mike's web log

Why we're colliding

Wed, 20 Dec 2017 08:38:36 GMT

Via the @AngrySeattle Twitter feed today[1], I discovered the 2017 Traffic Report (PDF) by the City of Seattle. The report is full of many data (most of which I have not studied), but I did home in on a chart that showed "Contributing Circumstances for all 2016 Collisions":

The chart has oddities. One is that the circumstances apparently come off incident reports or something, so they're not, like, taxonomically rigorous. ("Driver not distracted"? "None"? wth) Another is that the chart is arranged in alphabetic order by circumstance, which is, I believe, the least useful possible way to have arranged it. So I copied to an Excel sheet that lets me play with the data a bit, and that you can download if for some reason you want to.

If you read my recent and lengthy screed about maintaining a safe following distance while driving (Mind the gap), you can probably guess what I was most interested in in this chart. Here are the top 7 circumstances and the total number of collisions they caused:

None: 9196
Inattention: 2386
Other: 2163
Did not Grant Right of Way to Vehicle: 1570
Unknown Driver Distraction: 1265
Driver Not Distracted: 910
Following Too Closely: 597

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Mind the gap

Mon, 20 Nov 2017 21:30:05 GMT

I find it harder and harder these days to ride as a passenger when other people drive. Some of that is just part of getting old. But it's not just that; as I've noted before, learning to ride a motorcycle has helped make me a better driver.

One tactic I've worked on is how much space I leave between me and the driver in front of me. To my mind, most people follow too close. You really don't want to do that. Here's why.

Note: If you want the tl;dr, skip to So what do I do?

Speed and distance

Let's start by examining what sort of distance you're covering when you drive, because it might be more than you think. At 10 mph, in 1 second you cover about 15 feet. At 70 mph, in that same 1 second you cover 103 feet. Here's a graphic that illustrates this ratio.

An accepted measure of a car length is 10 feet. This means that if you're going 60 mph, in 1 second you will travel 9 car lengths. Even small differences in speed result in significant differences in how far you travel—the difference between driving at 60 and at 70 is that in 1 second at 70 you will travel an additional 15 feet (88 vs 103). More than one car length.

Braking distance

Let's imagine that for some reason you have to slam on the brakes. Alas, physics tells us that you cannot stop on the proverbial dime. The faster you're going, the longer it takes to get to zero mph.

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Can you hear me now?

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 12:48:36 GMT

The second motorcycle I owned appealed to me in part because of the sound: it had what people call a "throaty roar." (It was a Yamaha, but I suspect it had been engineered to sound Harley-esque.) In spite of this, I didn't really start to love riding the bike until I added an essential accessory: earplugs.

A sad effect of getting older is that loud sounds tend to bother you more than they did in your rock-n-roll youth. Possibly I would have enjoyed the unfiltered and aforementioned roar as a 19-year-old, but by the time I got the bike, I was covering my ears for passing sirens and babies shrieking nearby. But even as a 19-year-old with perfect hearing, it would have been a very good idea to wear plugs to save my hearing.

To state the obvious, (some) motorcycles are loud. The engine can emit anywhere from 80 decibels at normal speed to 100 dB when you rev it. That's louder than a lawnmower, and well into territory where hearing protection is recommended or, depending on your work, mandated. This is loud even to people who are on the curb while a motorcycle passes. The rider, of course, is about a meter away from the source of this noise, sometimes for hours.

Why are some motorcycle engines so loud? Well, one reason is that some people are just going to want to be loud, and obnoxiousness either isn't a factor for them or is the actual point.

Some people argue that a louder bike has better performance. This is true in a narrow sense: the shorter and less obstructed the exhaust path (hence, the louder the bike), the better the horsepower, by a small degree. However, whether there are other options for increasing horsepower, or whether a rider actually needs [more]

5 driving skills I've improved since getting a motorcycle

Thu, 03 Apr 2014 21:44:51 GMT

It's probably a cliché, but it's still true: riding a motorcycle regularly has made me into a better (car) driver. Here's a list of the skills that I've been honing on the motorcycle that I think have translated back into car skills.

Watching other drivers

The most obvious skill is that when you're on a motorcycle, you become hyperconscious of what other drivers are doing or might do. You might think of this as defensive driving, except on steroids. Another term is situational awareness. Anticipating what others might do becomes essential on a motorcycle; bikers are usually familiar with the phenomenon of SMIDSY ("Sorry, mate, I didn't see you"). You just learn to assume that people don't see you, even if they seem to be looking right at you (inattention blindess). And since they might not see you, you better watch out for them. This proves to be a useful skill when driving a car, too.

