Top Priority: Street Riding Use Your Imagination
TOP PRIORITY: STREET RIDING USE YOUR IMAGINATION
IGNITION
Picturing the worst so you have a plan for dealing with it
Nick Ienatsch
Each moment of every ride calls for a recalibration of the five priorities we will list in this series of articles. These "Top Priority" Ride Crafts aim to get street riders aware of the most important aspects of surviving and enjoying street riding.
Each of the five priorities will rotate in importance during every ride. In the following few paragraphs, we’ll discuss your imagination and place it third on the list of street-riding priorities. Or maybe it’s first?
The Motorcycle Safety Foundation talks about scanning and then interpreting what you’ve seen... That’s your imagination. It should border on paranoid.
Your imagination should do two things: Picture a worst-case scenario unfolding, and picture what you would do about it. Mentally see your escape route or your control input if what you’ve imagined actually happens.
I have two examples that showed me this subject needed to appear in CW as soon as possible. Each of these examples had me shouting, “Heads up!” in my helmet as what I had imagined began to unfold.
Last summer I was street riding in a large East Coast city with a friend who was new to our sport. We were zipping along a four-lane inner-city highway with him leading toward a green light at about 65 mph, just slightly over the speed limit. There were three or four cars lined up waiting to turn left across our lanes, and my paranoid radar went off, causing me to roll off the throttle and cover my brakes, as I imagined the first car turning left in front of our bikes. My friend didn’t roll off. He continued at a steady clip toward the intersection taking for granted that the car saw him and wouldn’t turn.
The car turned. I had been yelling in my helmet for about three seconds.
At the last possible moment, the car slammed on the brakes, and my friend dodged to the right. Close.
The second instance that prompted this piece was last month, as another (veteran rider) friend led me onto the freeway. As he accelerated down the on-ramp, I could see that his trajectory would carry him right into the blind spot of a car angling over to exit the freeway. My alarm went off and I started shouting. Only a swerve by both vehicles at the last moment saved the day. Close.
So fire up your imagination the next time you ride or drive. Imagine the worst, and always be ready with a plan for dealing with it. And if the worst happens, don’t be there.
