You’re riding home from work on your motorcycle when you see a vehicle waiting ahead of you, with the blinker on. They want to make a left turn, meeting that the vehicle is going to have to cross in front of your lane.
As you draw near, you start to assume that the driver is going to let you go before they turn. There’s clearly not enough room for them to turn safely. But then the vehicle starts to move, and they cut you off. You can’t believe it’s happened, and there’s no way to avoid the crash as your motorcycle hits the side of the car.
This is not an uncommon event
You may be shocked, but this is actually one of the most common types of motorcycle accidents that happens. It is certainly not the motorcyclist’s fault, as they have been entirely cut off by the vehicle turning in front of them. So why does this happen so much?
One reason why this happens is that people misjudge how far away a motorcycle is. Because your bike is smaller than a car, the driver may think that they have more space than they actually do.
Another reason that it happens is that drivers don’t bother to look for motorcycles. For instance, maybe you were driving behind a pickup truck and in front of a passenger car. The person who was waiting to turn may have looked at those other vehicles and seen them, but they assumed that your bike was a gap between the two vehicles. They specifically waited to turn until that time, and they never double-checked to make sure that they actually had space.
This type of accident can lead to very severe injuries and you need to know about all the legal options at your disposal.