Many people have a poor image of motorcyclists. They associate them with speeding, pulling wheelies, starting fights in bars, or running drugs. Hence, if you are injured while riding a motorcycle, people’s innate prejudices may lead them to assume the crash must have been your fault.
Motorcyclists can cause crashes. A 2013 study of a decade worth of data found that 50% of motorcycle crashes did not involve any other vehicle. Yet, the study also showed that when another vehicle was involved, the driver of that vehicle was more likely to be at fault by a ratio of six to four.
Most motorcyclists ride with care as they know they are the ones who will be killed or severely injured, while anyone in the colliding car can probably unbuckle their seat belt and walk away unharmed.
Here are some reasons you are less likely to have caused the crash than the driver:
You are less susceptible to distractions
While you can take a hand off your motorcycle for a short while, you cannot ride along eating a sandwich, drinking coffee or texting on your phone. You do not have as many buttons and dials to distract you. Nor do you have children or dogs in the back seat, noisily demanding your attention as you go along.
You are more in touch with what is going on around you
On a motorcycle, you will notice freezing, indicating an ice patch or light rain that could create a greasy film on the road surface. You have no barrier between you and the outside world or between you and the surrounding traffic. Drivers may miss things because they are cocooned inside their cars.
Getting legal help to show that the driver was to blame for your motorcycle collision will be crucial to getting the compensation you need to move on after a wreck.