Perhaps a lesson in group riding...

New Mexico State police tell ABC-7 a group of about 25 bikers were driving up the highway when a red light at the intersection split them into two groups.

According to police some of the bikers in the first group pulled off to the side of the road to wait for the others.

Apparently one of those bikers tried to get back onto the highway but instead crashed into one of his friends and was killed.

Read the full article here.

Not knowing the specifics of what happened, and what the circumstances were, you can't really opine on what went wrong.

But with 25 bikes in a group, they shouldn't have all been riding together. It would have been better to split them into three groups, with each group about 1 or 2 minutes apart.

Labels: Group Riding, Motorcycle Crashes

An opinion entitled, "Bike processions can be a big headache" published last week in the Toronto Star seems to suggest that bikers riding in a group are the cause of a number of accidents.

Note: you can also get the full article here.

The opinion starts out by describing members of the Southern Cruisers out for a ride on what apparently was a two-lane highway, with one lane moving in each direction. The riders were riding at the posted speed limit. A person driving a car at a very high speed quickly caught up to them, and found himself stuck behind them.

Getting frustrated, he entered the opposite lane in an attempt to pass them by. The problem was that he failed to see the truck coming at him. He swerved his car back into his lane, but in doing so clipped a motorcycle. He ended up killing himself, and injuring the two people on the motorcycle.

The author who wrote the opinion used this scenario as the basis for expressing his/her own frustrations with group riders. In fact, as you read through the opinion, the author seems to focus solely on bikers for having created frustration with many other drivers, and that something ought to be done about it.

The author further incriminated him/herself by writing the following sentence...

Not to mention the annoyance of 20 sets of straight pipes pointing directly at your eardrums.

What the Hell does that have to do with road safety?

This is evidence that the author is biased against motorcycles. The scenario of the speeding car driver was used to justify his/her bias. And now, the author took this bias to print, in a large newspaper.

Group riding is no more dangerous than riding solo or driving a car. Problems are caused when a driver or rider makes a foolish decision, or fails to pay attention. But that's not inherent to group riding. Forcing bikers into smaller groups, with greater distance between groups, doesn't address the issue of dangerous drivers.

But try to tell that to someone who is already biased against bikers.

Labels: Biker Discrimination, Group Riding, Road Rage, Unsafe Drivers

Here's something interesting to think about. There apparently is some public opinion going around in Malaysia that there are too many motorcyclists riding in convoys, or groups I presume, and that this poses a danger to other road users.

Thus far, the government has no plans to do anything about it. According to Malaysia's Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy:

"There are no provisions in our laws relating to road safety that limits the number of motorcycles in a particular convoy but moving in a convoy is generally not encouraged. We hope those going back for this holidays in a convoy will not be a nuisance and cause danger to other road users," he said.

The minister went on to say that he hopes motorcyclists would discipline themselves, and be considerate to other road users.

This seems kinda reverse from what I typically see here in Southern California. It's often the cagers who are not considerate to bikers. Since I haven't done any riding in Malaysia, it's hard to understand what's going on there. But the notion that motorcyclists riding in groups poses a threat to other drivers is a new twist.

Labels: Group Riding, Malaysia