It can happen near driveways. It can happen at parking lot entrances. It is more than likely to happen at intersections. If there is one scenario a responsible motorcyclists should study, practice and be prepared for, it is the dreaded left turner.
Left Turner Defense
Why left turners and not right? If you had a scenario where a right turning vehicle enters the road in front of you, then proceeds across multiple lanes in attempt to get into the leftmost lane, this is certainly something to look out for. There is never a time when you don’t need to watch out for a vehicle turning right, but is the left turning vehicle that gives us the most grief. Left turning vehicles always cross traffic, often across more than one lane. The typical scenario is an oncoming vehicle turning left in front of your motorcycle. These drivers are searching for gaps in the traffic to make their move. The obvious problem is the size of the motorcycle and rider. The typical driver is accustomed to the size of an automobile, and they can usually successfully predict the time they have available to complete the turn. A small profile motorcycle can often give left turners a false belief that they have more time, in the (less than) 1 second that they keep focus on you. Left turning vehicles that have already steered their front wheels in the direction they intend to drive, hardly ever give you any notice when they are crossing, and almost always accelerate quickly in busy traffic. Even if the left turning vehicle has its wheels straight, if the decision is to cross your lane, their initial direction of travel is straight towards you, which increases the closing speed and decreases the time for you to react. Often this left turner is holding up traffic behind them. This can also add to the urgency to get across your lane.
As motorcyclists, we need a strong understanding of traffic, to the level of PhD preferably. Our learning starts with riding our three tracks effectively. As we know, a motorcyclist is intitled to the entire lane and each lane can be divided up into three tracks. (Track one, Track two, Track three) As previously mentioned, our size is our biggest disadvantage, but it can be advantages considering we can move around in the lane more than a typical car. There are track positions for blocking vehicles behind us. There are positions for seeing and being seen and there are momentary track positions to create a buffer space from oncoming hazards. As you could imagine, the “temporary buffer” position is the most effective against left turners. In the typical two-lane road, with one lane traveling in each direction, your likely position would be in track one, which would either properly block the lane from intrusion from behind or give you a superior seeing and being seen position for oncoming vehicles. In this scenario it is vital that the motorcyclist recognize the left turner and perform a track one to three shift (Buffer) to give both you and the left turner more time to react.
There are quite a few motorcycle safety book and magazine articles that say a track one to three shift will provide cross motion to your silhouette. There could be some truth to this when you consider that an oncoming motorcyclists performing a one to three track shift produces more side to side motion, and more visibility than one that stays in track one.
If you are in the left of two lanes traveling in the same direction and you recognize an oncoming left turner, it is best to once again shift to track three.
If you happen to be in the right of two lanes traveling in the same direction with an oncoming left turner, again the track one to three shift is vital. You might also have in this scenario a vehicle in the left lane beside you, turning left themselves, that will completely block your profile to the oncoming left turner while riding in track one. Many riders have been hit when drivers momentarily check this inside lane for cars, only to collide with the unsuspecting track one motorcyclist riding in the blind spot of the vehicle in the left lane.
Beyond track positions, there are other ways to defend ourselves. Covering the brakes and clutch. This will reduce your reaction time. Taking note of the front steering wheels of this left turning vehicle. Typically the front wheels and their relative distance from the yellow line will likely be the first indicator that the vehicle is about to enter your lane. High Visibility Clothing (Hi-Vis) will assist you with being noticed on the road. When you consider that the left turner studies you for less than a second to calculate your closing speed, Bright colored clothing tends to occupy more of the left turner’s focus. This could also be said for lighting. Most modern motorcycles have decent LED lighting and decorative DRLs, but there is nothing to stop you from running your high beams in the daylight. I know you may think that a murdered out, matte black motorcycle is sharp looking, but is a bright yellow bike more visible? Depending on the type or color of motorcycle you have, aftermarket handguards have become a popular way to keep the cold off your hands, or in some cases protect your brake and clutch levers. That is a lot of bolt-on, forward-facing real estate to add a bit of higher visibility to an otherwise invisible motorcycle.
We need our rider radars on all the time out there. We hope this chat helped at least one rider out there. If it did it was worth it.
