A Grump
I’ve been riding motorcycles for forty-three years. I’m sure I ride more miles every year than I did when I started, which is something in the neighborhood of 15,000 miles a year…daily city traffic and long distance travel.
I know that y’all may not care a rat’s rump about knowing that. I mention it simply to give a perspective on my annoyance. I ride rain or shine. I like to ride fast. I have boomed around Phoenix at rush hour doing seventy-five in bumper to bumper traffic. I’ve done it my way on the California highway. I’ve enjoyed it all. Well, with few exceptions. I am not a timid rider. I am an aggressive rider.
I happen to live in a part of Tucson where major highway work is turning a little residential parkway into an eight lane (plus bike lanes) thru-way. During construction the roadways have been narrowed…sometimes to only one lane…and temporary lanes established either with concrete barriers or saw horses. There are hundreds of road workers on the project, which involves rebuilding a major intersection. (Skyline and Campbell for those who may know Tucson)
Speed limits have been reduced to 25 and 35 miles an hour. It means nothing to the cages, who regularly boom through at the old pre-construction speed limits: The indicated 45 plus an additional 10.
It would be smart to slow down, because indicated turn lanes are always being moved, and construction vehicles allowed to lumber into driving lanes. It meant nothing to the idiot talking on his cell phone in the big black SUV that rode my tail pipe, then swung around to get ahead of me just where the lane narrowed to about twelve feet.
When I arrived at the intersection, there he was waiting for a green.
My problem with all this is that if, out of concern for my own safety, I ride with the traffic I have no defense if Officer Friendly tags me for speeding. On the other hand if I try to slow down to something that approaches the posted speed I run the risk of being dusted off by some idiot, or having to sit in a traffic jam while the jaws of life pry his mangled corpse out of the remains of the accident he caused. Give up riding? Not an option.
Therefore I am going to start posting a "Moron Log" over in Baja Arizona, listing the license numbers of offenders. At least it will make me feel better.
