Dealing with the cager to the right who wants to kill you

[Nibblet99]

Heres an interesting study into motorcycle accidents at T junctions... This is only the summary, but it covers some interesting areas into why we are invisible...

Skip pages 1 and 2... Page3+ is where the interest lies. (as with a lot of publications ) In particular "motion camouflage" which was a major feature in a bike magazine, over here, a while back

http://www.mta.org.nz/upload/notion/sec ... _Group.pdf

[biker_1706]

I have had this happen a few times too. Sometimes I wonder if people evn pay attention when they drive.

But the best advise i ever heard when I started ridin was when you go out to ride pretend everybody else on the road is out to kill you. That way if something is going to happen you are expecting it and can move out of the way.

[jstark47]

Heres an interesting study into motorcycle accidents at T junctions... This is only the summary, but it covers some interesting areas into why we are invisible...

Fascinating and serious study. Thanks much for passing that on.

[Flting Duck]

I find it very easy to understand why MCs are invisiible. When people check both ways, they are conditioned to look for CARS and expect to see cars, not motorcycles. So when a quick look doesn't regiater a car, the habit is to go. Unless they REALLY look, they probably won't see a motorcycle. Not to mention the difficulty in gauging speed as that article pointed out.

I found it very interesting that people have a better chance of seeing moving objects in their peripheral vision vs. in the middle of their vision. I guess you're better off riding on the sidewalk.

[dieziege]

It isn't just what people are conditioned to look for. I was taught to drive by a former MC rider who stressed looking for cycles... but they are downright hard to see, especially when they go for the black/black/black look or the break-up paint jobs. Even now, when I'm riding a motorcycle myself, I often fail to see other bikes because they are masked by vehicles behind them, are intentionally hiding with black/black/black dress, or whatever.

[ofblong]

It will only get worse as people use cellphones more and the phones become more connected to media/entertainment options.

I feel this is a bad reasoning. I can talk on the cell phone and drive without any issues but then again I am good at multi tasking so assuming those with cellphones cause accidents is a wrong assumption. its those that cant multitask that cause accidents.

You may be good at multi-tasking but your common sense sucks. The attention you're paying to your phone call is a distraction from your driving. 'Nuf said.

I have more common sense than you most likely do. I ignore my cell phone and concentrate on driving unlike some people I know. I am always getting yelled at by my wife while she is attempting to talk to me because I ignore her paying attention to what im doing rather than talking to her. Again some people are good at multitasking others are not so its the multi tasking part that causes accidents not being able to do one thing or another.

I can talk on the cell phone and drive without any issues

I ignore my cell phone and concentrate on driving

Well, which is it?

both I dont have to divert my attention away from the road to talk but usually I end up ignoring the person on the cell few a few seconds esp if that person is yelling at me lol.