The Safest Distance Between Two Points on a Motorcycle

There’s a few of alternatives to get from point A to point B on a bike, here are some factors you need to consider in order to choose the safest route.

Truly, It’s All About Speed

Statistically, you’re less likely to die but more likely to be involved in a crash on slower roads. Conversely, you’re more likely to die but less likely to be involved in a crash on faster roads. In which circumstances are you more willing to take the risk? Which are you better-honed skills perception and attention or swerving and braking?

Highways vs. Suburban Roads

Freeways and rural highways see more fatalities than urban and suburban streets but the key to understanding the difference is simple. Speed.

Obviously, making a mistake at a lower speed is less dramatic than the same mistake made at high speed.

At higher speeds you need more time and space to react. Consider this, at 60mph, a 12-second visual lead like a deer ahead, translates into 1/5 of a mile; at 30mph, you have 1/10 of a mile of distance to react.

As your speed increases, your braking distance increases too. The average reaction time is 0.5 seconds, or 22 feet at 30mph and 44 feet at 60mph. Higher speeds increase the severity of a crash by increasing the impact forces.

At high speeds, swerving or changing direction requires more traction and precision than at lower speeds. At lower speeds, it’s the added amount of time and space that will allow you to make multiple live-saving manoeuvres.

Regardless of the situation, braking is the simplest way to reduce your risk of injury. It gives your more time and space to react and it lessens the severity of injuries if you do end up crashing.

Freeways vs. Urban Streets

Freeways are more predictable and have fewer interchanges, with access controlled. You’re less likely to be surprised on freeways than on urban streets. They are consistency marked and have acceleration and deceleration lanes and there’s rarely any reason to stop. The downside of riding on Freeways in terms of safety is that you can encounter all kinds of debris on the road like tire carcasses, dry wall, furniture, and logs that can fly off vehicles regularly.

Although urban roads result in fewer fatalities, danger looms in side streets merging onto main roads from all different angles, locals burning through stoplights and unpredictable speed limits. Not to mention, in town, there’s a lot more to pay attention to, and be distracted by like clowns, cyclists, joggers, dog-walkers, in-line skaters, and octogenarians!

Avoid Risk

Avoiding risk and choose the roads you feel most comfortable on, but be aware of the roads you’re too confident on! Being too familiar with a route or a type of road can make you over confident, lazy or even apathetic towards surprises. That said, when you’re at risk for another reason – poor traction, rush-hour traffic, poor visibility, mental or physical fatigue, or stress-your safest bet is probably to stick with the route you know best.

What we know to be true:

• Low speed equals less risk.
• More predictability equals less risk.
• Less relative speed difference equals less risk.
• Better surface equals less risk.
• Less traffic equals less risk.
• Good daylight equals less risk.

Understanding Speed Differential

If you can buy into the idea that it’s not speed in and of itself that causes crashes but the difference in speed that causes them, you understand a lot more than most people.

The larger the speed difference between the fastest and the slowest drive on any given roadway, the larger the risk of a crash.

Everything being equal, the driver traveling slower than the rest of the traffic is the biggest risk – not necessarily that particular driver, but the other who will risk your life trying to get around them.

Inner Peace

Do you get as much time in the saddle as you’d like? When deciding which way to take, think about the fringe benefits. If you’re going to spend time on the road, it should be for fun, not for struggling to get home in one piece. If you took the long way, would it cost you time that you’d rather spend elsewhere? Or is the trip you make the only opportunity you’ll get to spend riding that day?

Look at it this way, the worst day riding is still the best day compared to taking the bus or driving the car.

Before You Hit the Open Road…

• Remember, speed changes everything.
• Take the road less traveled.
• Ride at, or slightly faster than, the speed of the rest of traffic.

For more advanced riding techniques, see Pat Hahn's, "Ride Hard, Ride Smart, Ultimate Street Strategies for Advanced Motorcyclists".

Find the best motorcycle roads and track your motorcycle ride with the EatSleepRIDE app, and while you’re at it, get CrashLight® to automatically detect a crash and share your location in case of an emergency. Enjoy the ride!