July 8th, 2006 by R.J.

According to the California Highway Patrol, the stretch of our freeway between Cabazon and Coachella has among the highest number of citations written for 100+mph speeding in California.

The Desert Sun wrote an article today about the steady increase in speeders over the last 3 years.

I read this story after I took my motorcycle for a brief ride today up Highway 74 (where I summarily smoked some guy riding a BMW K1200RS.) and both times I was on the I-10, I had cars and trucks following and passing me. My average speed was around 95mph and I saw only one CHP officer who was pulled off the side of the freeway.

If I crash my bike at 95mph in leathers, I may get injured or die, but I won’t likely hurt anyone else. There were only 3 cases in the entire country last year where an accident involving a motorcycle and a car injured the car driver. On the other hand, if you crash your overloaded, underinflated SUV at 95mph, you will very likely die and possibly kill anyone else in the path of your vehicle.

I’d like to point out that I-10 drivers aren’t just getting faster, they’re also getting stupider. As I was approaching the offramp on Palm drive, I was in the right-hand lane ready to get off the freeway only to have some idiot in a Hyundai, who was going at least 85, swerve over 3 lanes of traffic to catch his exit, right in front of my bike. Do I have to add he didn’t even use his signal?

Just a word of warning for you guys that ride your bikes on the I-10 a lot, be very aware of the vehicles around you and try to keep the rubber side down.