Thank God for my quick reaction and that my brakes were tuned recently. PCH has become more dangerous every year as a result of more and more people using it to commute here and there. Also there are more residents living here and zillions more visitors are coming to the beaches. It seems like every road biker in the world has to ride PCH on the weekends. That is all fine and dandy but, please, it has to be single file when riding in groups. These riders should be banished and outlawed or jailed.
This last Saturday I am driving 45-50 mph northbound in the slow lane with cars to my left. There is a large group of riders (25-30) riding three abreast on the shoulder to my right. No problem. However, as I am carefully passing the peloton on my right, they all suddenly turn all the way across my lane without warning! No arm signals. Apparently something was on the shoulder. If I had not slammed on the brakes and slid sideways, avoiding an accident with the cars on my left, I would have killed at least 10 of them and injured many more. Anybody else would have killed them all. I just saved their lives but they all in unison flipped me the bird and continued on their merry way as if they didn’t realize how close to death they were. The cars on the highway came to a stop as we recovered from the adrenaline overdose caused by these lemmings on wheels. I see this display of absolute stupidity on the increase and can’t believe that these bikers think they are safe because they think the California Vehicle Laws give them the right to be idiots.
Bikers, beware! The laws of physics are way more powerful than the traffic laws that you think will protect you. Bike laws are just words on paper. You have the right to challenge a 2,000 pound car but the laws of physics will win every time. Hopefully the PCH Safety Committee can do more than put up signs to ride single file. The groups will just laugh. A law must enforce mandatory single file or ban bikes altogether.
Steve Woods