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Yoyoyo and welcome to The Motorcycle Podcast – your trusty motorcycle companion through highways and byways and safely home again. My name is Patrik and I´m your humble host. First of all I just wanna say thanks, again, for all the love you guys are sending in my direction on Instagram. I love to hear from you and it´s heartwarming to hear that so many of you actually learned a few little tips and tricks from this podcast. Thank you soo much for reaching out, I really appreciate it and it makes me wanna keep doing this even more and even better. And yeah, before we start, don´t forget to follow The Motorcycle Podcast in your preferred podcast player, we got a lot of good stuff coming up for you and you don´t want to miss it!
If you´re a new listener I want you to know that The Motorcycle Podcast is a podcast by bikers for bikers. This is where we talk about all them things they didn´t teach you at the driving school. The things people learned the hard and/or expensive way. Sometimes they paid for the wisdom with a broken arm and sometimes they paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars in motorcycle reparations after doing a stupid little mistake that could have been avoided if they would have been a better educated rider. And that´s what we are doing here. We are sharing information between riders to become better and more educated riders so that we will live to ride another day. And lets face it. Motorcycling isn´t easy and we can all become better riders.

But I see a lot of toxic “Pretentious Peters” out there in the motorcycle community who pretend to know it all and who refuse to ask other riders for advice because it would look like they don´t know what they are doing and that would fade their “cool factor”. Cuz we are cool on our motorcycles, aren´t we? I mean we look pretty cool. And all of us look pretty cool as long as we´re just sitting on the motorcycle. But how cool is it to see someone dropping the motorcycle on the ground or not being able to creep drive without swerving left and right like a drunk or not being able to make a u-turn properly?
Naaa we want to avoid that. Not because we wanna look cool but because we want to feel secure and confident on the motorcycle and become skilled and safe riders. And that´s exactly why I do this podcast together with you and the tips and tricks that we share together with other riders out there in the motorcycle community.
And today´s topic is “Why you don´t want to tailgate when riding a motorcycle” so let´s talk about that shall we. Follow me, but not too close, mmmkey!?
This is probably something they actually did teach at the driving school but it´s also something many bikers neglect after riding motorcycles for a while so for that reason I think it´s worth repeating.
I´ve been riding motorcycle in so many countries and I´ve seen it in all of them. Bikers behind cagers with only a meter or two between them and it freaks me out every time I see it because I know, that the second an animal or a kid or whatever is crossing the road in front of the car, that dude is gonna panic on them breaks and the guy on the motorcycle will instantly become an integrated part of the back of that car. Like a stamp on an envelope! BAM!
And that my friends is considered a bad thing in the motorcycle world. You don´t want that. We´re not protected by carefully engineered metal frames and fluffy soft airbags. In the best case scenario we got some leather or kevlar on our skin and that helps a bit against the road rash but it won´t lower the impact when you hit the car. You should never mix cars with motorcycles. It´s like the California reaper and your baby mouth. You should always keep them separated. Because if you don´t – it will hurt. And it will hurt badly. And it will probably throw your motorcycle to the scrap yard and your family into instant sorrow. You won´t probably feel a thing but before you know it you´ll be carried by 6 African men to church.

