Early on Thursday morning, a motorcyclist apparently lost control of his bike and slammed into a highway barrier on the 610 North Loop near T.C. Jester. Our Houston motorcycle crash attorneys relate that the force of the high-speed impact with the barrier folded the motorcycle in half. The motorcyclist’s leg was severed in the Halloween accident that threw him from his bike into the middle lane of the North Loop freeway. The man died at the scene.
Another driver then hit part of his motorcycle that was lying in the roadway. The car burst into flames on impact with the motorcycle wreckage, but that driver managed to quickly escape his vehicle and was not hurt. (Source: Dale Lezon, Houston Chronicle, 11/1/13) The thoughts and prayers of our Houston motorcycle crash attorneys are with the family and friends of the victim of this tragic accident.
Accounts of the tragic accident did not mention what caused the motorcyclist to lose control of his bike. Sometimes other vehicles do not allow motorcycles enough of a gap to stop or maneuver because drivers have a hard time perceiving vehicles smaller than their won. Plus they tend to think smaller vehicles are further away than they actually are. So sometimes a car changes lanes, turns, or stops suddenly and while the motorcyclist might avoid crashing into the other vehicle, he cannot always maintain control of the bike during evasive maneuvers, particularly at high freeway speeds, and might crash anyway.
Our Houston motorcycle crash attorneys point out that two wheeled vehicles are inherently less stable than four-wheeled vehicles. On turns, in evasive maneuvers, at high speeds, and on loose gravel or slick spots in the roadway, a motorcyclist might find his bike’s wheels slipping out from under him where drivers of four-wheeled vehicles can drive blithely on without incident. The higher the speed of travel, the harder it is to recover from a loss of bike control.
And motorcycles don’t offer their riders the protections from impact forces that occupants of enclosed vehicles received. In an enclosed passenger vehicle, occupants have seatbelt restraints, airbags, built-in crush zones designed to extend ride-down time, padded seating, and vehicle “walls” to help protect hem from impact forces. The motorcycle rider, on the other hand, generally either gets thrown at high speed from his bike to crash at high speed into the ground or other objects, or he gets trapped in the crash under the bike. The Houston motorcycle crash attorneys at Denena Points, PCnote that a good helmet and sturdy clothing are usually the biker’s only protections from more severe injury. We mention that riders over the age of 21 in Texas are not required to wear helmets if they meet certain conditions, but we urge all riders to wear solid helmets and appropriate clothing for the road for their own safety.
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