I want to talk about hand signals. And you’re thinking, why do I need hand signals? My bike comes with turn signals. It’s just a button I push and I don’t have to worry about it. Well, what if your turn signal doesn’t work? Or you’re riding an antique bike that doesn’t have turn signals?
Hand signals are good to use even when you use your turn signals. We always want people to see us when we’re on a motorcycle, because that’s the biggest thing when we’re involved in a wreck is the vehicle that didn’t see us. Hand signals is something that can make us a lot more visible. They’re also really good when you’re riding with other riders to communicate because bikes are loud. If you wear a helmet, you may not be able to hear someone talk to you. So hand signals are good to be able to talk between other riders in a group.
There are some universal hand signals that everyone agrees upon. And then there are some groups that have added some their own, and which is fine as long as everybody in the group knows those. But don’t expect the car riders or or drivers or other people in the roadways or someone that’s not in your group to know what that hand signal means.
You know you have to make a left turn. I’ve seen people point, which is okay, but are you pointing at something? Or are you saying, I’m going to turn so hand straight out or a fist? You know, I want to make a left turn, you know, because you’re right hand is up here on your throttle.
So you can’t use that to do your signals, your right turn. So your hands up, fist up again. If you point, that’s okay. But are you pointing at something, you know, especially when you get bulky gloves on, sometimes you’re making another signal. There’s signals that we use with the fingers in your hand to. So I try to always do either flat hand or a fist for my right turn and slow down.
You know, palm flat. It’s a downward push. Motion means slow down. If I want people to speed up, I open and close my fist. I know that’s used for other things with other groups. Police officer is you pat your helmet or pat top of your head. There’s a police officer. If I want to go single file, I do one finger up above my head.
If I want to the pack to go staggered, I’ll to make it easier. Because of the gloves, I usually split my fingers. And then I moved back and forth, which means staggered. Two fingers up means two up side by side. If I need to make a stop, I need the pack or another rider to know I need to pull over. I point at my tank and it’s exaggerated. I point at my tank. That can mean I need fuel. That can mean I need to pee. It can mean I want to stop and get food. It just means we need to pull over. So I know some other groups have signs for comfort stops or food stops. They use other signals for that.
If there’s an object in the road, we want to point it out to other riders. You can use your feet or your hands. Depends. I know, some people that I know from HOG, they prefer their feet. I don’t use my feet as often because I have hit whatever the debris was because I didn’t get my foot up in time. So that’s something to watch out for. But you can use your feet to point. You can point out that there’s something in the road. If it’s on the other side of the road, you can do like this.
But the reason we’re using these signals is to inform the other riders with you, especially when you’re in a group, you want to make sure the hand signals make it all the way back so everyone knows what we’re doing. Like, oh, what are they doing? Why is their arm out like that? That will help them know they’re going to slow down to be paying more attention to you. I had a friend following me a and I was on my bike. The sun was hitting my bike. Even though I was using my turn signals, she couldn’t tell that I was using my turn signals because the sun was causing such a bad glare.
So if I wasn’t using my hand signals, she wouldn’t have known what I was going to be doing. And I was making a lot of left and right turns. And I, out of habit, try to always use my my hand signals when I’m riding. Occasionally it gets me waves when people that don’t know what I’m doing, they think I’m waving at them. But again, like I said, if you’re moving your hands around to make your different signals, it may cause other regular users to think, oh, what are they doing? Why are they waving? And then they see you and then you don’t have the I didn’t see them after they’ve hit you, because they didn’t realize you were making a turn, that you were slowing down to make a turn.
So hand signals are very important to use, even though the bike has turn signals, you still want to use hand signals. In my opinion, it gives you more visibility, makes you a little safer, and it helps you communicate not only with other riders that are with you, but also with the rest of the motorized public that you’re sharing the roads with.
I hope that you have a good day. Ride safe. See you out there.
Fire Dog