Another close call, these cagers are out to get me!

[bubbachicken]

Was coming home the other night, doing about 65 on the divided four lane. As I was approaching a SUV that had it's front end approaching the side of the road on a perpendicular side street from my right, I saw his front tire start turning, when I was only about 60 feet away! I layed on the horn, bumped the beam to bright, and countersteer/flipped the bike into the left lane just as he got about halfway onto my roadway, in what would have been my exact location at the same time I passed by him at the 45 I got her down to had I not flipped to the left lane. Scared the bejesus out of me, because the moron was looking downrange away from me at the backs of cars already gone 1/8 mile away as he entered the street! I have to get these extra lights on! Maybe an air horn too... That was too close...

So how do you more experienced chaps deal with these folks that just don't seem to see you, even with headlights in their faces at night? How can you get their attention? This guy was not even looking my direction when I could first see him, he was looking downstream (that is how close I was when he pulled out, I could see the back of his head through his driver's window). My flashing high beam is what got him to turn to look at me! Had I not done that, he would have pulled right on out and been sitting across my lane, and turned into the left lane as his illegal acceleration, which would have resulted in my likely severe damage or worse as that was my selected escape route. Had I been in that lane already, I would have had no escape route at all, as he hogged both in my mirrors for a while.

There was no crossing centerline, but an elevated median at that point, it was not an intersection, just a driveway onto the highway from a side street, and not even a stoplight was there. I think he had a stop sign back several yards at the connection to this mile long straightaway, but he did not even stop for it before passing it, which is what alerted me that he was about to do something exceptionally stupid and dangerous to my safety before I could read the print on his tire sidewalls directly in front of me... Dang, they rolled forward and I felt the blood run out of my head...

[Volker_P]

Tough story, quite close.

My flashing high beam is what got him to turn to look at me!

This was exactly right and what I would try, too.
65 at night is much, 50 should be enough where other roads with traffic hit your lane.
Also consider that very late at night, people often are drunk and while they might still be able to find their well known road home, their reaction is very poor or close to zero.

[bubbachicken]

Tough story, quite close.

My flashing high beam is what got him to turn to look at me!

This was exactly right and what I would try, too.
65 at night is much, 50 should be enough where other roads with traffic hit your lane.
Also consider that very late at night, people often are drunk and while they might still be able to find their well known road home, their reaction is very poor or close to zero.

Your point is well taken, and a lesson I will not soon forget. The folks racing up will just have to go around me for now on late at night. The problem I run into here is that this road is a state highway, and has a 65 MPH speed limit (which means most cagers are running about 75 in the day, and 65-80 at night, depending on how long it has been since their last speeding ticket and their level of intelligence). The really bad part is that there are not a lot of roads with traffic entering this highway, only a few, and they are lightly travelled (area is swampy and wooded densely, with otherwise inaccessible pockets of housing here and there, these side roads are the access to those small neighborhoods). Your point about alcohol is taken well too, because I could imagine quite easily that the fool was intoxicated, the way he drove and acted as I approached him... I shall have to keep an eye on that section in case he is about again in the future...