Archive of BMW Motorrad Club Cape (2006 - 2019)

I should be addressing this to the CY 1200GSA rider on the N1 Thursday 23rd Jan 2014, 08h05 direction Kuilsriver to Bellville just before Durban road, Cape Town.

But the lesson is for all bikes.

Filtering is dangerous at the best of times.

You do this at entirely your own risk!

Only filter if you need to and if your skills level and situaitional awareness is of a high degree to counter the huge danger of this risky practice.

But do not filter if you are going to be more of a risk to other traffic or hold up the bikes building up on your 'six'.

Provided you only filter past a car on the right of him in his lane (we ride on the LHS in SA)  and provided you can argue to AARTO that it was 'safe' to exectue, you are within the law.

If you are caught by a traffic officer passing a vehicle on it's left side in the same lane This is not filtering it is contravening the AARTO regulations and the penalty is R500.oo today.

Passing traffic or riding in either emergency lane is NOT filtering.

It is the worst thing a motrcyclist can do and you instantly get the label of the world's biggest DOOZ and I wish you a long, slow and painful recovery!

Every time I see a motorcyclist do that two things happen spontaneously. You piss off every other road user. and I metaphorically put a sharp needle ito an effigy of you and place a voodoo curse on you.

Get with it, "Lane splitting" is for 'bikers' with an IQ of less than 60.

"Filtering" is for motorcyclists who want to progress slightly quicker than the current traffic flow and who have full situational awareness at all times.

That said.

My CY GSA1200 with grey AARAI helmet  - you know who I am.

You neither lane splitted nor filtered, you just sat between the lanes  poer-poerring along wondering if it was safe, if the gap was wide enough, if you had the power, if the next 50 cars may or may not change lanes.....

Piss or get off the pot!!!

If you are not filtering, then ride in the lane with the cars and STOP HOLDING UP ALL THE bikes that are not scared fo their own shadow!!!

A boytjie on a green superbike (in green t-shirt, shorts and sandals) was also riding just ahead of me and we caught you up in a jiffy.

And you held us up and .........you held us up, and you held us up, despite few twitches of eyes to your mirror. you knew we were building up pressure behind you...

and you held us up. and you held us up, gettingmore and more shit-scared yuourself insted of merging in behind the car you were latched on to (like a baby on a mom's tit)

Eventually my moer-meter was way up in the red!

Superbike did nothing, maybe felt outnumbered by two GSA 1200s boxing him in. Good control brother. Discretion is the better part of valour

I toot-tooted.

Sorry mate I was trying to toot the GSA ass in front of you.

When green sbike made mirror eye contact I asked him to let me have a go. he gracefully side slipped and Let me through.

And I shot past him had my go in no uncertain manner!

In true Andyman-is-now-pissed-off tradition.

Well we got you out the way and we both went through and could go on with the busines of getting to work while you still poer-poerred on, jumping each time you saw your own shadow.

The lesson.

Filter safely, intelligently and always give way to the bike behind you who thinks he should be going faster than you.

If he/she is in such a hurry to get to their own accident, why hold them up? you just piss them off, let them get on and find their accident, wherever that may be.

Lack of situational awareness and complacency is what is killing most motorcyclists.

 I think some guy called Charles Darwin wrote up a theory on this, but it was before my time.