You know, if you really have to go super fast they have racetracks for that kind of thing.
I’ve heard from a number of sources that the situation out on the streets took a definite turn during Covid. People–especially younger men–decided that with the streets nearly empty they could race at very high speeds and commit all sorts of other violations that would have been unthinkable before. The big problem is that they apparently didn’t give up these new practices when the traffic came back.
Just a week ago I was headed out Parker Road on my bike and this guy came scorching along in the merge lane on the right. It’s a more or less continuous lane, serving as an acceleration lane past intersections and deceleration lane approaching intersections. Only this guy was blasting past all the much slower traffic in the actual traffic lanes and not even slowing down approaching intersections. Imagine if you had been just pulling onto the road as he came along.
In fact, when I told Judy about this later she told me that some friends of our had been hit in exactly that situation just a few weeks ago. Though their car was badly damaged they were unhurt, which is probably why I had not heard of it sooner. But what a jerk!
On Thursday a few days ago I decided to go up to the north side of town to visit my friend John. On this one trip I witnessed a whole series of these sorts of stupid acts. Getting onto I-25 some buffoon in a hot car floored it and blasted past every other car he possibly could on the on ramp. Then a short while later, in heavy traffic moving about 30 miles an hour, some guy on a motorcycle came lane-splitting right up alongside me and whole lot of other people. Yes, Colorado allows lane filtering, when the traffic around you is at a complete stop. This was not that situation. And yes, I know this sort of lane-splitting is permitted in some places, and presumably can be done safely.
But it’s not legal here and after we worked so hard to get filtering approved it would be an incredible shame if the legislators, reviewing the results in a couple years as mandated, decide to rescind that OK because a few riders pull stunts like this guy.
Later on my trip north I spotted another guy on a bike behind me and I watched him to see what he would do but he just cruised along behind me for a pretty good ways. That was smart because, while he didn’t know it, I had his front and kept him in mind the whole way.
On my trip home I was going west on 136th to get to I-25 and was stopped at a light. Again to my surprise, a guy on a bike came right up the middle beside me to take his place at the front. A totally legal, well-executed filtering move. Good for you, fella.
Then as I went south on I-25 there were at least three different cars in three different instances that went screaming by everyone, weaving in and out of traffic with inches to spare. What is with these people? I was glad I was at least in my car, not on my bike so I would have had some protection if these antics had led to disaster.
But after a serious crash in my car in 2024, a serious crash on my bike in 2025–both totally the other guys’ fault–I really don’t want a three-peat now in 2026.
Biker Quote for Today
If it were illegal to kill insects, I’d be in the clink for three million years. — Foster Kinn
Tags: lane-filtering in Colorado, lane-splitting, reckless drivers