DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour  al@motorwayamerica.com

In my capacity as a future Nobel laureate in the field of automotive journalism I find myself in California at least once a month to drive new vehicles in a number of real-world environments so I can write articles about them. If I’d only been there once I’d still be just as frightened by a phenomenon I’ve only experienced in the Golden State…motorcycles splitting lanes.

For example, I’ll be driving down the 405 in Los Angeles listening to some sick station on Satellite Radio and thinking that all’s right with the world when all of a sudden, ZZZzzzzz…some damned motorcycle is driving between me and my traffic-jam wing man in the next lane.

I’ve met a lot of suicide-prone individuals in my life but never are they on such public display as on California freeways. Just because the riders are wearing a custom-fitted Bell helmet doesn’t mean some guy in a car won’t take the opportunity to use the stop-and-go traffic to open the door and brush the Cheetos crumbs off his shirt and pants, not realizing Captain America is zipping between lanes. I’m far from matching the I.Q. of great physicists like Albert Einstein or Sir Isaac Newton but even a kid from Indiana like me knows that when a Harley runs into an open door on the freeway, several things are going to happen:

The door of the passenger vehicle will be damaged

The motorcycle is going to be damaged

Nothing is going to physically harm the driver of the passenger vehicle

Perhaps the motorcycle driver will luck out and only have a mild concussion or be crippled and/or paralyzed for the rest of his life

There will be a job opening where he worked

A dear friend of mine who stays current on these types of things told me that every day at least one person is killed on a motorcycle while driving on Southern California’s multitude of limited access highways. An optimist would say that at that rate it will only take about 8 million days for Los Angeles’s legendary traffic jams to be a thing of the past.

I’m aware that motorcycles are fun to ride and offer the freedom of letting the wind flow through one’s helmet. But they’re inherently dangerous as well and for some (what’s another word for idiot?) to risk his/her or other lives to save a few minutes is a bigger gamble than the craps tables at an Indian casino. Not only is traffic and vehicular-unpredictability a life-threatening concern but most cyclists don’t consider the demented/sadistic factor of those vehicle drivers who abhor what they freely describe as “two-legged proctologic entrances.” (Okay…so I made that up; but you get the picture.)

I know a guy who could write Penthouse Forum letters about how erotic it is for him to see, read or even hear of a motorcyclist being fatally injured by being clipped as he was splitting lanes on the 110. This same guy was picking me up at LAX one Sunday when I came in from Detroit a day early so we could go sailing.

He was about 45 minutes late. (45 minutes late in Los Angeles traffic is like being three hours early anywhere else.) He apologized but couldn’t wipe the grin off his face because he was caught in two traffic jams caused by motorcyclists being killed on the 405.  He said it was the greatest day he’d had since his ex-wife proved that man couldn’t fly when she swan-dived from the top of the Griffith Park Observatory.

Personally I don’t care if somebody wants to kill themselves. That’s their privilege as a citizen and how they do it is a matter of choice. However, the fact that innocent people may have their own lives ruined (or even ended) because of guilt over something they couldn’t control in the first place is too high a price to expect someone else to pay.

Getting back to my sadistic friend and others like him, I wouldn’t be surprised at some point to see little motorcycles painted on the side of his door depicting the “kills” he’s achieved driving California’s freeway system. In no time at all his car door could resemble the left side of Col. Francis S. Gabreski’s P-47 in WWII that was covered with little swastikas from all of his Luftwaffe kills.

When I think of how some people lane-split in heavy traffic — and then think of how many cyclists would prefer to drive without a helmet — it’s a wonder the highest-paid profession on the West Coast isn’t the field of proctology. There’s certainly a large-enough pool of potential patients.

I’ve asked some of my colleagues if lane-splitting is a legal maneuver and have been told by everyone that it is. There’s a special place in Hell for whoever rammed that bill through the state legislature. Just like one has to take a driver’s test to earn a license, so, too, should a test be taken by prospective lane-splitters to see if they have the cajones to do it. As part of the test they should be forced to wear khaki shorts, a “Remember the Alamo” T-shirt, a huge sombrero and criss-crossed bandoleers and walk through East Los Angeles from dusk to dawn swigging drinks from a bottle of tequila. If they survive that test they’ve proven themselves to be sufficiently macho (and loco) enough to drive on the 10 during rush hour and lane-split all the way to downtown L.A.

If none of these suggestions sound appealing then I have one more suggestion. If you’re driving on California’s freeways on a motorcycle…STAY IN YOUR LANE!!!! You’ll eventually get to where you’re going…and chances are your limbs and life will be intact when you arrive.  If this doesn’t sound like it’s your cup of Jamba Juice…then happy trails, Dead Man Walking.