Motorcycle Awareness Month – How Do Crashes Happen?

There’s a cause you see so many bikes on the roads in Florida. The proper year-round climate permits riders to benefit from the surroundings and open roads that supply beachside spots to cease. Florida’s reputation for driving is obvious with its 668,046 registered motorcycles. Just one different state surpasses the Sunshine State in bike registrations.

Florida stays a prime journey vacation spot for bike fanatics from everywhere in the nation. The inflow of bikes ridden or trailered to the Sunshine State will increase the variety of bikes on the roads. Extra bikes sharing roadways with different automobiles makes Florida one of many main states for motorcar accidents. 

Might is Bike Consciousness Month — assist increase consciousness of motorcyclists’ and different drivers’ position in stopping bike crashes. There have been 9,522 bike crashes in Florida investigated by state and native legislation enforcement businesses in 2023. These crashes resulted in 604 fatalities and eight,189 accidents. 

What follows is an in-depth exploration of the causes of bike crashes. This goals to empower drivers with a clearer understanding of the behaviors that trigger accidents between bikes and different automobiles. It consists of a proof of the rights bike riders and their passengers have when injured in a site visitors collision attributable to the negligent habits of different motorists.

Bikes are enjoyable to trip however exhausting for drivers to see

Bike riders relish the liberty of motion they achieve from being unencumbered by a metal body, not like conventional car drivers. Bikes may be troublesome to see as a result of they lack the majority of a metal body and physique. Motorcyclists can simply disappear right into a automobile’s blind spots until drivers actively make an effort to be careful for them.

Riders want to concentrate on blind spots and make an effort to keep away from lingering in them. Adjusting a motorbike’s velocity or lane place can preserve a motorbike out of a automobile’s blind spot. That is very true when a driver is just not taking note of the rider’s presence. 

All automobiles have blind spots. Vehicles have them on either side, however giant automobiles, comparable to tractor-trailers, have areas within the entrance and rear. Drivers usually face restricted visibility until vans have particular mirrors enabling them to see each the entrance and rear.

Aspect and rearview mirrors may be adjusted to permit drivers to see not less than a portion of vans or passenger automobiles that enter a blind spot. The smaller dimension of bikes in comparison with most automobiles means they may go unnoticed once they’re in a driver’s blind spot. The opposite attribute of bikes that make them troublesome for drivers to see is their quickness and ease of maneuverability. 

Drivers sometimes look at their mirrors to test for automobiles. Regrettably, a motorbike can swiftly slip right into a blind spot between glances, doubtlessly going unnoticed. Failing to see a motorbike enter a blind spot can lead to an accident when a driver modifications lanes. 

Drivers can scale back the danger of a blind spot collision. Do that by exercising excessive warning when bikes are close by and by taking the next precautions:

• Examine blind spots earlier than merging or altering lanes: Blind spots must be checked instantly earlier than shifting from a journey lane. If crucial, to get a greater view, drivers ought to flip their heads for a fast look.
• Regulate mirrors earlier than beginning a visit: Place the aspect and rearview mirrors to provide the greatest view by reducing down on the scale of blind spots.
• Keep away from distractions: Distractions enhance the prospect of a driver lacking the presence of a motorbike coming into a blind spot.
• Use directional alerts when altering lanes: Flip in your flip sign earlier than altering lanes to provide a motorbike rider in a blind spot sufficient time to sound a horn or transfer out of the best way.

Bike riders must take duty for avoiding blind spot accidents by making changes in how they trip, together with:

• Know the situation of blind spots and keep away from them: Riders want to concentrate on blind spot places on automobiles and vans and keep away from positioning their bikes in them. Motorcyclists should take motion by both accelerating or slowing all the way down to keep away from getting caught in a blind spot.
• Pay attention to lane place: Driving in the course of a lane reasonably than the sting closet to automobiles within the adjoining one makes a motorbike extra seen to drivers. 
• Sign lane modifications: Bike riders ought to sign earlier than altering lanes and keep away from coming into a lane ready that locations them in one other car’s blind spot.

