Hit Me, I Dare You. Weekly Safety Reminder (WSR) #7

Yea, go ahead and crash into me. You'll see: It'll be YOUR fault.

Yes, it's WSR #7.

Go ahead and hit me? Well that's what some of our roadway users seem to be telling me.

Our Safe Kids coordinator told us a story about a frightening traffic incident that she and her hubby encountered last week while riding their motorcycle. A kid on a bike was horsing around and strayed into the street proper causing the vehicle in front of my friends to swerve and very nearly cause a terrible crash. The kid's response? An expletive along with a familiar hand gesture thrown in for good measure.

Guess we need to cut that kid some slack, though. After all, he's just a kid. So, what's the excuse for the 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 year old kids taking similar risks? A few adult bike riders aren't just goofing around, they're using the roadway to make a statement. That statement being: I have just as much right to use this roadway as the motorized conveyances. They're right, of course, but their actions can be just as risky as that kid's, and they probably know it. That right will be of small comfort if they get whacked.

I'm one of those 50 year olds that likes to ride my bike along the side of the road almost every day, but I have great fear and respect for the power of those darn motorized vehicles. I also have a pretty good grasp of reality. That reality being the fact that many of the humans piloting those motorized vehicles do not consider driving to be their primary task. I'm sure that they don't want to hit me, but if they're really busy answering an important text message right now, they just might not notice that I'm there until it's too late.

If I'm on my bike riding side-by-side with a pal and not really holding up traffic I'm absolutely operating within the law. Unfortunately, that law won't protect me from the mom zipping her car around the curve yelling at her kids in the back seat, or the 15 year-old that got their license half an hour ago and is texting all his pals to let them know how fast he's going, or the driver who's swatting a bee that flew in the window.

One of my crash investigator pals from the Michigan State Police tells me that he expects bike crashes to increase along with the proliferation of texting drivers. The texting drivers, of all ages, tend to drift to the right and have an average attention loss of three seconds. If my biking pals are riding two abreast at that point, the law's not going to protect them from the crash. Will the driver be at fault? Absolutely. This week's safety reminder though: in the crash 'n injury battle between the bike rider and a distracted and/or inexperienced driver, the motorized vehicle is going to prevail.

Be safe.