Hours of Daylight – 11:08

Yes, you guessed it, another diatribe against Minnesota Drivers. A good indication there is something wrong with the whole mindset of a state is when you take the motorcycle foundation safety class and one of the first statements by an instructor is, “you need to be extra alert because we all know NOBODY in Minnesota uses their turn signals.”

Folks, that is just plain wrong. The nightly news regularly runs stories about traffic issues in and around the Twin Cities dealing with road-rage and how inconsiderate drivers are to one another. That people here A) do not signal their intentions, and B) hardly notice anything more than three feet forward of their hood ornament, are both well-documented known problems. Driving and riding here are two things i will not miss when we finally get away.

But, all that being said, here’s my breakdown of my ride in to work this morning on the Victory. Actually, there’s very little to break down. In fact my desire to talk about this at all centers around one event at “the commons” on my way in this morning.

What is “the commons?” you ask. Well, in a monumental failure of urban planning the commons was created as an intermix zone for two major interstates, i94 and i35w. 94 runs east/west, 35w runs north/south on the western side of the metro area. Now, before i over simplify the situation, let me say that i am acutely aware of the difficulties the designers faced when they realized these two major roads would have to cross somewhere and no matter where crossing occured it was going to be messy.

My ongoing frustration is while the solution decided upon may have fulfilled many of the design criteria as expressed on paper, in reality it created a lingering sore effecting countless lives of the people who travel it twice a day.

Instead of creating one of those massive cloverleaf interchanges, you know, the really big ones you can see from the plane as you fly over at 37,000 feet around Chicago, Pittsburgh and Detroit, they created a commons, where, for about half a mile, 94 and 35w (plus several other smaller roads) all travel together in the same trench. You can see why this would be an attractive option on paper. First, it’s vastly cheaper than building elevated highways, it took less time to build, maintanence is easier, you don’t have to worry about the wake from high-speed snow plows falling on motorists below, the structure isn’t subjected to the massive temperature swings all things here endure, and on and on. On paper this plan looked sweet.

However the paper plan fails to address the behavior of humans. Rather than force motorists to deal exclusively with ramps what they did was give people a long stretch to change lanes and then ramp over to their destination highway. You can imagine engineers at the “pitch” meeting: “You can see here,” as the designer point using a wooden dowel, “we allow almost the full distance of the common area for motorists to leisurely change lanes, merging seamlessly and fluidly with the cars already on the highway.”

Trouble is that’s not how it works in the real world. What really happens is a nightmare of clashing personalities, driving abilities, fear, etc., etc. Aggressive drivers enter the commons too fast, timid drivers slow way down, some almost stopping as the merge point begins, almost nobody signals their intentions, are you merging? are you not? Can i get in there? Kids! Stop yelling, I wonder what i forgot at home this morning, and of course everybody is talking on a cell phone.

My strategy for dealing with the commons is pretty much the same as my overall strategy: signal all intentions, defend the lane, drive for space, be ready to react. On the motorcycle i’m even more mindful of the 2, 4, and 10 second immediate path rules. But that deals with what’s in front. My weak point remains what’s coming up behind me. This morning, as i was merging from right lane of 35w into the lane that would ramp me over to 94, i was too aggressive and underestimated the speed of the oncoming vehicle merging in from 94.

Ok, it wasn’t all that bad, i.e. no horn, no screetching tires, but i have a strong feeling i induced some sphincter clenching in the overtaking car. I followed the rules: just past the halfway point of the commons, signal on, mirror check, double check signal function, over the shoulder, hard on the throttle, swerve, signal off.

That’s how it went, but as i glanced in my mirror after the swerve i saw a tan or gold genericar right behind me as i accelerated away. It was not the car that had been following in my lane… it was a car that had come shooting down the conduit off 94. I hadn’t seen it… it had been out of my sight when i did the over the shoulder check, but in a fraction of a second it had been right behind me. I have a feeling were the driver of that car here now he/she would claim i cut them off and they might be correct. On my big scorecard this gains an x in the “error” column.

So, relying on the “six degrees of separation” rule (somebody, over lunch, is going to mention that crazy motorcycle that pulled right in front of them on the morning commute, and somehow that mention is going to get linked back to this text), to the driver of that tan or gold hondahyundiakiatoyota, i apologize if i spooked you this morning. You were going too fast, and my signal was on, but i was the one who moved into your lane initiating events that could have led to a crash, and for that i apologize.