If you enjoy riding a motorcycle, then you surely appreciate the unmatched thrill and freedom it can provide you. At the same time, you likely understand how dangerous it can be to ride on roads with other drivers.
Even if you’re a well-trained rider and always drive safely, other drivers can make mistakes that jeopardize your safety. Should you ever get hit while riding, you must speak to a car accident lawyer to ensure that you receive the fair treatment and compensation you deserve.
While a lawyer is essential to a quick and reasonable settlement, avoiding an accident entirely is the safest solution. To help you practice good rider safety, we have a few crucial tips to avoid accidents with other vehicles below.
Prioritize Visibility
One of the most important safety tips you can implement is to prioritize visibility.
Specifically, you want to ensure that you and your bike can easily be seen by other drivers. This means wearing bright or reflective clothing and using headlights when it is dark.
In addition, you want to operate your bike in a way that keeps you visible at all times. You can do this by not zipping through traffic, never sharing a lane directly next to a car, and keeping to the portion of the lane that has the greatest visibility. If you want to be extra safe, consider honking to audibly alert other vehicles of your presence.
Many motorcycle accidents are caused because the offending driver was unable to see the motorist in time to stop. With this in mind, the more visible you become to other drivers, the better their odds of noticing you and giving you the space that you need.
Constant Awareness
It is also incredibly helpful for you to practice constant awareness while riding a motorcycle to prevent an accident.
While other drivers can be responsible for causing an accident, you can only rely on yourself to consistently prevent accidents. You can’t predict how other drivers will behave and there will always be potential for someone to drive unsafely.
To further complicate things, distracted driving is prevalent today. Driving a car is a lot simpler than riding a motorcycle and other drivers might not feel like they always need their full attention on the road and both hands on the wheel. This poor decision can then lead to issues like veering into your lane and failing to brake when needed.
Putting your safety in the hands of other, unpredictable drivers is incredibly foolish when an accident has such severe consequences for you. On the contrary, you must take accountability for your safety and ensure that you ride defensively to prevent an accident.
The best way you can do this is to keep your eyes glued to the road and constantly scan for potential hazards. Make sure you look behind and ahead of you so that you have plenty of time to change lanes or brake.
Respect the Weather
You should also fully respect the weather if you want to avoid a motorcycle accident.
As you surely know, poor weather conditions can significantly impact the difficulty and quality of your ride. Rain and wet weather in particular tends to have the greatest effect because of how important traction is to a motorcycle.
When roads are wet and slippery, this makes it much harder for your tires to accurately and consistently grip the road and keep the bike moving straight. It is also tougher to maneuver and your stopping distance greatly increases.
Not only is it harder for you to control your bike in the rain, but other vehicles are also likely to drive poorly. Many drivers panic slightly when conditions are wet and this can result in erratic driving. In turn, other cars can move unpredictably and put you in a bad spot.
Though riding in the rain is unsafe, there still may be situations where you don’t have a choice. Should this happen, you should ride extra cautiously to account for the added difficulty.
To prevent an accident, your best option is to avoid riding in the rain altogether. Any amount of rain will increase the likelihood of an accident.
Ride Responsibly
Lastly, you’ll want to understand and appreciate the importance of riding responsibly.
As fun, as it is to ride a bike, the temptation for unsafe behavior is around any corner. It’s all too easy to crank the throttle or quickly weave through traffic. If you’ve never been in an accident or received a traffic ticket for your actions, then you might have a false sense of invincibility.
While it’s true that you can have plenty of rides that don’t end in disaster, all it takes is one bad situation to change that. This is why you mustn’t become comfortable practicing unsafe riding habits.
Riding responsibly has many elements to it and you should do your best to consider them all.
This includes behavior like refraining from riding while intoxicated, keeping up with maintenance, and always wearing safety equipment. It also applies to eliminating reckless decisions like speeding and trying to impress others with tricks or flashy maneuvers.
When you understand that motorcycle accidents are dangerous and deadly, it is clear to see that responsible riding is key to building good habits that keep you safe. When you ride safely regularly, you greatly eliminate the risk of an accident.
Closing Thoughts
While riding a motorcycle is meant to be an exciting and different way to drive, the design of a bike lacks serious safety mechanisms. This makes an accident far more serious than if hit while driving a standard car.
Because motorcycle accidents tend to be life-changing, you need good riding habits to reduce the odds of encountering an accident. These include prioritizing your visibility, practicing constant awareness of your surroundings, having respect for the weather, and always riding responsibly.
After an accident happens, it is too late to take your safety seriously. Motorcycle riding is something you can enjoy for years if you take the right approach and stick within your limits.
