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249 cc's of pure fury

Thursday, August 24, 2006
  Motorcyclist didn't see SUV
No, it's not an article from The Onion.

Usually it's the other way around. But I guess I proved yesterday that it could happen this way also. Luckily, there was no accident involved. Here is what happened:

I was going down a 2-lane road (2 lanes in each direction). I was in the left lane. In my rear view mirror, I see a light colored SUV in the right lane behind me, and a dark colored SUV behind the light one. After driving for a bit (a block or so), I look in the mirror, and I see only the dark SUV a bit far behind me in the right lane. I watch the mirror for a bit (maybe 5 seconds or so), and didn't see any other cars, so I thought the light colored SUV must have turned off. Since I need to make a right turn a few blocks up ahead, I decide to start merging into the right lane. Because I thought I knew where the cars are behind me, I didn't do as big of a head check as I normally do. However, as I started merging over, I kept looking, and just before I was about to cross over into the other lane, I saw the light colored SUV in the corner of my eye, and I was able to abort the lane change and move back into my lane.

I guess the SUV has been driving in my blind spot the whole time I was watching my mirror. I suppose with the short length of the motorcycle, it is possible to adjust your mirrors so that you don't have a blind spot (I'm not certain about that). But I definately did have a blind spot with my setup that was able to hide a SUV. Time to be more careful with all my head checks.
 
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This is about me and my little bike: Kawasaki Ninja 250

Name:Yifan
Location:SoCal, United States

I'm a grad student living in southern California. And I commute to school on my bike. Currently in Shanghai, China for a few months.

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