New Riders and Tailgaters

[Dennis D]

I was looking over what I've posted on my safety page so far, and realized that the advice I gave for dealing with tailgaters, more or less lumped them all into one group, and I gave one method for dealing with them. I decided after giving it more thought, that it's not quite that simple.

I'm sure there are other, sometimes creative ways of dealing with different types of tailgaters, but I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible, while trying to cover the most common scenarios. I changed that section of my safe scootin' page to separate them into two groups, the first being inconsiderate, distracted, or thoughtless tailgaters, and the other group is belligerent tailgaters.

For the first group of persistent tailgaters, if you can break through the fog they're in for a little while, and get them to back off a little bit, you can pull off the road and let them go by.

However, after thinking about this for awhile, I decided that may not be the best course of action for the obviously belligerent tailgaters, especially those that won't back off no matter what kind of signals you give them.

If you slow and begin moving to the right to get off the road, the belligerents will often try to go past you in 2/3 or 3/4 of your own lane with inches or less to spare. What I feel is a better option for getting those people past you is to maintain your position in your lane. Then at the next place where the road or traffic conditions would allow them to pass, put on your hazard lights if you have them and slow down significantly to force a pass. They may still try to go by you dangerously close, but at least you'll have room to maneuver out of their path without hitting a curb, a parked car, getting into gravel on the shoulder, or getting thrown hitting a pavement edge.
If there's no place they can pass, but there are cross streets, you can slow way down and signal for a right turn, and then make the turn from your normal position within the lane.

There's at least one other possibility often encountered with tailgaters that I decided I'd better cover on the safety page on my website. I just wanted to make the point here for any new riders who may have read my initial advice on daling with tailgaters, that it often takes a different strategy for dealing with belligerent tailgaters than it does for the merely oblivious tailgaters.

[WarrenS]

When I had a Honda Express, a 50cc noped, I would try to stay as far to the right as possible. I wanted to be a good guy and not hold anybody up. The result was people making right turns in front of me or staying along side forcing me into parked cars. No more mister nice guy.

[wireburn]

warstien, this is exactly why I decided I needed to upgrade my 50cc scooter. I would constantly get passed with inches to spare. Now I'll be able to keep up nicely and not have to worry about that headwind/belligerent driver combo. I'm beginning to think that unless you are riding only on residential or downtown 25mph streets, you have no business out there on a 50cc scooter. It's just too dangerous.

-Mike

[Admin]

It's a pretty common rider's rule to always maintain your real estate. In other words, own your lane. If you are holding up traffic, you can pull off the road and let them by but don't try riding on the right. Very unsafe.

[Charlie]

Here in the Arky mountains we have very narrow roads, limited visability and little opportunity to find a place to pull over. I have learned riding here is more dangerous than riding on a superhighway.

In New Orleans if you got squeezed you had the option of getting off the next ramp and you always had the option of using lane splitting as a safety..(not legal in most places and not recommended if you want to live long).

Here we have few options. So I have adopted the LANE HOG mentality. I hold my turf until I feel safe enough to turn out and let the blinkety blink "A" hole pass me. My scoot pushes 60 gps so it isn't often a problem here but we have an abnormally large tourist base here and they are unfamiliar with the roads, some have never seen a hill so I watch my back all the time...and sorry if this offends Olkahomans but..you guys are just awful drivers...sheesh!

[underdawg]

I tried riding on the right at first but found out pretty fast that this was a bad decision for the same reasons as stated by Dennis D. So I tried the "maintain your real estate" approach and had better luck but to my amazement and bewilderment I had a guy pass me on the right at night! I was in a residental 25 mph zone and traveling at 35mph. I caught up to the guy who had passed me at a traffic light and confronted him and asked why he passed me on the right like that to which he replied "You were going to d*mn slow" to which I replied " So slow I caught up to you at the light."

[Dennis D]

Being passed on the right is one of those things that I recently addressed on my Safe Scootin page. It tends to piss me off... BUT, usually when passing on the right, drivers don't pass as close because 1) they can see you better, and 2) they know their actions aren't defensible should they cause you to wreck.
Between those two things it's been my experience that they give a lot more room than when passing on the left, where it seems they try to get as close as possible. So when I see someone doing it again, I try to restrain myself and not flip them the bird, or speed up to try and prevent it(duh, I'm on a scooter! who's gonna lose in a shoving match??).

[underdawg]

The problem I have with the guy passing me on the right was that it was on a single lane road which puts me in the lane of oncoming traffic or if I was unaware of his passing I should make a right turn into a driveway or side street I'm screwed. We were also on a circle and in a sharp bend of the circle when he passed.No way of knowing if there was a parked car ahead and if there were a parked car where would that leave me?Screwed again. That is why I confronted the driver at the light which put me in danger once more. All things said at least the out come turned out ok. I live to ride another day.lol

[Dennis D]

That's definitely a bad deal... sounds like he took to the shoulder to do it. It always happens to me either in temporary turn lanes on the right, which is really something to watch out for if you're planning to turn right. Or it happens where there is a place where there are frequent left turns and a temporary extra lane on the right for going around people stopped for a left, which is a less dangerous situation than if passing in a right turn lane, and far less dangerous than the way it happened to you.