Motorcycles

A musician I am friends with on Facebook posted one of those watch-out-for-motorcycles announcements and it got me thinking about the time a few months ago I almost took a motorcycle out in the parking of the Restore. I was turning left from the parking area onto the drive in front of the store and a motorcycle was coming from my right. I'm a careful driver and I stopped and looked to my right and pulled out slowly because the road was clear. I didn't see the motorcycle coming because the rider and the bike were both blocked from my view by the frame of my car's windshield. As I pull out he's also moving so the frame and the bike were moving together. I might have hit him if Melanie didn't see him coming through the passenger window. She warned me and I stopped. As the biker drove by he gave me a nasty look and that pissed me off. Here I am being careful and the guy foolish enough to drive a vehicle small enough to be blocked by a window frame gives me attitude. Whatevs, get a convertible car if you like to feel the wind, brah.

A similar thing happened on our road trip to Michigan in 2008. North of Chicago we hit some nasty traffic due to roadwork and I thought I did a pretty good job of not splattering a couple of bikers all over the highway when things got hairy. Did they appreciate my darn good defensive drive? Nope. A couple of hand gestures made it obvious the close call was my fault and them not having left most of the skin on the pavement had nothing to do with me paying attention. I think bikers are so used to not being seen that anything close is the fault of the driver, maybe? I don't know. I do know that I am very aware of bikes because my Dad had a serious accident when I was 14 that he has never fully recovered from. I think if you are riding a motorcycle and I almost hit you then you should be thankful I was driving because someone else would have driven over you and probably not stopped to see if you were still alive.