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A grim day in NH

Basically, I agree with your conclusion. However, your analysis leaves out the fact that the vehicle in front of you cannot stop instantly. So with a 2 second gap between you and the car in front, one will have more than the 176 ft to stop in.

Another issue that I don't see mentioned in this thread: On busy highways, if you try to leave a gap large enough to be safe, people will continually change lanes to fill the gap. You will find yourself continually dropping back trying to open up a gap, hence traveling slower than the traffic. And that is not safe either.

What about that massive center-of-the-lane pot hole, the shredding tire belts from the semi or the crap that falls-off the Tri-Axial from the construction site. They will not be going 60...........
 
What about that massive center-of-the-lane pot hole, the shredding tire belts from the semi or the crap that falls-off the Tri-Axial from the construction site. They will not be going 60...........

Excellent point (and you beat me to it).

While riding I'm always imagining what I would do should one of those obstacles suddenly appear behind the car I'm following. Once or twice in my relatively brief return to riding (i.e. since this past March) staying far enough behind has saved my hide.
 
What about that massive center-of-the-lane pot hole,..
Don't ride in the center of the lane, if you can help it. Most of the debris will be "kicked" into the center of the lane by tires. I usually ride in left side of the lane, in the tire track, if I can. I assume if the vehicle(s) in front of me have missed some obstacle, then I will probably miss it also.

It's a fact that sometimes you can't leave proper following distance in heavy traffic. I avoid heavy traffic like the plague.
 
Don't ride in the center of the lane, if you can help it. Most of the debris will be "kicked" into the center of the lane by tires. I usually ride in left side of the lane, in the tire track, if I can. I assume if the vehicle(s) in front of me have missed some obstacle, then I will probably miss it also.

It's a fact that sometimes you can't leave proper following distance in heavy traffic. I avoid heavy traffic like the plague.

I used the center-of-the-lane pot hole to illustrate something that a 4-wheel vehicle might avoid without swerving and providing an indication of a approaching (in the relative frame) obstacle. But, yes, riding on the left side of the lane is my reference.
 
I will stubbornly maintain a safe following distance.

"But others will fill in ahead of me." So what? Traffic is usually faster than the speed limit, often 10 or more over the limit. If I am "dropping back" to maintain my chosen following distance I really don't care who fills in ahead of me. I'm still motoring right along... I'm just not in that big a hurry. I do recognize that large speed differentials are dangerous so I will modify my speed to co-exist with other drivers but I simply will not adjust my following distance...I will also adjust my speed to eliminate that crazy accordion effect where traffic is zooming along but then screeches to a halt. I'll look farther up the road and do my part to minimize that fast/slow/fast/slow nonsense that heavy traffic often exhibits. When traffic speeds up, I'll speed up at a slower rate and when I see traffic slowing ahead of me I'll slow down sooner to reduce my rate of deceleration.

I do my own thing.
 
Believe me, WA State does require insurance on cars/trucks and we do pay a premium!

I insure 4 motorcycles at a cost of only $604/yr.... that's with full coverage with increased coverage limits. After July 28, I'm sure that will double!

Well then things have changed. As for your premiums, my RT is just under $1,100 with similar coverage as you described here in BC just north of you. We have ICBC (Insurance Corporation Of British Columbia) and it is run as you would expect when government runs what should be a private business. All managers, friends and family employees, benefits to die for, exaggerated titles and salaries and gross inefficiencies.

This year they are making drastic changes due to never ending losses by upping the premiums and increasing license points for violations and accidents to try and stop the bleeding. What really needs to happen is this business needs to return to the private sector so we can actually have competition again.
 
I curious about stopping distance and found this chart. So if you are going 70 mph, it will take your 24 car lengths to stop your bike should an object be sitting in your lane with no place to go. 300 feet is a football field size. Example such as a ladder that fell off a truck.

Cars stop faster at 70mph around 250 feet for them. Easy to rear end a car that can stop quicker.


70mph 315 feet, 24 car lengths
60mph 240 feet, 18 car lengths
50mph 175 feet, 13 car lengths
40mph, 118 feet, 9 car lengths
30mph, 75 feet, 6 cars lengths
20mph, 40 feet, 3 car lengths

Reference:
https://begin-motorcycling.co.uk/the-5-elements-of-cbt/element-c/braking/
 

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I curious about stopping distance and found this chart. So if you are going 70 mph, it will take your 24 car lengths to stop your bike should an object be sitting in your lane with no place to go. 300 feet is a football field size. Example such as a ladder that fell off a truck.

