Recently, I reached an unfortunate milestone in my motorcycling career; I was ready to give up road riding. In some 47 years of riding streetbikes, I have to confess that myriad, annoying obstacles from bad weather, lousy road surfaces, overzealous cops and unreliable bikes have never conspired to make me feel as, well, helpless as did one turbulent ride last month. For those in the know, Western Pennsylvania has never been a region known for particularly good motorcycling. Our winters tend to be both long and harsh and the gravel, cinders, salt and potholes produced by each of Cold Miser’s annual visits tend to remain on the roads – particularly in fast corners- well into spring. On the plus side, the collapse of our region’s steel industry a quarter century ago means the area’s backroads can be pretty deserted at times, making for some fun, unfettered biking of the sort riders in more populous areas can only dream about.
But Pittsburgh has been on something of an economic comeback trail as of late, with a slowly growing population This has resulted in previously empty backroads being suddenly filled with cars. The change has happened so quickly and completely that country lanes where my riding buddies and me went apex- strafing just a few months ago, are now chock-a-block with sightseers, commuters and enough construction vehicles and men in day-glow yellow vests to build an airport. Sure, our region, like many, can surely use the jobs all this newfound energy has created and it feels good to see run-down former steeltowns like ours coming alive again.
I find myself doing battle with teenagers addicted to texting on their smart phones from behind the wheel, get-there-first-or-kill-you-trying business people speeding well beyond their driving skills, truckers who can’t remember where their turn-signals are located and lord knows what else. Having long ridden on the street with the cynical-but-helpful belief that most car drivers are A) incompetent and B) out to kill motorcyclists, I’m seldom surprised to find four-wheeled vehicles cutting across my intended path or tailgating my back tire from less than a foot away. But the final straw broke on recent Saturday when a dump truck driver, his cargo bed overflowing with scrap metal, forced me from my lane and onto the road’s shoulder without so much as a signal or warning. Lucky for me, there was a shoulder to ride along until I slowed and drifted back into my lane behind him – had this happened on a bridge on construction area, I’d be writing this column from my roomy new office located six feet beneath the Earth.
As a rule, I never let the incompetence of other drivers get to me, but this time, after weeks of enduring bad driving, I blew a fuse. The arrogance and lack of concern the trucker revealed was enough to get the old red stuff boiling. As I pulled next to him for a look at the boob who’d nearly ended my life, I saw only a man, absorbed in his smartphone, laughing out loud at some You Tube video he was watching from behind the wheel. I had a long, hard think at the next freeway exit, considering all sorts of revenge fantasies: the invention of a jammer to block smartphones or a taillight that reads Nice Move, Idiot! For a moment, I even considered giving up biking so I could at least live to see out middle age.
But then it dawned on me- drivers will only become less competent as the consumer electronics industry grants them more and more dangerous behind-the-wheel distractions. Unfortunately, they’ll never go away or begin driving any smarter. For me, I’d just have to start finding new favorite roads, lonely stretches of twisty asphalt located miles away from my hometown’s newfound hustle and bustle. Sure, it will take a while to find new places to enjoy riding- but in the long run, it’s going to be worth the hassle. Until I can invent that cell-phone jammer….
