Motorcycle accidents can happen for a wide variety of reasons, and it’s important for riders to understand the risks. Often, these accidents are caused by other drivers.
One reason that this happens is inattentional blindness. This is a bit of a complex problem because it means that drivers may look at a motorcycle and fail to see it, leading to critical mistakes, such as pulling out into the road in front of a motorcycle or turning left in front of the bike when there isn’t enough space. But how is it possible that someone could look at a motorcycle without seeing it?
The driver isn’t taking enough time
The problem is that the driver isn’t actually paying enough attention to the conditions around them. They’re just glancing at the road and quickly looking for approaching cars and trucks.
But because they are not taking an extra second to really look at the scene, their brain doesn’t have enough processing power to show them everything that they are seeing. Instead, it fills in the gaps with things that the brain deems to be important and things that the driver is expecting to see.
A motorcycle is already a small vehicle that is more difficult to see than cars and trucks, and many drivers aren’t expecting to see motorcycles at all. As such, the brain can filter them out, so a driver may look directly at the motorcycle and think they are seeing an empty road.
As a motorcyclist, there’s not much you can do other than focusing on visibility and defensive driving. But crashes are still going to happen, and you need to know how to seek financial compensation from the driver who was responsible.
