Thursday, August 21, 2008

Gut-clench moment

I'm a pretty safe motorcyclist. I got my license through the program up in Oregon where you take the class, take the certificate to the DMV, and they give you your endorsement. I think starting out that way made me a bit more safety-conscious. Granted, there are moments when I ride a bit "sportier" than usual, but hey - it's a motorcycle, sometimes it has to be ridden like one. This morning, though, I was riding my usual conservative commute to work. Going south in the right lane of the freeway (US395), I passed the last street before my exit (Moana) and glanced right to see if anyone was entering the freeway, to see if I had to worry about a merger. There was no one there, so I focused back ahead on the line of cars heading toward my exit, a quarter mile away. As I came even with the end of the on-ramp to my right, I felt a huge shadow looming up on me - my stomach clenched, and adrenaline surged. I had just checked down there, and there was nobody there! It turned out that it was a really tall truck passing in the lane to the left of me, and with the low-angle morning light, it threw a shadow all the way over me and into the lane to the right of me. Kind of a weird motorcycle moment - scary but safe...

3 comments:

SnowLeopard said...

I hate driving next to commercial trucks- even in my big blue F350! But especially in my little car on I-80 in the windy mountains in the dark when there is lots of road construction and the lanes are so narrow there are only a few inches between you and the humongous truck next to you, and no shoulder but only cement dividers between you and the lane going the opposite direction...

Anonymous said...

Yes, snowleopard; construction company employees can be such bad drivers.

Gail said...

Thanks, thanks, thanks for riding safely.