I wanted to share something with everyone that is really bothering me. Trash! It takes no time going down the interstate and you see trash on the road. All of this is gravely dangerous to motorcyclist.

A few weeks ago I was speaking to a man who was riding a trike motorcycle. He said he had just bought it a few months ago because he had a wreck on I-95. Plastic had come off the back of a truck and wrapped around his face. Blinded, he had no time to react. He tried to get off the highway but laid his bike down while trying to negotiate two lanes of high speed traffic. Before he could bring his bike to a safe stop he laid it down and broke his back.

On a recent ride to Raleigh I could not count the number of dead animals, trash or busted rethread tires on the highway and on the sides of the road. I couldn’t go more than 10 miles without seeing retreads on the side of road.

I love America. America’s greatness comes from our ability to manufacture goods and services. Those goods and service are moved by millions of truckers every day. I understand that those big rigs are expensive to maintain and operate. Independent truckers and trucking companies do their best to keep the vehicles running, safe and to keep their prices down in order to make a profit. One way they keep their op-erating prices down is to use retreaded tires.

There are more than 450 tire manufactures in business today and they produce over a billion tires a year. Both new and rethreaded tires will fail if abused or the proper tire pressure is not maintained. With so many tires on the road makes me wonder what is going on with them. 06-22-11-.jim jonesjpg.jpg

Is it the government’s budget cuts that keep road crews from pick-ing up trash? It has to be expensive. They have pay for the labor, the trucks, and the disposal of all of that junk. I really don’t know but there is something going on. Since my main reason for writing these articles is to help keep us all safer I won’t spend my time doing investigative work on why the roads are cluttered, but I will let you know they are getting more dangerous because of the clutter.

As a guy that puts a lot of miles on a bike, I will tell you that any-thing can happen on the road. The only thing you can do to protect yourself on a highway is keep your space.

Distance affords you the ability to anticipate disaster. Keeping space provides you the field of vision and prevents you from overdriving your bike in harm’s way. If you get to close to a vehicle you can’t see what they might be running over or dropping off their vehicle.

A car or truck can usually withstand hitting a trash on the highway but if a motorcycle hits anything, it will hurt.

Please watch the road and drive safe out there!

Photo: Independent truckers and trucking companies do their best to keep the vehicles running, safe and to keep their prices down in order to make a profit. One way they keep their op-erating prices down is to use retreaded tires. 

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