Car Drivers Found To Be The Reason In The Majority Of Florida Motorcycle Accidents
Florida’s leading the nation when it comes to motorcycle fatalities. Recent study funded by the Florida Department of Transportation and performed by Chanyoung Lee found…
Melbourne, United States – May 29, 2017 /MarketersMedia/ —
The state of Florida leads the nation in fatal motorcycle accidents, with motorcyclist accounting for one in five of the state’s highway fatalities. This is a rather shocking statistic when according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, only 7 percent of the state’s population rides a bike on a regular basis. The questions that beg to be answered are why and who is actually at fault?
Much of the public may share the opinion of south Florida resident Don Cosby who said, “These guys are always making statements that everyone should watch out for them, I feel like they don’t watch out for themselves very well … You see (bikers on sports bikes) cutting in and out of traffic. Very few ride in a reasonable, safe manner. They’re pretty reckless.”
However, those in the biking community might relate more to the sentiments expressed by Melbourne-based personal injury attorney Brad Sinclair, “Riding a motorcycle, in Florida, is just like diving between the sandbars. You can’t avoid the Bull Sharks. They are going to be there, just like the cars on the highway. So, you have to stay aware and be ready to react in your own defense. That is, if you have time.”
So it would seem that there may be no way to truly reconcile these two opinions, but the truth can be found somewhere in the middle. Crashes involving both a cage, as bikers call four-wheeled vehicles, and a motorcycle are in most cases the fault of the driver of the car or truck. At the same time, a disproportionate percentage of single-vehicle accidents involve a motorcycle.
A recent study funded by the Florida Department of Transportation and performed by Chanyoung Lee, a senior researcher at the University of South Florida’s Center for Urban Transportation Research, analyzed 10 years worth of data and found that 60 percent of the accidents involving a motorcycle and four-wheeled vehicles were, in fact, the fault of the driver not the rider. Lee was quoted as saying, “There’s a bias by people driving . . . they don’t expect to see motorcycles.”At the same time, adding support to the views expressed by the majority of automobile drivers, the study found that a disproportionate number of single vehicle accidents involved motorcycles.
While a mere 19 percent of auto accidents involved a single car, 34 percent of all motorcycle mishaps were a single-vehicle incident. The majority of these were found to be due to riders attempting to take curves at too high a rate of speed and losing control. When taken as a whole, 50 percent of all fatal motorcycle crashes on Florida highways involve only the motorcyclist.
So, who is at fault in the majority of Florida motorcycle accidents, cage drivers or bikers? The answer would appear to be, YES. The majority of fatal accidents involving two or vehicles, and a motorcyclist is most often the fault of a driver. At the same time, Florida bikers are also greatly responsible for their own deaths due to becoming overzealous in their fun.
Perhaps, the subject was best summed up by Brad Sinclair: “Motorcycle accidents are one of my specialties, and I also happen to be a biker myself. I constantly stress and support educating motorcyclist to ride within the limits of their equipment and themselves. I also preach that more effort needs to be made to educate drivers on the need to be aware of Florida’s large biking community when on the road.”
Contact Info:
Name: Scot Small
Organization: Sinclair Law
Address: 5465 N. Highway 1 Melbourne, FL 32940
Phone: 321-253-4200
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrrn7B9PQHo
For more information, please visit https://www.sinclairlaw.com/
Source: MarketersMedia
Release ID: 203125
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