I'm sick of yelling about this, but until more people listen, I'm going to keep doing it anyway.
Look twice, or maybe even three times before you turn left. Make sure you're safe to do so, regardless of whether you're driving or riding. While I suspect that most riders tend to be more cautious about turning left than cars do, that needs to change. We ALL need to be extra, doubly sure that turning left—even if we believe without a doubt that we have the right-of-way—is totally clear, and that we're not going to hit anything or anyone.
Why am I mad this time? Because I keep seeing news pieces with extremely similar headlines about how one of the founders of the metal band Mastodon, Brent Hinds, died in in a motorcycle crash in Atlanta, Georgia. Pieces with headlines that are very much like this one, from the LA Times. Or this one, from the BBC. Or, closer to home, this one, from Atlanta News First.
Without fail, these headlines (and plenty more on other news pieces) all mention some combination of "Mastodon," "guitarist," "co-founder," "Brent Hinds," and then say he died in either a "motorcycle crash" or a "motorcycle accident."
And, I mean, it's technically not an inaccurate way to describe what happened. But it's also extremely frustrating to read, as a motorcyclist. Why? Because it tells you nothing about what caused the crash, while simultaneously stoking the "I TOLD you those things are dangerous!!" gut feeling in all the non-riders who are also reading these pieces.
It's a shorthand for every 'I told you so' instinct that any non-rider has ever used on any rider in their lives. Maybe it's not intended that way, but that's what it ends up being. And it sucks in large part because it's supremely unhelpful.
And it gets worse. Do you want to know what the Atlanta Police Department's preliminary report about the crash says? I'll quote it directly here. "Preliminary investigation indicates the male [motorcyclist] was traveling West on Boulevard. The female operating the BMW SUV failed to yield while turning left and collided into the male victim who was operating the Harley Davidson. The investigation remains active at this time."
The rider is dead (and at this point, it could be any rider; it's only made as much news internationally as it has because he was once in a massively popular band) because some careless driver, once again, busted a left turn without looking.
The rider had the right of way, and seems to have been doing things right, and it didn't matter. He's still the one who ended up dead.
Now, to her credit, the driver didn't try to run. That's more than some drivers do after a crash, so while the bar may be on the floor (or possibly below it, even), it's still good that she didn't try to flee the scene. But that won't bring this rider back.
So, once again, I'm asking. I'm imploring, even: Please, please, please, look two or three times before turning left. Do you really want to live with someone's death on your conscience because you didn't? This isn't even about wrong or right at this point, since it clearly doesn't seem to matter.
But it is about life and death, and I wish more drivers understood that. Every time you tell riders that what we do, what we love is dangerous, you need to understand that behavior like this and attitudes like this only make that a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because we, as riders, can be wearing all the gear, following all the rules of the road, and generally behaving exactly as we should.
And we can still die, simply because a driver just wasn't paying attention and then goes "oops, sorry, my bad." And they get to walk away and have a life, and we don't.
If you truly care about the safety of motorcycle riders in your life, rather than concern trolling us at every family gathering and opportunity, why don't you put your words into action and pay more attention when you're operating actual rolling weapons out on the road?
