’t get back to the road to seek help. Some eventually were found or managed to get attention, and some died before they got help. Maybe it’s the internet’s ability to locate the stories more easily, but I am certainly hearing and reading such tales more frequently.

I was prompted to write this column after repeatedly seeing and hearing reports about riders who had crashed and laid there undiscovered. There were three such stories during Memorial Day week 2005 alone. A few recent examples: