Motorcycle rider killed by left-turning SUV

A motorcycle rider in Texas was killed Saturday morning when a SUV made a left hand turn in front of him.  He was thrown from his motorcycle and killed.  The driver of the SUV received a ticket for failure to yield right-of-way.

This is yet another report of a motorcycle accident which was caused by the driver of a car to yield the right of way to the motorcycle rider.  In this case, the car made a left hand turn in front of the motorcycle.  The other common scenario involving cars failing to yield to motorcycle is where the car emerges from a driveway or side street into the path of an oncoming motorcycle. 

Either scenario leaves the motorcycle rider little to no time to react and frequently results in either a motorcycle accident resulting in serious injuries or a motorcycle accident causing wrongful death.

I have blogged about these kinds of motorcycle accidents on several occasions before, most notably when there was a string of motorcycle accidents around Memorial Day when the weather her in the Chicago area began to turn nice.  The string of motorcycle accidents that happened then was attributed in part by authorities to motorists being less alert for the presence of motorcycle riders who were only now returning to the roads in significant numbers as the weather improved.

The problem with attributing that string of motorcycle crashes to the improving weather is that the same kinds of accidents happen with frightening regularity in places like Texas, where there is no winter season which prevents people from getting on their motorcycles.

The true explanation for these kinds of accidents is the simple failure of car drivers to see motorcycles, a phenomenon which is described more fully in the Hurt Report.