The Ride Report

I stumbled across a motorcycle blog the other day where the guy posted an angry screed against another biker who he felt was tailgating him. He started his tale, titled Some People Just Can’t Help It – They’re Dicks! thusly…

I’m riding home in the fast lane and traffic is stop and go and I’m splitting through traffic. Hey A-hole. Yeah you. Quit F***ING tailgating me. I see you and no, I’m not gonna move over for you since you seem to be a jackass! Oh you’re gonna keep riding me huh? (give him the palmed hand to back off) Oh that didn’t work for you? You still like riding your front wheel up my ass. Is that it?

…and went on to talk about how the guy revved and honked and flashed his headlights at him while he refused to move over and gloated about how angry he was making the guy.

I weighed in in the comments, saying that it sounded to me like the blogger-rider was the one being a dick by not moving over. It turns out that I was in the minority — all the other commenters chimed right in with the blogger-rider that the other guy was wrong and generally felt that the blogger-rider had struck a blow for justice by not letting the tailgater go by.

I didn’t want to hijack his blog with my own argument, so I thought I’d try to start a discussion here about who’s right and who’s wrong. So:

Me, I think the blogger-rider came off like an impotent, self-appointed traffic Nazi, the kind of guy who drives his Buick in the fast lane at exactly 55 mph (”Because that’s the speed limit, damn it!”) and refuses to move over even though the flow of traffic is going 75 mph and he’s creating a hazard. He thinks the other guy is an asshole for trying to get him to move over or go faster, but thinks he’s completely in the right in making the other guy move over to pass him or go slower. Accuses the other guy of only thinking of himself while he’s only thinking of himself.

My take on lane-splitting passing is this: If a faster rider comes up behind me, I drop into a gap and let him by. If I overtake a slower rider, I hang back for a little ways and wait for him to drop into a gap. If he doesn’t, I’ll flick my headlights at him because he may not have noticed me. If he still doesn’t let me by, I’ll get closer and flick the lights and rev the engine, maybe give him a beep of the horn. Up to this point it’s all friendly. But if he still doesn’t let me by, then he’s a dick and at the first opportunity I drop over into the next lane, pass him, drop back in in front of him, and give him a taste of his own medicine. Because I can be a dick too.

I’ve written here before about how much I like lane-splitting and how good I think I am at it. I’m usually the guy catching up to slower riders, even though I’m on a Harley bagger. I rarely have to pull over for other bikes, but I’m happy to do it when necessary. I just expect the same courtesy.

So, what do you think? When one rider overtakes another while lane-splitting, should the slower rider let him by or should the faster one adopt the slower speed? Sound off in the comments, please.