Anti squid device needed

David13 said:

If I am in the car, or on the bike, and I see a group coming up like that, I hold position, to avoid exactly what happened to you.
If they want to signal me to move right, they will come in behind me, and maybe flash the hi beam, meaning "get over". Then I would signal and get over.
The way I ride or drive is, I have to be smart enough to avoid my mistake AND the mistake of the others. If they can make a mistake ... THEY WILL.
dc

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Which is what I actually did. I did not make the lane change. I signalled but did not change lanes when I saw, in my passenger mirror, that idiot1 was splitting the lane and moving too fast to be able to stop if I got in his way. Here's the point that I think most important. The consequences of their complete disregard for the law and common sense. They not only put their own lives in danger but also that of law abiding citizens. Perhaps consider what would have happened if the rider that broke off my mirror had been a couple of inches closer. He would have bounced of my car. Perhaps with enough force to cause my car to swerve. At least he would have bounced into the next lane that was full of other cars. The riders following closely behind him would have had nowhere to go. The result would have been a multi vehicle accident and potentially several deaths. All this because brainless idiots do not have the ability to understand the consequences of their actions. I was in no way to blame for this. I acted correctly. Legally and in all other ways. The public highway is not the appropriate place for this type of behavior. I do not know what the solution for this is. It will perhaps take multiple deaths before these riders understand this is not appropriate.

I totally agree David. If we set aside the cost of improved law enforcement, we are still faced with issues of individual rights versus the rights of the public. I don't think the implementation of a more strict licensing structure would fix this. I think it's needed but will not solve this and similar problems. There was a UTUBE video posted a while back showing someone riding their bike at close to 300KPH on a public highway in British Columbia. I understand that there have been more similar incidents since then. Some think this is the result of the video being public. I do not think censorship would solve this either. I think of some of the things that I did in my late teens and twenties. It was luck more than skill that kept me alive. I do believe though that the public lives in a more dangerous world now. Advances in technology and, at least in this country, a more permissive attitude, have lead to some thinking they can do as they please without consequence. I do not know how to stop this either. What frustrates me more than anything else is that I was in a situation that I should not have been in and powerless to do anything about it. No action on my part would have improved this. I also often see and perhaps sometimes commit violations but I think this incident is different. Much more serious. I went for a solo ride today. Did about 300 miles along secondary and even some unpaved roads. I kept the bike below "normally accepted limits" and stuck to posted limits so perhaps some good came of this.

Maybe its the many hours I've got on tracks but I don't change position for rapidly approaching traffic from the rear. It forces a reaction from the other guy which is unpredictable and in racing often results in a rear end collision. If one wants to take a preferred line (on the track typically this would be to protect the insaide lline at the end of a straght) one has to tlegraph it or expect the consequences.

It is all too easy to misjudge the speed of an approaching bike- especially small sportbikes that typically lack the visual cues of larger vehicles.

That's not to say the OP is at fault here. I've seen a whole lot of these guys on public roads playing at speeds as high as 140 mph. Not at all rare- I've seen groups doing this around DC at 3 AM no doubt trying to copy some of the web videos of folks running the Paris ring road - the latter itself a takeoff on a famous short film Rendevous filmed in the main streets of Paris years ago when traffic was a lot lighter than today.

Unless your car is very small a sideswipe from a bike wouldn't by itself pitch you out of lane. The main thing to worry about is your own startle reaction which might- without training many drivers do exactly the wrong thing when traction is disrupted, guaranteeing a bad outcome. But I suspect given where you live you've had plenty of practice at avoiding skids. When I lived in snow country as a kid we loved to slide cars around, learning how to induce and correct slides... .

Despite mucho hours of triple digit speed experience I've never found the idea of playing extremely hard on the street to be very attractive and wonder at the sanity of those who do.
At the track I know the road surface is good, have corners workers devoted to protecting me and other competitors, and know that those around me have solid skills. The blind corners, uncertain road surface, lack of "eyes ahead" etc make any really high speeds on the street way more dangerous than any track situation..