Using mirrors

I think that most car drivers don't know how to use their mirrors effectively. First, mirrors have to be adjusted correctly. On a bike, it's not as easy to do headchecks, since it's often an odd angle (for me, anyway). So I've learned to arrange my mirrors so that I have a complete view of what's behind me, including my blind spots, and now I feel comfortable changing lanes and turning without a headcheck.

Source: [more]

A specious take on fuel efficiency

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 08:33:56 GMT
I’ve put a little over 18,000 miles on my motorcycle. The fact that it gets a whopping 53 mpg gives me an entirely unjustified sense of virtue as I pass other vehicles. Still, now and again I’ll consider the nominal fuel savings that I’ve achieved by riding the bike instead of driving my car. And how much might that be?

To keep things simple, I’ll round numbers grossly. I’ll assume 18,000 miles, 50 mpg for the motorcycle, and 25 for my car (which I actually know, because the car’s computer tracks this). So:

18,000 miles at 50 mpg = 360 gallons

Since the bike gets essentially twice the mileage of the car, it’s all very easy. If I'd used the car for the same miles, I would have used 720 gallons. At (assumed) $4/gallon, I’ve "saved" $1440 by riding my motorcvcle (360 x $4 = $1440).

Of course, this is all laughable. Many of the miles I’ve put on the motorcycle are miles I would never have put on the car—i.e., miles driven just for fun. Not to mention that this supposed savings in fuel expenditures doesn't come anywhere near what it cost to buy the bike in the first place, and what it costs to insure and maintain it.

Even so, every time I pass a Prius, I think "neener-neener, I get better mileage than you." And maybe by the time I’ve put 600,000 miles on the bike, it will actually represent a real savings.

Power Braking

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:08:19 GMT
I took my motorcycle in for a 12K service not long ago, and when it was done and we were going over the "inspection points," the technician noted that I had about 50% left on my brakes. "How much should I expect to be able to get out of set of brakes?" I asked him. "About 12,000 miles," he said. Then after a moment, he realized what we were talking about and said "Oh!"

The fact is, I use my brakes sparingly. One of the habits I've developed as a motorcyclist is to leave plenty of space between me and the guy in front of me. My favorite way to slow down is just to ease off the throttle. That, and I downshift a lot; unlike cars, you can't skip gears down or up on a bike, so you have to click your way down to first anyway.

But the most profound reason I avoid using the brakes on the bike is that it kind of terrifies me. Braking on a motorcycle is a fraught proposition. The physics are against you — when you hit the brakes, the bike's weight transfers forward, meaning that it is easy, easy for the back wheel to lose traction.

Then things get interesting indeed, as per the MSF Basic RiderCourse(tm) manual:
The biggest danger in any rear-tire skid is releasing the rear brake when the rear wheel is out of alignment with the front wheel. If the rear wheel stops skidding and resumes rolling when it is out of line with the direction of travel [i.e., if you release the rear brake], the motorcycle will immediately straighten and could result in loss of control. You could be thrown off in what is commonly called a "high-side" fall, and it is very likely to produce serious injury.
Not to mention braking in curves, where the basic advice is "try your best to straighten up before you brake."

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Finding the right trousers

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:54:41 GMT
For motorcycle riding, I have an Exo-700 helmet (required by law), a Fieldsheer jacket with integrated padding, Arial leather boots, and various flavors of gloves/gauntlets. What I keep experimenting with is pants.

[Source]

Motorcycle gear serves two functions. One is to protect you from the euphemistically named "road rash" in the event that you should find yourself in contact with something other than the motorcycle. The other is to keep you warm. Given that I ride in Seattle and that we're apparently now experiencing 9-month winters, the latter function has been my primary focus when looking for pants.

Most of the time, therefore, I wear flannel-lined jeans, which I happen to get from Eddie Bauer. Between those and my knee-length boot socks, this keeps me warm, or at least as warm as I'm going to be in 40-degree weather. When it gets warmer, haha, as if, I have two other options. I have a couple of pairs of Carhart double-front jeans [more]

Changing the headlight on a 2010 Honda Shadow Phantom

Mon, 23 May 2011 23:38:32 GMT
Another motorcycle post. I've now had to change the headlight on my Honda twice, so I'm getting the hang of it. Here are some notes should you ever find yourself having to do the same. :-)

I have to note that the first (factory) headlight lasted pretty long. However, when I replaced it the first time, I replaced it with a particularly high-temp one (Sylvania Silverstar Ultra 4100K) that the guy at the parts store warned me wouldn't last nearly as long. (And is pricey.) However, I wanted absolutely as much light as I could get. In both cases, it was the high beam that expired, which makes sense, since I basically ride around on the high beam full time.

I got the gist of the following steps from the WikiAnswers site (of all places). The steps there are accurate (yay, and thanks to the anonymous poster), but extremely sparse. In the following I show you some pictures and add a trick or two that worked for me.

