If you have a motorbike, whether you use it as your main form of transport or you simply like to ride from time to time, you’ll already be – or should be – trained on how to navigate the roads on this unique vehicle, a vehicle that differs quite fundamentally from a car. The process of obtaining a motorcycle licence will cover many of the specifics of riding a bike on the road as well as how to behave when surrounded by other vehicles with a lot more armour than you have. There is also the matter of speed; motorbikes are rarely the most sluggish of vehicles on the road.
Nevertheless, education never stops and there is always some more tips and tricks that can be learned to make your motorcycle driving experience a bit safer and to help you traverse from A to B a bit more efficiently and a little safer. There is also the issue that there’s a certain type of person that tends to get a motorbike – the type of person that has a slight love for adventure and likes to get from place to place a bit faster than is usual.
If you have ever been waiting in traffic in a car, you’ve probably noticed (with some envy) the motorbikes which can simply weave in and out of the cars crawling along the road. That’s fine and it’s all part of driving a motorbike, but weaving in and out of traffic is one thing – weaving in and out of hazard signs is quite another!
Safety and Motorbikes
Of course, this is the great danger of driving a motorbike. You tend to go quite fast, and you tend to have much less protection than almost any other type of driver on the road. There is no need to go into the grisly details, but a crash on a motorbike is going to turn out worse for the motorcyclist – in nearly all cases.
Accordingly, it is wise to keep on top of your motorbike safety, something you continually learn long after the training for your licence. As is the case for all drivers, the road can throw challenges at you which you have never encountered before and, while licence training tries to get as close as possible to the real experience of driving, you never become a good driver until you’ve actually been driving for a while.
In light of this, it is pretty common for those riding motorcycles to find the prospect of driving through heavy traffic quite a bit daunting at first. Indeed, there are many who even tend to avoid it for a while. Sure, motorcyclists are generally comfortable travelling at speed, but doing so in heavy traffic can often seem like the ultimate obstacle.
Tips for Driving a Motorbike in Heavy Traffic
Unfortunately, if you are going to get full use out of your expensive motorbike and are not just going use it to go for speed runs around quiet patches of land, you will need to learn how to navigate heavy traffic on two wheels. Your licence training will prepare you for this to some extent, but the only real way to master it is to actually do it. Here follows then a series of practical tips that you can keep in mind when tackling heavy traffic:
Get a Feel for the Chaos
Unless you live in the countryside and never go anywhere near cities, you are going to encounter heavy traffic. The first and most important tip is therefore this: get out into the traffic. You need to get a feel for how chaotic (and indeed, unpredictable) it can be.
Fostering this gung-ho attitude is important also because if you approach heavy traffic too tentatively, you could end up pussyfooting around at suboptimal speeds and that can be just as dangerous as coasting along like a maniac. You need to act forthrightly and react with speed as well as circumspection. That is how driving works.
Observe Traffic and Pedestrians
One great advantage that riding on a motorcycle has is that you can simply see more. This is for two reasons. For one thing, you are sitting much higher up compared to other vehicles, so you get a clear overview. For another, you do not have any vehicle structure blocking your view from any angle – you can see just as well as if you were walking down the street. Therefore, you can watch what people are doing, not just the movement of their vehicles.
If a driver is leaning over to change the radio, you can see it; if they are arguing with their kids, you can see it. This will allow you to predict what might occur and this foresight is at the heart of successful driving of any kind. You should also pay some attention to pedestrians, especially those who are oblivious because they have their headphones on or are looking at their phones.
Get Out Quick
Another advantage of driving a motorcycle is that you can make very quick and deft movements. You are simply more agile and nimble on a motorbike. Thus, you can prepare an effective and speedy exit strategy for when the situation calls for it. What this means in practice is that you should identify places where you can quickly go if something unexpected happens.
Scan the road and look for breakdown lanes, bike lanes, or spaces in the queue of slow-moving traffic. If you have these places identified at all times, you will be able swerve into safety, exploiting fully the better manoeuvrability of a motorbike the moment something happens like some clown suddenly changing lane without indicating or a van or lorry dropping its unsecured load.
Get Off Your Mark Quickly
If you have woven in and out of the crawling traffic to get to the front of the line when you come towards a red light, then you are doing motorbiking right. This is the great advantage of riding one. However, they don’t call it rush hour for nothing, so when the lights turn green and you find yourself at the front of the pack, remember that behind you are lots of drivers eager to get to wherever they are going and, if they suddenly accelerate and you don’t, you could get run over! Always go on green.
Be Seen
This is a fundamental of driving, but it is pretty misunderstood by quite a few motorcyclists. Many think that you simply need to wear a fluorescent jacket and be colourful in some way in order to get noticed. Not so – there are so many people on the road doing the same that you could just blend into the background.
Instead, the way to be seen when you are riding a motorbike is to position yourself properly. To do this, pay attention to wing mirrors, and get into a position whereby you can see the faces of the drivers in front of you in their wing mirrors. The principle of “if you can see them, they can see you” certainly applies here. Moreover, because you are driving a much smaller vehicle, the risk of not being seen at all is significant.
The roads in our towns and cities are just full nowadays. Motorbikes are some of the most nimble and wieldy of vehicles to drive – if you know how to drive them properly. Learn how to properly navigate heavy traffic on a motorcycle and you can actually maximise safety – not jeopardise it.
