Up Front

UP FRONT

BODY LANGUAGE

Allan Girdler

Grandstand seats don't come any better. I was headed north on the left-hand side of a junction where five lanes become four and then three. Directly ahead was a normal sedan, coming in from the right. Moving from the left was another sedan. They were going exactly the same speed, both in the other's blind spot. I sat back and waited, not through lack of interest but because there was nothing I could do.

Closer and closer they came, the two people in each car occupied with talking to each other, two feet, one foot . . . yank! Cine guy somehow sensed the approaching crash and veered away, braked, lurched anhi got behind the other car. I moved into the righthand lane, preparing to turn off aftd catch the next in my daily series of limited-access highways.

Pulling alongside the car that violated tl^e other’s space, I turned in the saddle, put one hand on hip and glared. Then 1 slowly shook my head, held up my left hand with thumb and forefinger barely separated. The driver looked sheepish. Perfect. Having signalled, in turn, You Cluck, For Shame and You Came That Close, a sheepish and chastened driver w^as just what I’d hoped for.

^Nothing cruel about this, though. Ten miles down the road I was in the fast lane, far left and watching both lanes. This stretch turns into mush every day at this tijfrne and 1 like to be ready to pick the faster of the two lanes, free from people desperately moving into whichever lane they aren’t in, or free to slide up the singletrack freeway if the boxes come to a stop.

vAhead on the left was a car with turn signal going. The left signal; either she’d forgotten to cancel or she doesn’t know how to work the lever. My lane moved quicker, so when I was one length ahead on the right, I waved, reached down and tapped my lefthand signal light. She looked puzzled. I pointed to her left front, tapped my light again. Oh! her expression said. She clicked off the blinker and waved, Thanks.

Not at all, ma’am. All in the line of duty.

Also fun.

Motorcycles are the most expressive vehicles on the road. Make that the only expressive vehicles on the road. In an airplane, I suppose, you can waggle your wings or do barrel rolls but there’s nobody there to see it except the FAA and my pilot friends tell me they take down numbers and file complaints. In a car or truck you can flash your lights, blast or toot on the horn or give the bird out the window if you can get the window' down in time. None of this qualifies for artistic expression and all the gestures are anti-social, rude, hateful. Not helpful, in other words.

Communication. When Peter’s Triumph isn’t running quite right, as in Bang! Bang! Pop!, Steve and I pantomime shotguns aimed at the sky, our wordless way of telling Peter his engine is shooting ducks.

I am riding in company with two gals on a mildly chopped Honda 750, never met them before and don’t know their names, we’re simply on the same highway at the same time and I tap on my tank and point to the right and she follows me otT the highway because she knows the code of the road and the sign language: I am low on gas and looking for a station, she will follow in case I don’t make it to the pumps.

I see a bike parked on the shoulder and I slow and do a one-hand shrug, signing You okay? Need anything? and the stopped rider can point to a tire, or the tank or the engine, or give me thumbs-up and I know he needs gas or a ride or is just stopped to stretch or check the maps.

The outside world, though, is the object of this campaign.

We are invisible. We are two percent of the traffic stream. They don’t know we’re out there, they don’t think motorcycle and they hit us, nothing personal. There are those who argue for aggressive riding which By Thunder lets ’em know, but doesn’t help when it comes to public opinion.

Is a kid in the car in the next lane looking at the wonderful machine and the man from space? Good. I wave, he waves back. Maybe he tells mommy and maybe mommy thinks bike.

mommy This doesn’t always mean you can’t talk. In close traffic, stoplights for instance, we have a wonderful vantage point. If I am sitting there next to a car with a courting couple and they are, er, courting, I can lean just a bit and say in my stern father voice “Enough of that!” The guy will know it’s all in fun and reply—this is a direct quote—“There’s no such thing as enough of that.” And we’ve all gained something in human warmth.

There’s a car with Just Married painted all over. Blow the bride a kiss. No, it’s not as good as the real thing but she’ll blush happily and he’ll take it in the right way.

The driver ahead is peering in the mirror, looking over his shoulder, clearly intending to change lanes and not sure if it’s clear, or perhaps anxiously trying to get into the exit lane in time. I read the> signs, drop back and with grand sweeps indicate it’s clear, go for it.

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MEMBER Yo~cvct.• JSY.Y

We can express all the emotions. We can tuck onto the tank for mock speed, glance warily at the sky if it looks like rain, huddle and shiver when the other rider looks cold.

Nor is it all nicely-nicely. I have read about but never seen actual use of guns. I’ve been told of guys who carry ball bearings, to be dropped so they bounce into the windshield of the offending car. I don’t think we need to go quite that far.

A toot of the horn is ... a toot of the horn. But take the case of the dimbulb who turns in front of you in traffic, the driver who pretends not to know you’re there. Looking straight ahead, warily, but outwardly innocent. If there’s enough room and you know what you’re doing ÿbu can mock panic: elbows out, perhaps even feet out and if you have an open helnrtet you can make faces and shout as you pretend to not be able to stop in time.

You can and do stop, of course, but I like to think in the long run such behavior has an impact and drivers who count on )tou letting them pretend they don’t see you. When you’re three feet away, still shotting, like Hell they don’t see you.

When somebody cuts you off, you can ride alongside and shake a finger. Wh|n somebody lets you in, you can touch your helmet brim and bow from the wai^t. When you do something dumb—you do so. We all do—a clutch of the heart will convey the contrition we feel under those circumstances.

How it works best comes from, of all places, a car writer. Man named Jack Smith, a newspaper columnist, was repeating on driving a Rolls-Royce. Feeling very grand he was, too.

Up through the traffic jam and into his reverie came, he reports, a bearded, bu$ly cyclist. He rode up to the Rolls’ window and signalled, Look back. Mercy. The elegant vehicle’s gas tank flap was flapping. Okay if I fix it? the biker pantomimed. Smith nodded yes, the biker flipped tjie flap into proper position and with a wave of his hand white-lined it out of sight, ^n anonymous doer of good deeds, said the reporter.

And so can act all of us.