Up Front

UP FRONT

Allan Girdler

GOING TO THE HEAD OF THE LINE

What the woman looked like, I don't know. At the time she made herself known I was maybe three feet beyond her window, so I never did see her. I knew she was there. It was a loud voice. Angry, frustrated, and she gave me her best shot:

“YER BREAKIN’ THE LAWRRR!”

I was not. What I was doing at the time, in convoy with a guy on a four-pipe Honda, was going to the head of the line. We were not getting stuck in 16 miles of parked ears and trucks.

All urban dwellers are familiar with the normal urban highway crush, your basic rush-hour stew. This went beyond that. Right at the peak of rush hour a giant truck did a high-side across three lanes of traffic and traffic promptly came to a stop, from where the truck was back 16 miles, by actual computation.

Just as there ain't no hill for a stepper, so is there no traffic jam for a motorcycle. Soon as the w'orld about me turned to glue, I deftly steered between the lines of cars and proceeded. Slowly, of course. But I was moving, on the way home, in motion.

That's where the woman comes into the story. And accuses me falsely. 1 cannot speak for all the sovereign states but in my home state, California, I am reliably informed that a motorcycle can legally proceed between lines of cars. The practice is knowm as breaking lanes or busting lanes and law; or no, Ed better say right now that I do not recommend that anybody do it. (Comes to that, I don’t recommend that anybody ride motorcycles, either.)

Busting lanes or going to the head of the line, whatever you call it, the art of slipping through traffic is not popular with car people.

Breaking lanes isn't popular with some of us cycle people, either. We got a strong letter against the practice not long ago. That, coupled with the angry woman, prompted me to do some research.

My reading of the state vehicle code—at this writing I am serving on jury duty and thus have lots of time to prowl the law' library—is no better than vague. The State of California says we bikers are entitled to one full lane. There’s nothing says we must use the complete lane, or forbids us to share a lane, so to speak.

A friendly highway patrolman says lanebreakers “are kind of hard to catch.” Yeah, but are they breaking the law? “I don’t think so, but I’ve never caught one so I’ve never looked it up.”

An attorney who rides gave me a detailed rule. You can break lanes if the traffic is going 20 mph less than the posted limit and you go no more than 10 mph faster than the flow of traffic.

That sounds about right. I suppose every licensed vehicle operator has been sitting in traffic when a pack of w'ildmen on unmuffled bikes barged down the lanes. 80 mph. inches away from the fenders, bumpers and people who decide to change lanes minus signals. That’s crazy. It’s dumb and surely it’s also reckless driving. No defense is possible and none is offered.

But I’m thinking of something else. When 1 first began riding in traffic. I’d see guys breaking lanes and w'onder how they dared do it. Then one day I was stuck in the middle and got tired of it. so I clicked into

first and ever-so-carefully eased past car after car. Always alert. Always ready with brakes and clutch, always focused on the cars just ahead, ever watchful for the flash of signal or the turn of a front wheel.

Before I knew it, breaking lanes was something to be done when needed, that is, when to not break lanes was to sit there until the wreckers towed away whatever had fallen into the street.

Still, this w'as not the sort of behavior one talks about, not until I raised the question with the guys who are doing the ongoing safety research project in Los Angeles.

Odd you should mention that, they said. Breaking lanes turns out to look a lot more dangerous than it is. Fewer people turn out in front of cycles than you’d think, and bikers are more careful than they're given credit for. Finally, if something does happen. it generally happens at low speeds. The car turns into the bike’s path and the bike bumps to a stop at 3 mph. Not fun, but not fatal, either.

Finally, they also told me breaking lanes is legal, despite popular opinion.

I say popular opinion because of the angry lady. She was raucous, and she was righteous. No doubt she and all other drivers, fuming as they watch us move past, truly believe we are breaking the law.

I expect this comes about first because going to the head of the line does look a bit too much like sticking one’s head in the lion’s mouth. To the driver’s eye the prudent rider idling up the narrow alley and the outlaw blasting through must look not much different.

That's the kindly view. I have noticed that while nearly everybody says motorcycles are dangerous (which they are) they wouldn’t let their son/daughter/husband/ wife ride one, the figures also show that car people are not especially concerned with our well-being. Except for shouting at us, that is.

Deep down, what we incite as we ride through the jammed populace is . . . envy>

The Zen thinkers say What you’re mad at isn’t what you're mad at. a roundabout way of saying when you curse the waiter you're mad at your boss.

The Angry Woman was angry, sure. But not at me. When I hummed by, she was mad because there she was, nailed to the pavement and the old man would expect dinner and the kids were home from school and she hadn’t been to the store yet and the needle was heading into the red and there went a crazy biker.

I was going home on time and she wasn’t.

The law' and my safety had naught to do with it.

So much for Them. What about the motorcyclists who don’t break lanes?

Perhaps those of us who consider ourselves to be responsible riders tend to try to make up for the others. Breaking lanes is undeniably bad public relations. It acts on the road-going public like an unmuffled two-stroke does on the off-road public. So, just as the thoughtful dirt rider is careful to have his machine muffled and to look out for wildlife, hikers and horses, so do many road riders go the extra step. They don’t take advantage of the motorcycle’s built-in advantage, that of being more nimble than a car.

We each have some of this. I can't see a biker minus helmet without wishing he had one. And surely many a non-helmeted rider, sitting stationary in the jam, has cursed me as I eased down the alley.

Overcompensation is w hat I’m getting at and I don't plan to overcompensate. The non-riding public isn’t going to like us no matter what. Never has, never will.

Looking back, I wish I had taken the time to park wfflen shouted at, so I could have politely explained that No. I w'as not breaking the law. What I was doing was increasing my personal mobility. I have a magic wand, with which I can make traffic jams disappear. I call it a motorcycle. S3