Here are a few examples of
motorcycle/car crashes showing how serious injuries are caused by lack
of attention from car drivers. How can we fight this behavior?
There are certainly several
solutions.
Go Optics! bring up their own way, by stimulating car drivers'
attention and supplying data about motorcycle speed,
closing in, direction changes, but, above all, about the presence of a
motorcycle in their neighbouring environment...
* In ALL mentioned cases, the accident
could have been avoided if only the other vehicle driver had been
mentally present. Obviously, he or she was mentally gone somewhere, but
was still driving his/her car, relying on automatisms, which caused
injuries, some of them extremely serious.
* All the bikers were certain that the
other vehicle driver saw them and would take the motorcycle in account
during his/her manoeuvre...
* Another common parameter is the
moderate speed at which these accidents occurred, between 30 and 45 mph.
* Finally, I deliberately chose not to
report similar accidents with a deadly outcome. Unfortunately they are
very largely represented in bike/car crashes.
Left turn at night,
overtaking
At night, a woman rides back home in the countryside. No hurry. She
catches up a very slow car. The woman is prudent. She turns her turn
signal indicator on, moves slowly to the left side of the road. The car
breaks suddenly and turns left. The biker breaks her leg, her bike is
ruined.
Still, the accident occurred at night : why did the car driver pay no
attention to the motorbike headlamp ? Probably misjudged the distance
to the bike. One can suppose that flashing LEDs would have forced the
car driver to think twice before turning left.
Left turn, daytime
6 p.m. Spring. The sun is shining from behind the car, riding on a
straight road. The car slows down, turns left. Bang! One bike on the
hood! Bang! One more bike on the hood. The second bike takes fire, the
car too. No injuries. Three vehicles ruined. Probable cause : the car
driver did not check the distance to the first bike and/or its speed
carefully enough.
Path Defender catches your eye and makes you think twice.
Stop signal: yielding for
cars, not for motorcycles
The biker has been driving bikes for 25 years. He's only a few hundred
yards from home, at 5:30 p.m., wintertime. It is dark. He follows two
cars, riding slowly in the heavy traffic, about 50 yards from a traffic
circle. At this place, there is a Stop signal on the right side of the road. A car
is standing still at the Stop signal. The first car preceding the biker
drives by the Stop, then the second car and when the biker is about to
pass by the Stop signal, the waiting car crosses the road. The biker
hits the car on the side. Coma on the road, several bone fractures.
In this case too, the motorcycle was riding with the headlamp on, at
night. Another example of distance misjudgement? The headlamp of a bike
is narrower than two headlamps on a car...
Left turn on a straight
road
Summer time, 7 p.m. The sun shines from the left/front of this biker,
driving home. He knows that car drivers use to cross this road despite
a Stop signal on both sides of a crossroad, because they "see" over the
vineyards if a car rides on the main road. The motorcyclist sees a car
closing in towards the Stop signal on the left crossing road. He slows down to
be prepared in case this car does not stop at the signal. The car
stops, the motorcyclist opens the throttle. At this very moment a
car in the opposite direction on the same road turns left
right in front of him. No time to react. Numerous bone fractures,
mainly on his arm that broke into the car's side glass pane.
The driver of this car did not see or react to the meeting motorcycle,
headlamp on, on a long straight road. What if the motorcycle had
flashing LEDs?
Stop Signal at night
A young motorcyclist drives home at night, it is raining. No other
vehicle on the road. On his left, a Stop signal protects the road he's
driving on. A car stands still at the Stop signal. No reason for the
motorcyclist to slow down. The car starts just before the bike passes
the crossing road. 17 fractures, weeks between life and death.
All these accident examples, as numerous other do, show one and single
thing: the other vehicle driver's eyes certainly see the bikes or at
least their headlamps, but their brains make inadequate decisions. The
reasons of this behaviour are certainly numerous, some of them are
still mystery, but a few
physical
data give clues.
Path Defender reinforces the other drivers' visual stimuli and shows
your bike speed variations. You're not just a headlamp spot any more.
You're more conspicuous. You get the attention that could save you
painful hospital stays. Or more.
