James Burleigh
Well-known member
As one for whom the best part of my day is my commute because I get to play patty-cake with the cages on my FJR, I have been particularly troubled by a recent fatality during the morning commute of an experienced Bay Area motorcycle commuter.
I think as with most humans, when someone who looks a lot like me perishes untimely, violently, I try to rationalize my way out of believing that it could happen to me. I do this by searching for the differences between us.
Trouble is, with this one, I’ve had trouble finding the differences. And as a result it’s kinda put me into one of my periodic “I’m going to be killed in a motorcycle wreck” funks.
I think these funks are a net positive, however, because when I come out the other end of them, I typically find I’ve been jolted out of my Teflon complacency and re-double my focus on safety.
But when I’m in the funk I feel it deeply, as if I have woken up in a Twilight Zone reality where I know for certain I will be crushed by cars and there is nothing to be done about it. Because I don’t have a car and can’t stand the thought of commuting to work by train. By any other means really. I thrive on the morning and evening adrenalin rush of getting out there on the game field. Because I always win.
"Always win...." But wait. I’m getting ahead of the narrative….
Nevertheless I continue to search for the differences. I think I may have found one. That is, in this case, found it.
I think this unfortunate fellow rider may have perished from a motorcyclist’s malady that I have just discovered and named: Entitlement Syndrome (ES).
Here’s what we think we know about this accident: The rider was going 70 MPH up between cars in the nos. 1 and 2 lanes that were going about 50 MPH. He dove in between a box delivery truck on his right and a Volvo wagon on his left. One of the bags on his Beemer hit the truck, which destabilized him. He hit the Volvo, and then went down.
From the moment he decided to dive up the middle to when he was dead—and here’s the part that impresses me, about how quickly you can go from decision to f**ked—was probably 5 seconds.
It doesn’t matter if those are the facts, because that’s the storyline that’s got me in a funk. Well, in a funk till I diagnosed the problem as ES. He had it; I don’t. There’s the difference. Or perhaps better said, I manage mine better. It’s like knowing when to stop drinking, or how to drink moderately.
I have often spoken about, curiously, how I feel “powerful” when I commute. That’s a strange word to use since you’re the most vulnerable sad sack out there. But nevertheless it’s true. You feel powerful. You’ve got more acceleration, maneuverability, and braking ability than any cage on the playing field. And you can fit in and out of spaces no cage can. You are never in gridlock, and you always get to go to the head of the line. On top of that, you’ve been doing it for years, and you always get ahead. You always win.
“Always win.” There’s a clue there as to what ES is. Or what its roots are anyway.
ES, or Entitlement Syndrome, is the chronic belief that no matter what the incremental new traffic configuration is right at this moment in front of you—you can always get ahead. You always “fit.” You always win. That you're entitled to get ahead because you're on a motorcycle.
It is the belief that the pace you are travelling at now, and that you have been successfully travelling at for years commuting (meaning you haven’t crashed), is the pace you can continue till you get to work or home that day. It blinds you to the need to slow or stop or God forbid concede that you do not get to be, in this instance, in front of the $%#@*! cage in front of you. So you just dive in.
ES is often, I have noticed, accompanied by excessive speed differential. I get out of the way of riders all the time who go flying up ahead of me between cars at frightening speed, diving into spaces I would never have thought they could make. And they are certainly presuming that what they are seeing in this moment will remain exactly the same in the next: that the car ahead will not change lanes, speed up, or slow down just as they are entering the gap.
I suspect that is what led to my colleague’s death—a failure to come off the pace and concede that he could not get between the truck and the Volvo.
The antidote is fear, skepticism, respect for unrelenting metal against the soft and bony parts of your body, acknowledgement that drivers do act unpredictably, and of course physics (something to do with two metallic bodies occupying the same space at the same time). Most important: You can't lose if you don't play the game.
So the difference is that I keep two fingers on my front brake lever, keep my boot often hovering over my rear brake pedal, and vary my pace continually, often coming to a complete stop (albeit not foot down stop) when I approach a couple of cages too close or not holding their lines. And I'm willing to concede first place to the cages.
The common names for ES are cocky, arrogant, and maybe even stupid. And we all know stupid hurts. Sometimes it even kills.
