Share the road, not my lane

October 7, 1:08 PMMotorcycle ExaminerKen Bingenheimer

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   Fall color along the Peak to Peak Highway

No, you may NOT use a portion of my lane just because my motorcycle is not as wide as your car.

Saturday was a terrific Fall day to be riding up on the Peak to Peak Highway and we were there. It got blustery later but in the early part of the day it was wonderful.

Then we headed on down the Golden Gate Canyon road. Along the way I was looking for a good place to stop and get some photos. Coming in our direction was a bicyclist with a few cars behind looking for a safe place to pull around. If I had been driving defensively, as I credit myself with doing most of the time, I should have posed the question to myself, "What if that car tries to pull past the bicycle as I go past?"

But I was looking for a place to shoot some pictures, and I was cruising in the left portion of my lane, so I'll let you guess the words that entered my mind when that car crossed the center line to come around the bicycle--heading straight toward me. I swerved sharply to the right and the jerk went on his way.

Rhetorically I might wonder, "What was that jerk thinking?" but I know what he was thinking. He was thinking that I was just a motorcycle and there was plenty of room for him, the bicycle, and me, all on the same piece of highway. Wrong!! Wrong, wrong, wrong!!

My motorcycle is a vehicle with the exact same rights to my piece of the road as any other vehicle. He wouldn't pull that same stunt if I was driving a big SUV or even a Honda Civic. What makes him think it's OK to do it when the other vehicle is a motorcycle? I was a little distracted already. What if I had been so distracted that I didn't immediately notice him coming into my lane?

I know I have a responsibility to drive defensively, and I do most of the time, but I'm human. There's no excuse for my lapse of attention but what the guy in the car did was darn close to criminal. And it was absolutely illegal.

So I'm going to repeat myself: No, you may NOT use a portion of my lane.