Watch out for painted lines on the road

Gus1300 said:
Who in their right mind does a PLANNED departure from a moving bike?
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True. :rolleyes: There are sometimes moments of choice, though: "do I lay it down, or hit that thing in my way?" As apart from being ejected on a high-side, or finding yourself sliding down the road after being caught completely unaware, as in the case here.

So I'll rephrase as "Any unplanned departure from a moving bike... "

We aren't so far from one another that a social meetup sometime could not be arranged, if you're so inclined. I'm always on the lookout for local ST-O members to meet and greet.
 
Gus1300 said:
Who in their right mind does a PLANNED departure from a moving bike?
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Raises hand. I did, back around 1989.
Young and foolish I had passed some "slow" cars on a 2 lane straightaway leading up to a 90* curve.
Entering the turn & despite trying to shed the passing speed I started drifting over the center line, with some loose gravel breaking the rear end free whenever the brake was applied (yes I know, brake BEFORE not in a turn....)
So the thoughts were 1. stay on the bike and hit an oncoming car head on or 2. get off the bike. Spit second decision, but I laid the bike down and pushed off it.
The bike wedged itself under the guardrail and last thing I recall is spinning on my side seeing the guardrail post coming for my helmet.
Somehow I slid under the guardrail, missed the post and stopped just before the man made ditch that consisted of both sides being square metal cage full of large limestone chunks.
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Roads are still slippery when damp, slippery on ice, oil still accretes in the middle of each lane, garbage juice still accretes right there with the oil, drainage grates are still slippery wet or not, turtles/squirrels/cats/birds are slippery....until rain washes the road mostly clean. Lots of hazards to watch out for at the same time. I'm not going to dwell on the growing number of drivers who really need the equivalent of training wheels for their cars.
Sometimes that knowledge and diligence just aren't enough.
 
Obo said:
Glad you are relatively ok.
I agree with the others, painted lines are no fun. I especially dislike the painted crosswalks and some of them here are fully painted rainbows in support of the LGBT community vs the large bars of white and alternating pavement. The more paint the worse it is. The other thing I dislike is the painted the speed bumps and traffic calming bumps. As if going over painted stuff isn't bad enough, lets force you to brake and bump you up in the air first in the front, then the rear.

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This is a joke, yes?
 
AV8R said:
This is a joke, yes?
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It raises a valid point of wide painted sections of the road. As the black acceleration marks show painted areas are slick enough to enable loss of traction when dry. If a slick railroad track is capable of bringing down a bike then wide painted areas could be an even bigger hazard no?

I see a lot of crosswalks that had the two solid markings being renewed by this:

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which gives motorcyclists better odds in wet weather.

Areas like this

crosswalk-art-funnycross-christo-guelov-madrid-16.jpg


would give me pause unless I knew they were created with 100% traction in mind.

Areas like this

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would just plain freak me out. I've never ridden over anything but the first pic and just like using the fire engine/truck breaks in speed bumps I stay off painted bits as much as possible. I don't get air crossing a speed bump but maybe that's just me.
 
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Gus1300 said:
Who in their right mind does a PLANNED departure from a moving bike? Although, I suppose people do jump out of perfectly good airplanes!

Glad it wasn't any worse...lines, loose gravel and leaves scare the bejesus out of me! Apparently I just need to stay away from all the L things...
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A new sport - Diving off motorcycles......
 
Re @AV8R, @Obo, @ST Gui, add those intersections with wide painted diagonal lines indicating that you should not block the cross street when traffic is stopped for a light. New York City, not the friendliest place for motorcycles, has a number of these because blocking the intersection during rush hour leads to gridlock. I know of one such spot (Watts & Thompson) in lower Manhattan where there were two LEO's stationed handing out tickets to cars that ventured into the 'X'ed area during rush hour. To be fair, this intersection was one block from the entrance ramp to the Holland Tunnel and traffic rivaled the best California can offer from about 4 until 6 or 7 PM.
 
It would seem a simple enough safety consideration for a paint spec and tar-snake recipe to include a grit component (pumas ??) of some kind. Kind of obvious to us,, but wonder if anyone has ever heard of such ?? CAt'
 
Catmandu2 said:
It would seem a simple enough safety consideration for a paint spec and tar-snake recipe to include a grit component (pumas ??) of some kind. Kind of obvious to us,, but wonder if anyone has ever heard of such ?? CAt'
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Yes, there was a thread on this ~10 years ago discussing that grit in the tar snake juice, some used it other states didn't. :shrug:
 
If you put 'em in with claws extended upward, you could get real grip with pumas. Might have elevated risk of tire damage though.
 
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It's always a puckering experience to hit those lines when they're wet and you're banked into a corner doing about 60 and you feel the rear slide just a little bit .
 
Catmandu2 said:
I did suggest that the CMA (Canadian Motorcycle Association) should lobby for it,,, about 5 years ago. Never got a reply,, CAt'
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I think the snowplows would do a number on the grit every winter in the same way they have to repaint the traffic lines every year due to wear and tear. I know they usually sprinkle a reflective compound (think ground up glass) into the fresh crosswalk paint to give it reflectivity to car headlights at night.
 
Obo said:
I think the snowplows would do a number on the grit every winter in the same way they have to repaint the traffic lines every year due to wear and tear. I know they usually sprinkle a reflective compound (think ground up glass) into the fresh crosswalk paint to give it reflectivity to car headlights at night.
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There is really no reason why a coarse sand mixed in with the asphalt cannot be used to seal road cracks and make an abrasive and grippy compound that matches blacktop's friction. It might take some specialized grit/sand* but it is doable. Might cost more, though, and enforcing the requirement to use that instead of regular asphalt ads another layer of regulatory nonsense that again costs money.

*Apparently we are running out of easily accessible building sand, and the cost of sand usable in concrete is going up. People are killing others for good sand and stealing it in India. There is a whole book that was recently written about sand. While sand is indeed everywhere, the sharp edged sand used for concrete has mostly been used up near the areas where it is used and sand is relatively expensive to transport compared to its historical price. Yes, it is available, but it is becoming much more expensive.
 
SMSW said:
Apparently we are running out of easily accessible building sand, and the cost of sand usable in concrete is going up.
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Then there is all the sand we throw away. The sand they use to fill sandbags every flood season is sent off as hazardous waste because the flood waters flush out sewage ponds.
 
While we are looking out for tar snakes and pits and mounds (like my incident), one of our motors hit a brake caliper at 65 mph on his BMW 1200 RT police bike. He says his experience kept him from going down, and was able to get off the road. Lots of damage to the wheel and suspension. No injuries except his aging back is sore.
 
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