A near miss

[Amulree]

It was early summer on a dry day in 2005. I was riding a fairly new Honda CB1300S in red and white - the first bike I ever had with ABS. There I was on the outside lane of the M6, southbound near Wigan at about 6.00pm. Traffic was busy - all three lanes were full, but everything moving freely. I must have been at 70mph plus a bit, and was running about 10mph faster than the cars in the middle lane. I had noticed that I was passing a Vauxhall Corsa with two lads in it, and I had figured out what they might do. The surprising thing was that they did it - moved right out into my path as if I wasn't there. From this point on I have no memory of what I did, but retrospectively I know what happened. There was no time for brakes and I swerved into the fifth lane - the 10-12 inches between the solid white line and the armcote. My memory comes back riding in this position - the first question to myself was should I bale out? Having seen the armcote the answer was no.... then I knew I had to get back into the traffic in the outside lane. I had been losing speed and I was concerned about oncoming traffic but I think the car behind had seen all this and hung well back. So I got up to speed and caught up the with Corsa and gave it some horn (pretty weedy though, OE Honda horn!) But I got an acknowledgement from Corsa boy - I think he might have shaken himself up! All this took place in seconds, but it certainly gave my heart a work out! I rode on steadily and made it home all in one piece. It is all engraved in my memory - when you think of the thousands of miles you ride and never remember here were 2 or 3 seconds I'll never forget!