A left turn and a leap of faith

[the Ferret]

He says "You think drivers are courteous to you on that red Honda? Just wait until you ride a neon-yellow bike with BLOOD printed on the windscreen. You will get a wide path."

Yea, we'll see. Seen enough road rage videos to know people aren't as nice and forgiving as they used to be.

I hope so for your sake though.

If you've never ridden in California, it's hard to picture, but drivers are generally very courteous to motorcycles. I've never really had an unpleasant encounter that I can recall. 
Makes the traffic tolerable, and sometimes downright enjoyable. Even on a red Honda.

Ive only ridden in so Cal once, in 2014. After retiring I rode my ST 1300 out Rt 66 to San Luis Obispo, over to Highway 1, up 1 to just south of San Fran, then turned east thru San Diego? and headed for Pikes Peak Colorado. Spent very little time on freeway, but was  stuck in 105 degree traffic jam for a little while ( it was a Friday afternoon), thought about splitting traffic, but looked down between the rows of cars and figured the ST was too big, and I didnt have enough experiece. I did notice one phenominon about so cal drivers... here in the midwest to pass we pull ahead of the car we want to pass a clear distance then move over at a 90 degree angle <---- , in so cal the passers started passing  while they were still beside the other car and passed on a 45 degree angle  /.