Friday and the Red Phone returns from its hiatus with apologies to faithful readers who looked for, but could not find, the Crimson Crusader on Wednesday. This week Red Phone took comments from an e-mailer responding to a Red Phone complaint of high prices at the Saddle Horse Show and a question about motorcycles taking cuts in traffic jams. Yes, the almost ever-ready Red Phone was on the hunt. Here’s what was found:
Baby blues
An e-mailer wrote a response to a previous Red Phone comment from a woman angry she had to pay extra for her child at the San Benito Saddle Horse Show earlier this month.
“To the person complaining about having to pay $10 for a baby to sit in their laps during the Saddle Horse Show, my response is: You bring your child, their diaper bag, and other goodies to keep them occupied during the program, therefore you should pay for a seat for the child and all their goodies or leave them home. I come to watch the show and not have your child encroach onto my seat area.”
Ticket to ride
Another respondent wrote to Red Phone questioning if it was legal for motorcycle riders to zoom down the center of cars stalled in California traffic jams.
“On my way home from Monterey last week, I hit traffic that brought cars to a stop for 20 or 30 minutes. Meanwhile, a few hundred motorcycles, in groups as large as 20, drove right through the center even honking their horns and revving their engines if cars didn’t give them plenty of room to pass. Is that even legal? Shouldn’t they have to wait just like everyone else? Then when traffic backed up on Highway 156, motorcycles just rode down the shoulder to pass all the waiting cars. It doesn’t seem fair that these motorcycles get to bypass the general traffic problems just because they can. My truck could drive down the median of most highways during a traffic jam, but I’m not allowed to do that.”
True, you’re not allowed to drive off regularly traveled areas on the highway and neither are the motorcycles, according to California Highway Patrol Officer David Singer. He said the motorcycles driving on the shoulder were definitely violating the law and could be ticketed for the offense. He recommends people witnessing bikers riding off the regularly traveled highway, essentially outside the solid white line on your right, call 1-800-Tell-CHP. If the CHP has an officer in the area, they’ll do their best to find the offenders and you can help by jotting down the bike’s plate numbers. Don’t call 911 unless the driver is overly reckless or appears intoxicated, he said.
As for riding between lanes of traffic during jams, Singer said it is perfectly legal.
“It’s called lane sharing,” he said. “As long as it is done safely, it’s legal, but once they go into the shoulder it’s not legal anymore.”
