Cages are always blind

[LilNinja77]

So true. I've had several instances where quick reactions and having a good place to go have saved my life.

Most recently, just making my way through a parking lot along the store front, some SUV decides to come out of one of the lanes in the lot--right into me. He never even looked at what was coming from the right. I laid on the horn (before I got the air horn blaster) and swerved off into the lane reserved for firetrucks. He looks at me like, "What the hell is your problem."

Another thing I learned from this is that it's a good idea to let it go and just know people are going to do stupid things, then act like it's your fault. I followed him to where he eventually parked, and we had ourselves a confrontation. Not worth it, in hindsight. Lesson learned.

Yep, parking lots are like mine fields of idiots just waiting to ruin a good day. Your idea of letting it go and pretending it's your own fault is very smart, cause it'll just make you try to learn better ways of avoiding those morons. In the end it won't matter who had the right of way, we (as riders) are always the party who will play the losing hand in the event of a collision, so we might as well just learn to be very evasive creatures. Ride like every single cager out there is trying their hardest to kill you, and just maybe you'll make it home safe and sound, that's my creed. Someone on the "other" forum I'm active in posted this a while back:
"When I am a master of motorcycle ninjistu, I will be as the housefly. The actions of the earthly world will unfold with liquid slowness because they are seen a thousand times faster than I had once seen them. I will react and streak away from a car as a fly flees the clumsy hand- with impunity and grace."

My personal favorite parking lot incident was at a Walmart several months ago. I had loaded up my luggage with groceries and was preparing to head home, so I backed out of my space and fired her up. Just as I was starting to move, I saw something bright out of the corner of my eye off to the left. Not knowing what it was, I slowed down to see if I could see it again. About that time a gold ford explorer with big shiny rims came flying by from in between some parked cars about 2 bike-lengths ahead of me, going at least 25 mph. The explorer shot over through two more lanes of cars and made a sharp left turn, and hauled-a$$ out to the intersection, running the red light and never looking back. Who knows what was going on, I sure don't and in the end it wouldn't matter even if I did. What matters is that I got lucky by noticing something seemingly unimportant and it very well could have saved me from a lot of pain, or worse considering I probably would've been sandwiched between two cars if I had gotten hit. I rode over to the other lane he had barreled through to see if anyone else needed a change of undies :tongue: , and sure enough there was a young lady with two little girls walking beside her who had been almost as close as I was. They were a bit more shaken up than me (I guess riding gets you used to coming close to death), but nobody was hurt so I went along my way and rode back home. Oh well, all in a days' ride I suppose.
Ride safe