RIIIIRIEC:J
2002 Suzuki V-Strom
e
By KIT PALMER
"Left, left, left," I kept telling to
myself. "Keep left!". But my
right side of my brain kept telling me,
"Right, go right, what's wrong with
you?" Being a native Californian, that's
all the right side of my brain knows
when it comes to riding on the street,
but now, traveling the busy, congested
city roads of Cape Town, South Africa,
the left side is where it's at.
Driving - in this case, riding - on
the left side of the road isn't really
that big of a deal, but it does take a
little getting used to at first - especially when lane-splitting comes into
play. You see, unlike in California, in
South Africa, as well as in many
European countries, it is common
practice to split lanes on two-lane
roads, where traffic is crawling on one
side of you, but vehicles are
approaching at 60 mph on the other.
I can actually somewhat handle this
as long as we're driving on the more
familiar right side of the road, but
when things are reversed, as is the
case in South Africa, the situation
can get hairy; if the right side of your
brain gets its way just once, even for
an instant, you know that you could
wind up being a hood ornament on a
14
MARCH 6, 2002'
cue
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