LetsGoScootin-Safely!   

I took my first scooter ride at the age of 17 and was hooked on two wheeled motorized vehicles.  Though it would be another 19 years before I sat on a scooter again, during that time I had more different motorcycles than I can remember.  The first was a 1965 Suzuki 120cc trail bike, the largest was a Honda 500cc 4 cylinder.  I always have favored smaller bikes, partly because I'm not all that tall(5'7"), and also because I liked bikes I could 'throw around' easily in traffic.  I was mostly a self taught rider, though I read street survival features regularly in motorcycle mags.  In the early years my helmet use was sporadic.  I usually wore one dirt riding, because I raced informally every chance I got, and could count on crashing.  The first couple years, most of my street riding was to and from the hills and dirt lots where I would race, hill-climb, and practice jumps with a group of friends.
After a couple years of that, and many instances of dislocating my left shoulder crashing on the dirt, I sold my last dirt bike and bought a Honda street bike.  I had a few solo mishaps, each with a couple weeks of recovering from road rash, while finding out what I could and couldn't do on pavement.  Other than developing a different skill set for cornering on pavement and street tires,  recognizing that not everyone was seeing me, and realizing that going faster than what people expected might make them pull out in front of me even when they did see me, I thought about driving a car and riding in pretty much the same way.  My approach to both driving and riding had always been to study and practice racing and handling techniques.  For years I rode on the street with no more of a plan than trusting my ability to respond quickly.  Then I had an accident where someone turned left in front of me while I was entering an intersection.  I had time for a flash of recognition of what was about to take place, and that's it.  Fortunately I was moving slowly, and even more fortunately, when I hit the pavement on the other side of the car, I somersaulted down the road.  I was just plain lucky!
I wasn't prepared for that hit, but had I been more observant I might have spotted warning signs that would have prevented it.  Not too long after that, I bought the first scooter I ever owned, a Honda Passport....  I still didn't have a good complement of scenarios to watch for, with planned responses to match, but I knew that slowing down and accelerating more slowly would buy me more time.  I rode for another couple years after that without incident, except for a recurring dream of 'buying the farm' crashing into someone who would variously turn or pull out in front of me.

Then we moved into the city, into a fairly rough neighborhood that wasn't real conducive to keeping a scooter or motorcycle for long.  I felt better locked into a cage driving in and out of that neighborhood, so we sold the Honda scooter and another moped we had.  I kept my motorcycle endorsement for another 16 years without using it for anything but occasional test rides, mostly to see how I felt about riding again and my ability to focus on traffic around and in front of me.   Then a few years ago I began thinking seriously about getting another scooter, particularly after gas hit $2.00 a gallon.   I spent 5 or 6 months reading articles and books on motorcycle safety, since there are  practically no materials written pertaining specifically to scootering, and in the summer of 2005 got my first scooter in many years.  I immediately began doing some of the skillbuilding exercises I had read about, and have been working on changing how I think while riding to the way I need to, if I want to live to ride for many more years to come.


Years ago, I developed a few rules for riding on the road to keep myself alive:
-Drive instead of ride when in a hurry because the cage is safer if you need to be somewhere fast.
-Never go out for a ride to 'cool off' if angry.
-Don't ride after drinking anything alcoholic, as having unclouded judgement and optimal response times are critical when riding.
-Don't expect anyone to see you.

Here are other very basic survival rules I've added in the last couple years:
-Maintain a position within your lane that allows for maximum visibility
-If in doubt about something or someone up ahead, slow down and prepare to stop.
-Keep enough distance between yourself and the 4 wheeler in front of you to spot edge traps, potholes, or other road hazards in time to avoid them.
-Slow down when being tailgated.  If anything unexpected happens, it could buy enough time to keep from getting run over.
-Don't ride naked!  You should feel naked without wearing at least boots, jeans, gloves, helmet and eye protection as a minimum of protective gear, no matter how warm the weather.

The first group of rules is pretty much a no-brainer.  We'll be examining what each of the second group means in practical terms, and how to implement them, as well as looking at other things that need to be considered.  Unfortunately, none of us remember all of the safety rules we establish for ourselves all the time, but making it a habit to think about safety before riding, while riding, and reviewing what could have been done better after each ride, helps maintain focus, and could save our lives.  Preparing and pre-planning for things that could go wrong can make the difference between seeing something that could go wrong up ahead and taking action, or ending up in the middle of something gone terribly wrong.  What we will be doing here, is looking at scenarios and exercises to increase skills and keep the focus on what will keep us alive, until it becomes such an integral part of our being that it doen't interfere with the fun and the joy of the ride.

Positioning for Safety