shinysideup Welcome to my nightmare By Ron Davis #111820
WHEN ON MY BIKE in a parking lot, I’m typically as jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. It isn’t that I’m worried about that oil patch or coolant puddle
the last vehicle left behind or my bike falling over because of the spongey asphalt (I’ll never park a bike without a kickstand foot or pad again!). It’s because I fear for my life. Apparently most drivers don’t feel
that way. According to a survey done by the National Safety Council, 66 percent of drivers feel comfortable talking on the cell phone while driv- ing through a parking lot. Fifty-six percent feel comfortable texting, and 50 percent feel comfortable using social media, watching videos or writ- ing email. If that wasn’t troubling enough, at least 42 percent said they would video chat while they cruise for an open space or search for the exit. Those people are nuts. The insur-
ance industry claims one out of five accidents happens in a parking lot, and as a result of the 50,000-plus acci- dents that happen there every year, the National Safety Council reports, on average, 60,000 injuries and 50 deaths. Though drivers may feel secure
because of the slower speeds there, NO ONE should feel comfortable in a parking lot, especially when you con- sider the looming wild card of demo- graphics. As of 2010, the U.S. Census indicated those citizens 65 and older represented the biggest chunk of the population in terms of size and per- cent, and they’re getting older, many obviously on the cusp of that awkward intervention with their kids over shredding their licenses and donating their vehicle to the Car Talk Vehicle
12 BMW OWNERS NEWS February 2017
pole. Miraculously, not a single a car or pedestrian had been touched. When he was done shopping and emerged from the auto- matic doors, he figured he had again forgot- ten where he parked, then noticed the pulsing squad car lights down across the highway. Don’t think this is another curmudgeon-
y rant against cagers; pedestrians are often just as much a hazard. The number of injured “distracted walkers” (a phrase unknown to most as late as 2000) doubled from 2004 to 2015 and was expected to
Donation Program. To wit, a little story: A neighbor of mine
whom I love dearly but who is at that water- shed age parked his manual shift Toyota on an inclined lot in front of a Kmart, but for- got to yank the emergency brake as he went in to shop. His car rolled backward all the way through the quarter acre lot, across four lanes of traffic, up and over the curb and into a dealership lot on the other side where it gently came to rest against a power
double again by the end of 2016. In the words of Deborah Hersman, head of the National Safety Council, “There’s a lot of inattention out there.” What parent hasn’t ever had a breathless moment when one of his or her children stepped out between parked cars without looking? Distracted drivers, aging drivers, zombie-
like pedestrians, children, not to mention the usual idiots you find behind some steer- ing wheels…all these physical hazards cou- pled with a false sense of security and an “anything goes” traffic mentality have the minefields known as parking lots giving “Adventure Motorcycling” a whole new meaning. Do we even need to discuss the three shootings that occurred on the last Black Friday in disputes over parking spaces? No, we do not. Personally, I can recall four or five close
calls with cars on those vast seas of blacktop. What can we do? Experts on safety like David Hough suggest constantly scanning for exhaust coming from parked cars and flickering tail lights, covering your brakes, anticipating escape routes, and only rolling along as fast as you feel safe. I’m not above standing on my pegs and toggling my auxil- iaries to the modulate setting in the biggest, most congested lots. Call me superstitious, but I also stay out of mall lots on the week- ends before high school proms. On one of my last commutes of the year I
had to navigate the parking lot of a big box grocery store. As I was cautiously threading my way through the lanes to the exit, a blue SUV suddenly squirted out in front of me. My saving grace was that I could see the driver and had noticed she had never even glanced in my direction. As I followed her to the street, I noticed her oversize bumper sticker fully spanning the hatchback panel: “IN GOD WE TRUST.” That may be a fine guiding principal for her, but when it comes to parking lots—really anywhere I’m rid- ing—I prefer my own motto: TRUST NO ONE.
the club
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