I Didn’t See The Motorcycle

How many times have you heard this? Do you think it’s as ridiculous as I do?

I recently heard a woman talking to a guy at a biker event. This woman was probably in her 60’s and was acting like she knew about the biker culture as she was drinking beer, wearing jeans and looking at the beautiful bikes. The guy she was with seemed to be a casual friend of her’s, a few years younger. He, too, was no biker.

The lady was talking about how she pulled out in front of a motorcycle and it almost hit her. Her excuse, of course, was “I didn’t see the motorcycle”. She told the guy she let the biker get in front of her so she could follow him and apologize. She said she pulled up next to him at a stop light and told him how sorry she was. “I didn’t see you.” But the biker just flipped her off. Duh…!

If I were that biker I would’ve given her a few choice words to add to the flip off!  If you’re like me, you notice every motorcycle within sight. Behind me, in front of me, coming the opposite way, sitting at the stop light waiting to pull out, parked by the side of the road with a For Sale sign on it, etc. Here in Florida, motorcycles are everywhere all year round.

Why do we see every bike on the road and even some that are not while many cage drivers are blind to us? It’s because we LOOK for motorcycles. The average driver of a car doesn’t look for bikes because they can’t relate to bikes. They don’t ride them, don’t know anyone who rides them, and generally the thought of motorcycles just doesn’t enter their mind. Bikes don’t really exist to these people as anything more than a noisy nuisance that drowns out Rush Limbaugh on the radio when they ride by.

Motorcycles are not seen by these people also because motorcycles don’t seem to be any threat to their safety. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a hundred times: There will be a car waiting to pull out onto the highway. A semi truck is coming and is about 200 feet away. They’ll wait until that truck passes before pulling out. That truck would pulverize them if it hit their Lexus. Right behind the semi is a motorcycle. The biker is 50 feet from them and they pull out!!! Why? Because if they are rear-ended, in many states it’s not their fault. The operator of the other vehicle is responsible in a case like this.  The motorcycle might bang up their Acura but they won’t be killed from the impact. They don’t care about the biker, it’s not their problem. Those motorbikes can stop as easy as a bicycle, right?

If car drivers think they won’t be hurt if a bike hits them, apparently what they don’t realize is the biker who owns that bike will definitely hurt them if they are in any shape to do so. That lady is lucky as hell that the biker she pulled out in front of just flipped her off. She deserved a lot more than that. Then maybe next time she will LOOK for motorcycles.

Many DMV’s across the country are trying to think of ways to make motorcycles more noticeable to other drivers on the road. It was proposed here in Florida to make bikers wear orange day-glo vests with reflective strips any time they ride their bikes. This is also ridiculous. For one thing, I can’t imagine a 1%’er wearing his colors sewn to an orange day-glo vest with reflective strips. Next thing you know, we’ll have to wear a helmet with a flashing yellow light on top. For another, the authorities are going about it the wrong way. Instead of helping ignorant car drivers see us better, they should be teaching these people how important it is to LOOK for motorcycles at all times! One way to do this is to enforce tougher penalties for people who are at fault when becoming involved in accidents with motorcycles. Kill a biker, go to jail! It should be mandatory. Ignorance of motorcyclists rights on the highway should be no excuse.

And maybe then not seeing a motorcycle will become a rare event when people understand the consequences of their actions. Maybe then we will never again hear: “I didn’t see the motorcycle”.

Just my two cents worth.

Till next time, let’s be safe out there.

Johnny Martin