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Texting drivers make riders maddest

Texting while driving

Texting drivers make riders the maddest, but other badly behaved motorcyclists are not far behind, according to our reader survey of what peeves you the most.

More than 900 votes were cast in our short online survey that found texting drivers were the top-scoring motorcyclist peeve with 11.7% of the vote.

It was closely followed by drivers not looking for riders (10.4%) and motorists not indicating when they change lanes (8%).

But our ire isn’t totally reserved for cagers. It seems other motorcyclists who misbehave (possibly speeding, weaving dangerously through traffic or maybe pulling wheelies in public places) also causes us some angst as the fourth top-scoring peeve in our list of 20 with 7.1%.

The full results are:

Answer Votes
Drivers texting
11.7%
Being cut off
6.8%
Drivers not looking for riders
10.4%
Other riders not waving
1.1%
Shoddy roadworks
5.5%
Metal grates
1.8%
Right-lane hogs
5.7%
Dazzling high-beam headlights
3.7%
Moped riders
0.2%
Cyclists
3.1%
Cars in motorbike parking spaces
3.6%
Trucks/caravans passing other trucks/caravans
1.6%
Trucks/caravans not pulling over in passing lane
4.4%
Motorists not indicating to change lanes
8.0%
Slow drivers not using turn-out bays to allow you to pass
4.4%
Motorists not leaving a gap for lane filtering
5.6%
Drivers wanting to drag you from the lights when you’re filtering
4.2%
Riders misbehaving and giving us all a bad name
7.1%
Speed cameras at the bottom of a hill or hidden
5.4%
Police licence checks that only stop riders
4.6%
Other
1.0%

The “Other” category revealed some interesting votes:

  • Cars;
  • Caravans not leaving enough space between other caravans;
  • All of the above…lol;
  • Turning into a multi lane road and drivers failing to turn into closest lane;
  • Not indicating on roundabouts;
  • Cars on roundabouts;
  • Drivers who think they can beat a motorcycle and don’t give way; and
  • Dogs on the drivers’ laps.

We started our survey last week after a British online survey of 1000 riders was released that showed Suzuki riders cop the most road rage followed by Harley riders and their biggest gripe is getting cut up in traffic, drivers texting and “bike blindness”.

While neither of these surveys are exactly definitive studies, they fairly closely mirror an annual RACQ survey which finds texting and talking on the mobile phone while behind the wheel the biggest motorist gripe.
texting while driving causes road rage cop