Drivers and riders want to concentrate on one another. In addition they should share duty for modifying their behaviors to keep away from blind spot accidents.

Bike crashes have the next fatality charge

A research of street accidents discovered that bikes had a fatality rate 28 times higher than automobiles and different forms of passenger automobiles. The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention reviews that utilizing a motorbike helmet is the best option to scale back riders’ and passengers’ fatalities and accidents. The CDC reported that helmets saved nearly 1,900 lives in a single 12 months alone. They may have saved one other 749 riders in the event that they’d worn a helmet. Helmet effectiveness in saving lives is 37% for riders and 41% for passengers. They scale back the danger of accidents to the top and mind by 69%

Regardless of the confirmed effectiveness of DOT-compliant helmets in saving lives and decreasing accidents, their widespread use stays removed from widespread. Solely 66.5% of riders and passengers wear a helmet, and solely 18 states and the District of Columbia have legal guidelines requiring their use by all motorcyclists. The remainder of the states, together with Florida, require carrying a helmet by some riders, although not all.  

Florida legislation requires operators and passengers to put on helmets that adjust to federal security requirements. Nevertheless, helmet use is optionally available for riders and passengers older than 21. 

If an individual older than 21 elects to trip and not using a helmet, they might accomplish that so long as they’ve in power a medical advantages insurance coverage coverage for not less than $10,000. The insurance coverage coverage pays the medical prices for remedy of accidents incurred by riders and their passengers in a crash.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration randomly selects helmets for testing. They will require recollects of helmets that don’t carry out based on federal requirements. Helmets that don’t conform to federal security requirements might fail to supply the safety wanted.

Pay attention to the components contributing to bike accidents

36% of motorcyclists who died in crashes didn’t have a sound license to function a motorbike. Although, it is smart. Contemplate the talents a rider must function a motorbike safely. They’re very completely different from these required to drive a automobile. 

For instance, leaning within the seat whereas steering a automobile alongside a winding street doesn’t have an effect on how a automobile performs. The way you lean on a motorbike can imply the distinction between making it round a curve or crashing. Working a motorbike safely requires training and studying the talents to steer, cease, and deal with a motorbike. This consists of driving in all climate situations. The written and expertise checks it’s worthwhile to go to acquire a motorbike license or endorsement make sure that a rider has command of the essential expertise and data to function a motorbike. 

Along with being licensed and carrying a helmet that meets federal security requirements, the next behaviors contribute to the protected operation of a motorbike:

• Don’t drink alcohol or use medicine when driving: Consumption of alcohol or medicine can have an effect on coordination and steadiness, that are important to securely driving a two-wheeled car whereas arms and ft management the brakes, throttle, and shift gears. Even prescription medicines can have an effect on an individual’s capability to securely trip, so test together with your physician or pharmacist earlier than driving after taking a drugs prescribed by your physician. 
• Don’t tailgate or exceed the velocity limits: Stopping a motorbike when touring at excessive velocity is difficult, even for an skilled rider. A sudden cease can simply trigger a rider to lose management of the bike or be catapulted off of it.
• Keep away from distracted driving and driving: Bike driving requires full, undivided consideration. Earlier than diverting your consideration from the street or participating in something apart from actively dealing with the bike, mirror on the minimal safety accessible to you within the occasion of an inevitable accident attributable to distraction.

All the suggestions for protected bike operation additionally apply to drivers. Paying consideration, obeying the legal guidelines, avoiding medicine and alcohol, and refraining from unsafe and reckless behaviors apply equally to drivers as a lot as they do to motorcyclists.

Get authorized recommendation when injured in a motorbike crash

Authorized recommendation and expert illustration can be found at KFB Regulation. When you find yourself injured via the negligence of one other celebration, contact us for a free session and recommendation about your authorized proper to get better compensation.