Cars stop faster at 70mph around 250 feet for them. Easy to rear end a car that can stop quicker.


70mph 315 feet, 24 car lengths
60mph 240 feet, 18 car lengths
50mph 175 feet, 13 car lengths
40mph, 118 feet, 9 car lengths
30mph, 75 feet, 6 cars lengths
20mph, 40 feet, 3 car lengths

Reference:
https://begin-motorcycling.co.uk/the-5-elements-of-cbt/element-c/braking/

Stated a different way;

70mph 315 feet, 24 car lengths = 3.07-sec spacing
60mph 240 feet, 18 car lengths = 2.73-sec spacing
50mph 175 feet, 13 car lengths = 2.39-sec spacing
40mph, 118 feet, 9 car lengths = 2.01-sec spacing
30mph, 75 feet, 6 car lengths = 1.70-sec spacing
20mph, 40 feet, 3 car lengths = 1.36-sec spacing
 
"A Massachusetts Department of Transportation project manager tasked with auditing the Merit Rating Board told lawmakers she flagged thousands of unprocessed out-of-state violations in her preliminary audit findings in April.

Brie-Anne Dwyer, who testified before the Joint Committee on Transportation Tuesday, told lawmakers how she found than 12,000 “open tasks” in the RMV’s computer system three months into her audit of the board. She recalled telling Merit Rating Board Director Thomas Bowes in March about the open tasks in the RMV’s computer system, which she said referred to unprocessed out-of-state violations."
Dwyer sent her supervisor, Director of Audit Operations Jim Logan, a memo on April 22 with three recommendations, including one to shift responsibility of the unprocessed out-of-state violations from the Merit Rating Board to the the Driver Control Unit. She said she also met with then-Registrar Erin Deveney and other officials to notify them of her recommendations.

"I felt that this is very important,” said Dwyer, who served as a hearings officer for a decade before becoming a project manager. “There’s people out there on these roads that shouldn’t be and we had the information that needed to be entered into the system and I wanted to bring it to your attention.”
https://www.masslive.com/politics/2...crash-that-left-7-motorcycle-riders-dead.html
 
I don't advocate tailgating.

If there is room in the right lane and I come up behind someone in the left lane, I will pass them on the right. It doesn't matter what speed they are going. If they are going slower than I want to go and they are in the left lane, I have no choice but to pass on the right. As I said earlier, when I get passed on the right, I take it as a sign that I am in the wrong lane.
As I stated earlier I get passed on the right because I leave space between me and the vehicle in front of me, not because I am driving slower than the rest of the Mholes in the left lane. . The driver behind me sees space and goes right around me and slides into my space cushion. They do this "leap frogging" all the way down RT.2 and it's dangerous as hell. I will make a decision soon whether it's just to dangerous to ride anymore, as of now the enjoyment is gone. It's self preservation when I ride, constantly check my side mirrors to see what the vehicles are doing behind me. No Fun!
 
"I felt that this is very important,” said Dwyer, who served as a hearings officer for a decade before becoming a project manager. “There’s people out there on these roads that shouldn’t be and we had the information that needed to be entered into the system and I wanted to bring it to your attention.”
https://www.masslive.com/politics/2...crash-that-left-7-motorcycle-riders-dead.html

Probably impossible to find, but I wonder if there are statistics about how many people continue to drive even after having their license suspended or revoked? About all I am able to find is statistics relating fatal crashes to suspended licenses, e.g. "Drivers with invalid licenses comprised 13 percent of all drivers involved in fatal crashes" (https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812046). It stands to reason that the percentage of drivers operating on suspended licenses is greater than the percentage involved in fatal crashes.

The bottom line: even if the Massachusetts officials had correctly identified and suspended the license of every one of these 10000 or so violators, many of them would still be on the road.

This problem needs a different kind of solution, maybe technology-based. Requiring automobiles to have card readers so they require a valid drivers license before you can start the car? Expensive and provides a ripe market for black market smart drivers licenses, so it's probably not practical. Somewhere there have got to be people working on a cost-effective and secure solution for this.
 
