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Comment by UltraSane | Hacker News Reader

But you are fundamentally at the mercy of a single driver turning left with or stopping in front of you with no warning.

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Yes, and. You always leave yourself an out.

Oncoming unprotected lefts are the most dangerous feature of city streets, and good motorcyclists learn to be extremely wary of their users.

Re: stopping in front of you - this is one reason why lanesplitting can actually be safer. If a car in front of you does an emergency braking maneuver, you're not pointed at the back of them. Additionally, you're not in the way of the car behind you who was watching Harry Potter on his phone and hasn't yet noticed what's happened. We call the longitudinal gap between cars the "squish zone."

There is nothing you can do about someone ramming you from behind though.

And is one of the primary reasons lane splitting should be legal everywhere, it keeps bikers in the safe no man or car land of the dotted white and lets them not take a full car spot on the red light.

Do you ride motorcycles or is this just conjecture? You seem to be reaching for things to convince yourself of the danger.

You can reduce the danger of rear impacts on the highway, again, by lane splitting at a bit over the prevailing speed of traffic. At stops, you shelter next to, and between, larger vehicles.

When I learned to ride, I was to taught to assume that I was invisible, particularly when at a stop light and an oncoming car was turning left. And proper following distance - for both cars and motorcycles - is to leave enough room to stop if the person in front slams on the brakes.

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