Rider Distress Signal: Are You Familiar With This?
This is not where you want to put your helmet if you need help.
I saw an article the other day that talked about something I had not heard before and I wondered if this is well known and I’m just out of the loop.
The signal is setting your helmet behind your bike when you’re pulled over along the road.
This is usually just to signal that they are having mechanical trouble, but it could also be a signal for medical trouble, injury, or other problems. It’s an unofficial rule, but a widely acknowledged one.
That’s a quote from the article, which also says the Canadian Ministry of Transportation has a motorcycle handbook that tells you to do this.
I’ve been riding for about 35 years and had never heard this before. It sounds like a good idea, but that would be providing that other bikers know what it means. Until now, I would not have known.
Now, theoretically bikers stop for each other in trouble just automatically. That’s not really the case, though, as I think we all know. I have certainly had riders stop to ask if I need assistance, sometimes when I was just stopped to take a break. You bet I appreciated their thoughtfulness. But I’ve also been stopped along the road actually in need of assistance and watched as bike after bike just blew on by. So I like the idea of something concrete like this to really say “Hey! I need help!”
I would think you would do best to put the helmet maybe 10 to 15 feet behind the bike–maybe more–for two reasons. First, if it’s right next to the rear wheel it may just look like you took it off and set it down. But also, the further away from the bike the more time that gives passing riders to react and hit their brakes.
I had a flat on I-70 out by Rifle one time and I waved frantically at every bike that passed but they were all going so fast that by the time they had a chance to react they were already 100 feet beyond me. One couple did finally stop–about 200 feet past me–and came running back to help.
And who knows. Maybe someone in a car who read this same article will recognize the issue and stop to help.
Biker Quote for Today
A guy letting a girl ride his motorcycle is like saying “I love you.”
