If you’ve ever had someone turn left in front of your motorcycle while you’re out for a ride, you know how frightening it can be. It happens very suddenly, and you can’t avoid the crash by moving to the left or the right. Your only option is to hit the brakes and hope you can slow down enough before the collision.
In many cases, a situation like this just leads to a motorcyclist hitting their brakes, honking their horn and riding home, feeling frustrated that drivers never see motorcycles. But this is also one of the most common types of motorcycle accidents, and it often leads to fatal injuries. It’s important to understand how and why this happens.
Making the wrong judgment call
Essentially, what an accident like this means is that the driver making that turn had to make a judgment call about whether or not it was safe to turn. Left turns are always dangerous because they cross through the oncoming traffic lanes. Drivers are instructed to deduce when it is safe to turn and then to do so in a controlled manner.
Unfortunately, there are many reasons why drivers make the wrong call. Perhaps they thought the motorcycle was moving slower than it actually was. Maybe they just thought it was farther away because of the small size of the bike. Maybe the driver was distracted by their phone and they didn’t bother to look for a motorcycle at all.
Any little error can cause the driver to make the wrong decision, and that can have serious ramifications for the motorcyclist. Those who suffer injuries in these accidents need to know about all of their options to seek financial compensation.