We don´t ride to die, do we?. We ride to live another day. We ride to release stress. To get our shit together. To get our thoughts straight. To lower the anxiety level and to feel free and alive and enjoy life. Being a consistent biker is one of the most dangerous things you can do in life. So for that reason we need to ALWAYS reduce the risks of getting killed out there. And tailgating a car is NOT reducing the risks my kings and queens out there. It´s basically Russian roulette. You might as well just call them African guys to bring you the coffin and the music while you´re at it.
Pretentious Peter would probably say that he´s a very skilled rider and state that his reflexes are fast enough to avoid the car if it suddenly braked in panic even though he´s just about 3 meters behind the car. I beg to differ Peter. A vehicle that´s doing 100 km an hour (or about 60 miles an hour) is moving with the speed of almost 28 meters per second. So with the average reaction time of 0,75 seconds, the motorcycle would travel almost 21 meters BEFORE Peter even reacts to the car that´s suddenly braking. And with the average stopping distance of 45 meters for a car in normal conditions Peter would crash into the car about 1,73 seconds after the car started braking if he does nothing but brake. In other words. He would inevitable hit the car if he keeps the motorcycle straight. And that could possibly be the end of pretentious Peter´s life unfortunately.
Sure, yes, if we subtract the 0,75 seconds, which is Peters reaction time, from the 1,73 seconds, he still has 98 milliseconds to rapidly turn left or right to pass the breaking car on it´s left or right side. And that would actually be his only way to avoid crashing badly into the cager. But all of you guys who have done the “avoid obstacles”-exercise with the driving school on a motorcycle knows how hard it is to avoid an obstacle in high speed EVEN when you´re prepared for it. Especially as a newbie.
So yeah, unless pretentious Peter is a VERY experienced rider or a professional driver, he stands a very little chance to avoid the crash with the car tailgating it in 100 kilometers an hour and with only 3 meters between them.
I had a pretty gnarly experience on Gran Canaria about a couple of years ago on my way to Las Palmas in the north of the island. I was doing about 120 kilometers an hour (or 75 miles an hour) on the three lane highway and I came over big hill when I all of a sudden realized that the heavy traffic in front of me was slowing down. Everyone was on their brakes but I just couldn´t understand why. The road ahead was clear and almost empty as far as I could see. Then I realized that the traffic was not only slowing down. It was actually standing completely still. But no one had put their hazard warning lights on so I remember getting a bit confused. I instantly started braking both front and back but I realized that I wouldn´t be able to stop the motorcycle before the car in front of me so in the very last second I leaned left and managed to pass the cars in front of me between the lanes in about 50 kilometers an hour or 30 miles an hour while still braking as good as i could. Worth to mention is that my motorcycle didn´t have any ABS-system and yeah I wouldn´t necessarily claim to be a braking professional. But the last thing I wanted to do was to brake so hard that the motorcycle would slide due to a locked front wheel. Especially since my girlfriend was my backpack. Until today I´m not sure I used the brakes optimally. I probably didn´t. Braking is another skill we don´t do when we don´t have to. Those experiences come extra expensive unfortunately.
But the main reason why I managed to avoid to rear-end the car in front of me in this situation was because I had enough meters or feet between me and the car in front of me, which gave me enough time to analyze the situation and take action. I had probably at least 50 meters or about 165 feet between us and that distance wouldn´t really have been enough IF I would have kept the motorcycle straight because obviously I didn´t manage to stop the motorcycle before the car. BUT with results in hand I at least had enough time to react, brake AND act, by turning away from the car in the last second.
In one way it felt good being able to avoid the crash and to finally reap the benefits of many years of safe riding. Eventually it will pay off. It´s just a matter of time. You kind of want the equation to be in your favor, remember? I´m happy I didn´t panic and locked the front tire because it´s obviously quite easy to do so in a situation like this with a motorcycle without ABS. But I wouldn´t be surprised if I would have done it IF the space between me and the car would have been shorter and I would have had less time to analyze the situation. You kind of do what you have to do to buy yourself time to think and act. Everyone knows you shouldn´t lock the front tire but if you only have a second before hitting a car in front of you – it´s quite easy to lock the front tire in panic when the instinct kicks in. You see people doing it on videos on Instagram all the time. It´s so common and may even be one of the most common mistakes riders without ABS-brakes do.
But yeah, when driving safe with a good distance between you and other vehicles, people WILL see that extra space in front of you as an opportunity to pass you and get right in front of you and basically kill the space you just created for yourself. It happens all the time and yes it is quite annoying when people are not respecting your space and distance. But what to do. We can´t read each other’s minds and they don´t know you´re a safe rider who wants to live to ride another day, so you´ll just have to let go of the throttle and road rage for a second or two to create that distance again and again and again, if needed.

So guys, the moral of the story here is obviously: keep your distance! Don´t tailgate hard frikkin cars. Motorcycle rider + car doesn´t blend well. That´s the number #1 rule! Avoid it at all cost. And tailgaters has no friends anyways!
So what distance is recommended to keep?
Well it kind of depends which country you´re from and what your weather conditions are and yada yada yada but in many countries they´re talking about a rule of thumband that´s keeping the same distance between you and the car in front of you as the speed at with you are driving. And this only applies to countries using the kilometer per hour system btw.
So if you´re doing 100 km / hour you should have at least 100 meters between you and the vehicle in front of you. If you´re doing 90 km an hour you should have 90 meters between you and so on. If you´re bad at estimating distances or if you´re using the miles per hour system you might want to apply the 3 second rule instead. Keep 3 seconds to the vehicle in front of you. It´s as easy as that! That gives you about 1 second to react and two seconds to take action when shit hits the fan and that is hopefully enough.
It goes without saying that sometimes weather is good and sometimes weather is shit – adjust your distance accordingly. I mean, in the end of the day it´s up to you how much time you want to have at your disposal in case of emergency. Let us all do a quick self-test here yeah? Think about it the next time you´re out the riding. Test yourself. How many meters or feet away are you normally to the cars in front of you? How many seconds away are they? How many seconds would you have at your disposal IF the grandpa suddenly panic braked in front of you?
If you´re not always keeping enough distance to the cars in front of you – I´d say you´re playing Russian roulette. And that my friend is a game you´ll eventually loose. You might get lucky a few times riding like pretentious Peter but the odds are not in your favor if you ride like that my friend. You WILL eventually end up in a ugly situation, and then, those extra seconds will be your best investment ever and your family and friends will forever thank you. So promise me, when you get out there on your motorcycle next time, buy yourself some time, invest in a few seconds. It´s free and it will keep you alive to ride another day!
To all my motorcycle brothers and sisters out there! Do you have a motorcycle tip that you want to share with the motorcycle community? Nice! I´m looking forward to hear it. Spill the tea and drop your top tip on The Motorcycle Podcast´s Instagram. Whether you wanna send a quick text or a lively voice message, the choice is yours.
Stay humble guys, keep learning and keep teaching other riders. Be humble about the fact that you don´t know everything about motorcycles. No one does. And never ever become “Pretentious Peter” who pretends to know everything and is too proud to ask questions. That is, in my opinion, the number one reason why many older motorcycle riders are still pretty bad riders. They´re not humble enough. They are too proud and pretend to know it all. And for that reason they only learn from their often very expensive mistakes. Maybe it´s a generational problem. I don´t know. But don´t you ever be “Pretentious Peter”.
And if you want to be a part of building and contributing to a more humble and safer motorcycle community out there, please share The Motorcycle Podcast with your fellow motorcycle riders, soon to be riders and in your local motorcycle Facebook groups.
Last but not least, thanks for listening to today´s episode and make sure to follow The Motorcycle Podcast in your podcast player to make sure you won´t miss the upcoming episodes.
Two wheels, one love!
Keep the shiny side up folks!
See you next time in The Motorcycle Podcast
Adioooous!
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