But just because you know where you want to go doesn't mean you have the skills to do so. Do you regularly practice hard swerves at the speeds you typically ride? If you aren't comfortable making a sudden hard swerve, you probably won't attempt one in a moment of panic, even though it could be the only action that might avoid a collision. Again, signing up for rider training, preferably an Experienced course (which only one in nine poll respondents had taken), will get you started. However, regular practice is what actually keeps the sudden, controlled hard swerve in your bag of accident-avoidance tricks, and makes it familiar enough that you instinctively use it in an adrenaline-addled moment.
Practicing swerves is probably the best remedy for any tendency you might have to steer the wrong direction in a moment of panic. Although shifting your body weight to help direct and steady the swerve is certainly useful, to get that instant, substantial change of direction, you must countersteer-hard, precisely and instinctively. When you practice that zig, you should also follow up with a zag, since in the real world swerving around something is likely to send you out of your lane.
The other reason riders probably fail to swerve (other than freezing in a panic, which regular practice might also prevent) is hard braking. A motorcycle, even one with antilock brakes, can't turn and brake hard at the same time. If you have taken an MSF class, you may have heard the traction-pie analogy. If you are using 90 percent of your available traction to brake, you don't have another 30 percent left to turn hard. In addition, a motorcycle that's braking hard, particularly a cruiser, probably resists turning. This means a rider must decide in a split second whether to brake or swerve, and if he swerves, in which direction. If you aren't comfortable with a hard swerve, you may instinctively hit the brakes, even though swerving might allow you to avoid the obstacle while braking just means you hit it at a lower speed. In addition to making you comfortable swerving, practicing teaches you what kind of room you need to execute a swerve and lets your mind rehearse making that split-second decision about whether to brake or change direction.
Many cruiser riders tend to feel they are safe riders because they don't ride particularly fast, but this belief lulls them into a complacency that can bite them when they must react immediately to a pop-up hazard. You need to keep those life-on-the-edge skills sharp, even if you rarely use them. The two major avoidance maneuvers are swerving and braking, but unlike braking practice, practicing hard swerves involves little risk of crashing. And swerving might be called on more often. I recently saw a statistic that 55 percent of fatal highway accidents involve unintended lane changes, and I know I have certainly dodged a lot of Dodges. But those lane changes are usually the easy ones. The car that appears in front of you without warning and stops is the challenge that will really test your abilities. If you practice swerving ahead of time, you will know how to swerve, be able to do it instinctively and be able to judge whether swerving is a viable option under the circumstances.
And that swerving practice is even kind of fun.-Art Friedman
Our Senior Editor/Web Editor gets mail at art.friedman@primedia.com or ArtoftheMotorcycle@hotmail.com.