What Were You Doing When You Crashed?
Riding like this is much more fun that crashing.
The next table in the 2018 report from the Colorado Motorcycle Operator Safety Program (MOST) addresses the movements of the riders who were found to be at fault in their crashes. This is an interesting one.
What were the huge majority of riders doing when they crashed? Going straight. Out of 1,297 riders counted in the top ten categories, fully 845 of them were going straight. Wow. I’d really like to know just what was going on that all these folks crashed going straight. I mean, I can understand if in going straight they were also running a red light, but I doubt that was the case with even very many of these 845.
The number two on this list, at just 96, was slowing. Once again these raw statistics seem to raise more questions than they answer. Were these folks slowing because they saw danger ahead? Were they just not paying attention because they were stopping, so what is there to watch out for? And if they were slowing because they saw danger ahead, were they really at fault, unless they were moving at excessive speed and otherwise would have been able to stop safely? Is it just assumed that in a single-vehicle crash that the driver/rider was at fault?
We have to get to number three on the list to get to what I think most of us would have assumed was a much higher item: turning left. This only totaled 75 crashes. This one at least doesn’t make you wonder what the heck was going on; we all know the screw-ups that can happen in left turns.
The rest of the list runs out as follows: Spun out of control–69; Making right turn–61; Changing lanes–49; Passing–36; Avoiding object in the road–31; Weaving–24; Making U-turn–11.
I would really have expected changing lanes, passing, and avoiding objects in the road to be higher on this list. It goes to show that data beats guessing most every time.
And by the way, the breakdown of all riders vs. MOST-trained riders is also of interest. Among those going straight, the figures were 60% of all riders but 68.8% of MOST-trained riders. In the other nine categories, in five cases the all-riders group had higher percentages and in four the MOST-trained riders had higher percentages. Most out of whack was avoiding objects in the road. The all-riders percentage was 2.2%; MOST-trained hit 5.2%. I mean, sheesh, you’d really think the trained riders would be better at avoiding stuff. Or were these riders who took the training after they crashed?
Biker Quote for Today
Squid: A textbook “squid” in MC instructor lingo was typically male, 16-20 years old, sport bike, insufficient safety gear, who rode/rides like an idiot, pulls power wheelies in heavily pedestrian traveled areas to showoff, angering non-riders and riders alike. The type of idiot that you see being a bonehead as they scream by your favorite summer outdoor patio where you face palm and shake your head.
Tags: Colorado motorcycle crashes 2018, motorcycle crash statistics
