1ST ARMORED DIVISION
Fort Bliss, Texas
Author’s note: The story you are about to read was written by a Soldier-rider and is true. The events are retold to give insights into the many hazards riders face when they are on the road. The lessons will help us all become more experienced motorcycle riders.
While riding up Dyer Street in El Paso, Texas, Spc. Red (his friends call him Big Red) was thinking about intersections and the dangers they present to him and his Honda CBR600RR. Big Red was watching a beat-up-looking pickup in the oncoming left-turn lane about half block ahead. He was concentrating on the top of the truck’s front-left tire because he knew the top of a tire moves at twice the speed as the vehicle. Therefore, it was the best initial indication that the truck is about to pull in front of him.
Suddenly, Big Red caught movement in his peripheral vision when a late-model sedan pulled out of a shopping center parking lot and right into his path of travel. He began emergency braking and aimed for the back of the sedan in an effort to pass behind it. About the same time, the driver of the sedan realized he had pulled out in front of Big Red and slammed on the brakes. With nowhere left to go and not enough room to stop, Big Red hit the back of the sedan with his front tire. Thanks to his practice and skill at braking, the impact occurred at less than 5 mph and Big Red managed to stay on his bike.
Big Red did a great job of using tactics and strategies to survive on the street. He regularly practiced avoidance maneuvers and emergency braking and identified intersections as the biggest threat a motorcyclist faces. An impressive 28 percent of car vs. motorcycle collisions in the Hurt Report occurred with a motorist making a left turn in front of a motorcyclist. But crashes occurring between intersections more often resulted in fatalities. Only 13 percent of crashes happened at alleys and driveways, but they accounted for 17 percent of all motorcycle fatalities.
Why would crashes away from intersections result in fatalities? It's likely the motorcyclists weren't prepared for mid-block crashes and speeds are higher. Likewise, we tend to get complacent around alleys and driveways. This is exactly what happened to Big Red.
There are always multiple threats facing a motorcyclist. We must be searching for the threats and their indicators, evaluating their potential, as well as our mitigation measures and escape options and executing these measures and options. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation has an acronym for this strategy — SEE, which stands for Search, Evaluate and Execute.
If Big Red had not become fixated on the far threat and continued his SEE strategy, he probably would have noticed the near threat of the sedan preparing to exit the shopping center. Then he could have employed the tactics of lane positioning, adjusted his speed and/or sounded his horn and flashed his lights to avoid the situation developing. Thankfully, Big Red learned a valuable lesson and it did not cost him a thing.