It's a Team's Life
Etiquette
My frustration came to a peek when a large group of motorcycles was merging on to the interstate.
Let me paint the picture for you.
Two lane interstate, I-40 in Arkansas and I see a rather wide oversize in my rear-view mirrors passing people. I move to my right as far as possible to let him go by and after him and his escort clear me they come back to the right lane just in time to see a very long line of motorcycles merging onto the interstate. Since the left lane was clear and no one coming up on us fast the oversize load and I move over as I am running ten under the posted speed limit. The oversize has room to get back over to the right lane but I have about five motorcycles in front and by my side with about ten behind them in the right lane. Now I have cars coming up behind me in the left lane forming a queue and the motorcycles are not speeding up or slowing down.
I turn my blinker on hoping they will get the clue to let me back over and nope nothing happens, I leave my blinker on for several miles. Finally, I see enough room for me to squeeze back over to get into the middle of their pack. Now they are trapped in front of me as well as behind me as the large line of cars that were stacking up behind me go by. Once the vehicles get by me the motorcycles move over and start going by my truck in the left lane and two people shake their fist at me.
The situation I had found myself in plagued me all day and I called a friend who works for the Lake Saint Louis Police department to ask his opinion. His frustration was as great as mine with motorcycles running in packs and acting as if they own a lane. He said technically the vehicles merging are doing just that and we do not have to move over BUT etiquette says move over if you can to let them in. That is where the problem starts is the merging vehicle then does not use etiquette to either slow down or speed up to let you back over. When it is a long line of vehicles running together the problem is escalated as I could not speed up enough to get in front of them and if I slowed down even further the cars behind me had every right to get as frustrated as I was.
What would you do in this situation? I know in the future I will think twice about moving over for a long line of motorcycles entering the interstate.
Bob & Linda Caffee
TeamCaffee
Saint Louis MO
Expediters since January 2005
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