Re: [ST] Close Call this Morning

[Rick Damiani <rickd@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 4 Feb 2002 08:54:57 -0800 , "Just Daetrin"
<daytrip90@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>While I am glad that I was able to escape unscathed, these things keep 
>running through my mind:
>
>1. I should have braked harder.  For some reason, I have it in my head that 
>had I been a better rider, I could have braked out of the situation.

Braking harder might not have helped much, as it doesn't sound like
you had much time to react in the first place. Had you slowed a bit
more, it might have given the car enough time to maybe block your only
viable escape route: punching it.

>2. How does one go about practicing emergency stops from 60mph (w/o having 
>access to a race track).  Is this even something I should be practicing?

Off ramps from freeways that aren't very busy? Emergency braking is a
useful skill to have. The hard bit is to get enough of a feel for what
the front wheel is doing so that you can maximally brake when it is
raining and/or the pavement has loose stuff on it.

>3. Was there anything else I could have done but didn't?

At the time? Probably not bothering with the brakes if the car was
that close. You would have been by it with more room to spare than you
had if you had just kept going. To avoid it in the future? Don't go
too much faster than the lane next to you, and position yourself
towards the center of the lane so that you have some extra lateral
space between you and the slow-moving traffic to your right.

>It may very well be that I did the right thing as opposed to screwing up and 
>being very lucky, but I don't really trust myself to be objective about my 
>reactions in this instance, so if any of you have any thoughts on the 
>matter, I'm definately open to opinions.

Realistically, It's hard to fault a spur-of-the-moment plan that
worked. About the best advice I can think of at this point is to keep
the incident in mind for when the situation (fast HOV lane, very slow
regular lanes) comes up again.


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