Save a Life – Look Twice!

All too often excuses like these follow a motorcycle accident. We at MotorEagles^® are working hard to change driver attitudes in hopes of changing their behaviors and eliminating the need for excuses like these in the first place. Our Save a Life Look Twice! campaign is a driver and rider awareness education campaign focusing on the issue of motorcyclist visibility, or conspicuity.

Save a Life – Look Twice! aims to:

• Increase driver awareness
• Increase rider visibility
• Promote driver and rider training
• Promote rider safety
• Encourage patience and tolerance
• Protect rider rights
• Limit rider injury

According to a groundbreaking study commonly referred to as “The Hurt Report,” 75 percent of motorcycle accidents involve at least one other vehicle, most often a passenger vehicle. In two thirds of those multi-vehicle accidents, the other driver violated the motorcyclist’s right-of-way, the report states.

Many times, the other driver in the passenger vehicle simply didn’t see the motorcycle coming because he didn’t take the time to look for something other than a car or a truck coming toward him. But as more and more motorists are buying and riding motorcycles, the chances of crossing a bikes path are increasing.

All it takes is a few seconds to save an oncoming motorcycle rider’s life. By looking not once, but twice in each direction BEFORE pulling out, motorists will give themselves enough time to spot an oncoming motorcyclist.

In August 2008, then-U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters released a sobering statistic: Fatal motorcycle accidents increased nearly seven percent between 2006 and 2007, despite a decline in all other types of traffic fatalities. In fact, the fatality rate for 2007 was the lowest ever recorded: 1.37 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled yet more people on motorcycle are dying and being critically injured each year.

"While we have been successful in reducing automobile deaths in recent years, our progress is being negated by a rise in the rate of motorcycle fatalities - which have more than doubled in the last decade," Peters wrote in a November 2008 statement.  "I believe that overcoming this tragic trend is the greatest highway safety challenge our nation faces today."

At MotorEagles, we share Peter's urgent regard for one of the most preventable causes of death and injury on our roadways today. Please join us in taking the few extra moments it takes to look twice when entering an intersection, making a turn, changing lanes or making another maneuver behind the wheel. By looking twice, you could easily save a life.

Facts and Figures!

1. In 2007, 2,641 – 50 percent – of all motorcycles involved in fatal crashes collided with another type of vehicle.
2. In two-vehicle crashes in 2007, 78 percent of the motorcycles involved were struck in the front. Only five percent were struck in the rear.
3. Per registered vehicle, the fatality rate for motorcyclists in 2006 was 5.5 times the fatality rate for passenger car occupants. The injury rate was 1.2 times the injury rate for passenger car occupants.
4. In 2007, there were 2,332 two-vehicle fatal crashes involving a motorcycle and another type of vehicle. In 40 percent – 939 – of these crashes, the other vehicle was turning left while the motorcycle was going straight, passing or overtaking the other vehicle. In 632 – 27 percent – of these crashes, both vehicles were going straight.
5. An estimated 142, 000 motorcyclists have died in traffic crashes since the enactment of the Highway Safety and National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966.
6. Per vehicle mile traveled, motorcyclists are about 35 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a traffic crash.

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration