If you’re a rider, chances are at some point your friends and family have expressed concerns about the safety of riding a motorcycle on the highway. And it’s true that while you can take every precaution to ensure you are a safe rider, you can’t always trust other drivers. In this blog we’ll cover some practical tips to keep in mind when riding on the highway to reduce the risk of being injured by inattentive or unaware drivers.
Riding Motorcycle on Highway: Dos
First, let’s review some simple “do’s” for riding on the highway. When it comes to driving on the highway in general, everyone knows to check your mirrors, check your blindspots, use your turn signal when lane changing, keeping right except to pass, etc. But there are a few things particular to motorcycle riding you should keep in mind. These include:
- Use on-ramps to accelerate so that you can merge smoothly into traffic.
- Protect your lane position. Giving other cars too much space may encourage them to invade your space, or at least make it harder for them to see you.
- Try to position yourself so that you can see beyond the traffic immediately in front of you.
- Stay in the farthest left lane because there will be fewer instances of cars merging into your lane.
- Make your lane changes as smoothly and assertively as possible.
Riding Motorcycle on Highway: Don’ts
Second, let’s take a look also at the “don’ts” of driving on the highway. Again, we’ll focus on things relevant to motorcycle riders rather than driving in general.
- Don’t position yourself in the center of the lane. Instead, ride to the right or the left to increase forward vision and create an escape route between lanes in the event that traffic stops quickly.
- Don’t linger in driver’s blindspots, and especially avoid changing lanes into a driver’s blindspot.
- Avoid the farthest right lane when possible—even though it’s the slowest lane, there will be more instances of cars merging into your lane.
- Don’t wear any loose-fitting clothing items that can flap in the wind.
Bikers Have Rights, Too!
Lastly, if you’ve been involved in an accident and need legal support, then contact motorcycle accident attorney Brad Tabakin. You can also follow the Bikers Have Rights community on Facebook.