Jb
P.S. I can hear Silent now: “You know what your problem is, JB? You over-think stuff.” Yeah, I know it.
I think as with most humans, when someone who looks a lot like me perishes untimely, violently, I try to rationalize my way out of believing that it could happen to me. I do this by searching for the differences between us.
Trouble is, with this one, I’ve had trouble finding the differences. And as a result it’s kinda put me into one of my periodic “I’m going to be killed in a motorcycle wreck” funks.
I think these funks are a net positive, however, because when I come out the other end of them, I typically find I’ve been jolted out of my Teflon complacency and re-double my focus on safety.
But when I’m in the funk I feel it deeply, as if I have woken up in a Twilight Zone reality where I know for certain I will be crushed by cars and there is nothing to be done about it. Because I don’t have a car and can’t stand the thought of commuting to work by train. By any other means really. I thrive on the morning and evening adrenalin rush of getting out there on the game field. Because I always win.
"Always win...." But wait. I’m getting ahead of the narrative….
Nevertheless I continue to search for the differences. I think I may have found one. That is, in this case, found it.
I think this unfortunate fellow rider may have perished from a motorcyclist’s malady that I have just discovered and named: Entitlement Syndrome (ES).
Here’s what we think we know about this accident: The rider was going 70 MPH up between cars in the nos. 1 and 2 lanes that were going about 50 MPH. He dove in between a box delivery truck on his right and a Volvo wagon on his left. One of the bags on his Beemer hit the truck, which destabilized him. He hit the Volvo, and then went down.
From the moment he decided to dive up the middle to when he was dead—and here’s the part that impresses me, about how quickly you can go from decision to f**ked—was probably 5 seconds.
It doesn’t matter if those are the facts, because that’s the storyline that’s got me in a funk. Well, in a funk till I diagnosed the problem as ES. He had it; I don’t. There’s the difference. Or perhaps better said, I manage mine better. It’s like knowing when to stop drinking, or how to drink moderately.
I have often spoken about, curiously, how I feel “powerful” when I commute. That’s a strange word to use since you’re the most vulnerable sad sack out there. But nevertheless it’s true. You feel powerful. You’ve got more acceleration, maneuverability, and braking ability than any cage on the playing field. And you can fit in and out of spaces no cage can. You are never in gridlock, and you always get to go to the head of the line. On top of that, you’ve been doing it for years, and you always get ahead. You always win.
“Always win.” There’s a clue there as to what ES is. Or what its roots are anyway.
ES, or Entitlement Syndrome, is the chronic belief that no matter what the incremental new traffic configuration is right at this moment in front of you—you can always get ahead. You always “fit.” You always win. That you're entitled to get ahead because you're on a motorcycle.
It is the belief that the pace you are travelling at now, and that you have been successfully travelling at for years commuting (meaning you haven’t crashed), is the pace you can continue till you get to work or home that day. It blinds you to the need to slow or stop or God forbid concede that you do not get to be, in this instance, in front of the $%#@*! cage in front of you. So you just dive in.
ES is often, I have noticed, accompanied by excessive speed differential. I get out of the way of riders all the time who go flying up ahead of me between cars at frightening speed, diving into spaces I would never have thought they could make. And they are certainly presuming that what they are seeing in this moment will remain exactly the same in the next: that the car ahead will not change lanes, speed up, or slow down just as they are entering the gap.
I suspect that is what led to my colleague’s death—a failure to come off the pace and concede that he could not get between the truck and the Volvo.
The antidote is fear, skepticism, respect for unrelenting metal against the soft and bony parts of your body, acknowledgement that drivers do act unpredictably, and of course physics (something to do with two metallic bodies occupying the same space at the same time). Most important: You can't lose if you don't play the game.
So the difference is that I keep two fingers on my front brake lever, keep my boot often hovering over my rear brake pedal, and vary my pace continually, often coming to a complete stop (albeit not foot down stop) when I approach a couple of cages too close or not holding their lines. And I'm willing to concede first place to the cages.
The common names for ES are cocky, arrogant, and maybe even stupid. And we all know stupid hurts. Sometimes it even kills.
Jb
P.S. I can hear Silent now: “You know what your problem is, JB? You over-think stuff.” Yeah, I know it.
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