As I stated earlier I get passed on the right because I leave space between me and the vehicle in front of me, not because I am driving slower than the rest of the Mholes in the left lane. . The driver behind me sees space and goes right around me and slides into my space cushion. They do this "leap frogging" all the way down RT.2 and it's dangerous as hell.

The same thing happens to me here in NE Ohio, but I think the drivers here are not so aggressive. It's still very dangerous, though. And it happens no matter what vehicle I'm driving.

I wish all my vehicles had a force field projector in the front so that anybody moving into my space cushion would receive a nice jolt in the butt. Pipe dream, maybe, but with the rate at which technology advances this may not be quite so far-fetched.
 
The same thing happens to me here in NE Ohio, but I think the drivers here are not so aggressive. It's still very dangerous, though. And it happens no matter what vehicle I'm driving.

I wish all my vehicles had a force field projector in the front so that anybody moving into my space cushion would receive a nice jolt in the butt. Pipe dream, maybe, but with the rate at which technology advances this may not be quite so far-fetched.
***
I'm more partial to .30 caliber machine guns poking thru my headlights per James Bond. BA,BA BA! target eliminated Sir!
 
"Volodymyr Zhukovskyy was high and reaching for a drink when he slammed his pickup truck into 10 motorcyclists in Randolph, New Hampshire in late June, leaving seven dead, according to a federal inspection report obtained by The Boston Globe. The 23-year-old West Springfield man tested positive for an unspecified drug following the June 21 collision, according to a report from The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration obtained by the Globe. The report said the drug was a narcotic or amphetamine, but did not specify, according to the newspaper."
https://www.masslive.com/boston/201...orcyclists-in-deadly-new-hampshire-crash.html
 
Never really noticed how many of these dually pickups out there pulling two ton carriers before this thread. Can move a lot of freight/stuff without the regs needed for semis. And then there's the training and licensing. Next the general casual social loosening of drug consumption/cell phones. Yup, it's a war out there on the byways. Never know what's around the next curve. However, life in general is a risk worth the effort. Our hearts go out to our missing riders and families in this case.
 
I wish all my vehicles had a force field projector in the front so that anybody moving into my space cushion would receive a nice jolt in the butt. Pipe dream, maybe, but with the rate at which technology advances this may not be quite so far-fetched.

I think it's a big part of automomous vehicles that 'know' where all other cars are and what they are doing at any point in time. Spacing will maximized relative to traffic signals to keep traffic moving instead of the insane rush to the next red light that happens now. There will be collision avoidance algorithms that improve over time. I think more and more of these same technologies will assist human operated vehicles as well even if they're aren't operating in fully autonomous mode. I don't like the idea of riding in an AV but I have to think traffic and safety will be hugely improved which bodes very well for motorcyclists.
 
I think it's a big part of automomous vehicles that 'know' where all other cars are and what they are doing at any point in time. Spacing will maximized relative to traffic signals to keep traffic moving instead of the insane rush to the next red light that happens now. There will be collision avoidance algorithms that improve over time. I think more and more of these same technologies will assist human operated vehicles as well even if they're aren't operating in fully autonomous mode. I don't like the idea of riding in an AV but I have to think traffic and safety will be hugely improved which bodes very well for motorcyclists.
I think a lot of your points are really valid. I don't know many drivers which really keep their speed as steady as electronics can. We have the Wellesley hill out near RT135 on the confused rt128/rt I95 here and while it isn't much more than a "slope", the 3-7 miles an hour that the average vehicle loses creates a crazy "inch-worm" effect that just ruins the traffic flow.
Traffic around Boston is so bad right now the saying is "Boston is just an hour from Boston". :hungover
OM
 
Never really noticed how many of these dually pickups out there pulling two ton carriers before this thread. Can move a lot of freight/stuff without the regs needed for semis. And then there's the training and licensing. Next the general casual social loosening of drug consumption/cell phones. Yup, it's a war out there on the byways. Never know what's around the next curve. However, life in general is a risk worth the effort. Our hearts go out to our missing riders and families in this case.

Things were pretty scary around here with the Frackers, a few years back. A 2-ton flat-bed dually with one piece of drill rod nearly ended my life when he chose to straight line down a mountain road and pass an RV. I doubt he even noticed me as he blew past.
 
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