I never noticed till I rode today after reading this that I do this too ... when you think about it, it's really good practice !! .... You think about your reaction time, then the time it takes to move your finger to the brake lever and begin squeezing, and THEN you actually start to stop the bike .... Thats about half a second you could knock off your stopping time right there ...

When you're going 60 mph you're traveling at 88 feet per second ... with an average drivers perception time (realizing there is danger ahead) is 0.75 of a second and the average reaction time (moving your finger to the brake lever and squeezing) being approx. 0.75 of a second ... That's a total of about 1.5 seconds ... You could potentially shave off up to 132 feet from an emergency stop (88 fps x's 1.5 secs) if you are quick to perceive the danger ....

 

I actually used to do that but got rid of the habit. My finger started bothering me a bit. I do sometimes cover the clutch (with my full hand) in anticipation of needing to brake hard (someone is about to cross an intersection and hasn't bothered looking in my direction yet whilst I approach my turn) but I don't ride with my hand there all the time. How the hell did you T-bone two cars? Your or their fault?

 

I feel quicker when moving both the index and middle finger at the same time. My middle finger does pretty much all the stopping anyway. I do occasionally use just the index finger on it's own but that's for shaving a tiny bit of speed off. Not actual braking.

 

9-5=4rr, I think as well that it's good practice (for me anyway) because my index finger sort of leads the initial reaction then the middle finger follows. It works for me so I will probably just keep doing it. And UnderAssumedName, the T boning was caused by them. First one was years ago on my RGV250 when a group of dudes ran across in front of me at night. I broke, then avoided them almost coming to a complete stop. As I accellerated smoothly through first gear and was about to change to second a car pulled accross in front of me trying to turn into a side street. He paniced and stopped completely (as the idiots seem to do all the time) and I hit him then travelled so elegantly over the bars, hit the bonnet and fell back on my feet (luckely i wasn't going very fast) on the road and started abusing him. Second one on my YZF600 was a drunk driver who did the same 'ol pull in front of me, panic, come to a complete stop to perfectly align the side of his 4x4 for me to hit with my bike. That one snapped both forks and front rim clean in half, smashed the crap out of everything else and sent me into his side panel, smashed his side window (with my body) and then I flew like a rag doll over the top and onto the road knocking me out for about a minute. Only injury was a sore head, stiff neck, sore thumbs from the impact against the grips and sore nuts from the tank. I have to say I've been really lucky. And that's just the two cars I hit, I've had "solo" crashes as well and walked away.

 

Sounds like you had a pretty rough trip on that last one .... My new skin grafts on my right knee are still healing as are a few repaired tendons and ligaments from my lil run-in with an 18 wheeler on the interstate about 2 and a half months ago ...

But honestly, i do believe your "finger on the brake lever" is a good practice to follow in my opinion .... Looks like you've learned it from some real world experiences there man ... lol

 

18 wheeler! To this day I approach them with caution. The Hwy I commute to work on is the main truck route to the west and some trucks cross lanes when they're oncoming. Freaks me out when it's a bit close. Either they're sleepy, texting while driving I'm not sure but it makes you a little uncomfortable as you see that big grill heading your way. Hope you're knee fully recovers dude.

 

Yes .... a million wheeler got me .... came close to being "" but I'm still here to bug everybody I guess ....

My knee is still there and kickin (just not quite as high as before) ... so now after two surgeries, two sets of skin grafts (the first set of em was killed by a nasty Staph MRSA infection), and there was even some talks about having to remove my leg from the knee down if the infection reached down into the bone (there would have been nothing they could have done to save my leg) here I am ... still riding !!

 

Here the danger is tourists in rent a cars

 

Yeah, I always check that my phone and wallet are still in my pockets, and occasionally I'll check to see that the keys are in my pocket (which they aren't because they're in the ignition ).

Also I notice that my chest gets itchy. Doesn't matter what shirt I'm wearing, I guess the wind irritates the skin.

 

Do you folks who always check your pockets not wear jackets?

I usually keep my wallet in my backpack, but my phone, and maybe some credit cards if I have to get gas, I keep in my jacket pockets.

+1 on blinking the tail light (I do it when I'm slowing down too), bopping at the street lights, and resetting the trip meter (although I usually do it to check MPG, and I do it in my car too.)