Tools and supplies
10 mm wrench. Socket wrench helpful, open-end also useful for holding the nuts.
8 mm open-end wrench.
9003/HB2/H4 bulb.

(Click to see larger version)
Note: Do not touch the glass part of the blub. This will put oil from your fingers on it that will considerably reduce its lifetime.

1. Loosen and remove the 10mm mounting bolts that hold the headlight to the frame. Technically this step isn't necessary. However, I found it almost impossible to do the next step without this.

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Gauging gas on the motorcycle

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 11:10:47 GMT
Many (most?) motorcycles don't have fuel gauges. Mine doesn't, in spite of being a late-model bike. (Honda Goldwings do, but then again, they also have stereos, GPS, and air conditioning.) I asked the salesman about this when I bought the bike. His answer, basically, was that motorcycle fuel gauges aren't very accurate. The tank sits high, and as such, the level of liquid in the tank varies, sometimes considerably, as you go up and down hills and around curves. This seems to be what they tell the folks who buy sport bikes, anyway. Given that high-end bikes have them, there might be other factors.[1] On bikes that have carburetors, there is a workaround for not having a gas gauge — there's a petcock valve:

Before you start the bike, you have to turn the petcock valve from OFF to ON so that fuel will flow to the carb. If you run low, the fuel supply stops, but you can then turn the valve to RES, which drains the the last little bit (aka the reserve) from the tank while you desperately look for a gas station. Here's picture of how that works:

When I was taking the motorcycle class, one of the instructors advised that you should practice turning the valve from ON to RES while you were riding and without looking, in case you needed to do this while you were on the freeway or someplace else inconvenient.[2]

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Lessons from a near miss on the motorcycle

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:49:06 GMT
I had a near-miss on the motorcycle the other day that gave me some food for thought. I was traveling down 148th Ave in Bellevue, which is two lanes in each direction, with a wide island between opposite directions. In fact, this is exactly what it looks like (thanks to maps.google.com):

At one point, I'd been in the right-most lane, but I'd noticed that it was not moving very well. I peered ahead and saw that there was someone about 5 or 6 cars ahead of me who seemed to be slowing down and putting on his blinker, but then not turning, then speeding up, then slowing down, and so on. Basically, an erratic driver.

I swung into the left-hand lane. It was still during rush hour, so there was a fair bit of traffic, but in my lane, at least, things were moving pretty smoothly, so I was able to move up a bit. As I was getting close to the erratic driver (ER), tho, the car that was immediately behind him started moving into my lane, apparently fed up with ER and intending to get out from behind him. Like this, allowing for my primitive drawing skills:

I was forced toward the island, obviously, but thankfully, the impatient driver did notice me and jumped back into their lane.[1] I'm not perfectly clear on possible outcomes, but I think there was a chance that the car would have hit me.

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10,000 miles of motorcycling

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:55:37 GMT
I've been riding motorcycles for about a year and a half. It's one of those things that I kind of thought looked fun for, you know, about 40 years, but never truly imagined myself doing.[1] But midlife crisis is a funny thing. And so it happened that a friend of ours was moving out of state and wasn't taking her motorcycle — a venerable 1985 Honda 450 Nighthawk — and my spontaneous notion to ask her if she wanted to sell it set in motion a chain of events that resulted in my own motorcycle, a safety class, a license, a new motorcycle, and many miles since then. These days, I commute more on the motorcycle (40 miles round trip) than I do in my car, rain or shine.

The 450 was a classic starter bike — easy and fun to ride. So much so that it led to an interlude with a Yamaha 650 that is overall best forgotten, other than it was a valuable (in fact, expensive) lesson in the intricacies of carburetors and the difficulties in getting parts for old bikes. In this period and while son Zack and I were getting ourselves used to the whole world of motorcycles, we attended a motorcycle show here in Seattle, where I developed an instant crush on a 2010 Honda Phantom Shadow. The "shadow" part alludes to the color theme, which deemphasizes chrome in favor of black. (I believe this was the first in this vein, tho now all the manufacturers have variations of this matte-on-black scheme.) The bike has a vaguely retro look that hails back to the days of 1940s Harleys (think Marlon Brando in "The Wild One") and in dispensing with chrome is also meant to invoke a kind of bobber style.

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More cautions we probably didn't need

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:57:46 GMT
Son Z and I got some new grips for the motorcycle handlebars. The instructions for the grips came with this helpful caution:

I can't imagine the steps that led to the company deciding to add this cautionary note to the instructions. I keep coming back to this:
Hello? Plastiche Cassano Handgrip company? I crashed my bike, and in spite of having your handgrips on my handlebars, I was injured. You will be hearing from my lawyer!
More dubious guidance: 1, 2, 3, 4.