Kurt Arbuckle: My name’s Kurt Arbuckle. This is the fifth in a video series I’m doing on motorcycle collisions. I’ve been discussing the various kinds of collisions that motorcycles get into, that are caused by the driver of a car or a truck.
In this one, I want to talk about the failure of the driver to keep a safe distance. We all know that we’re supposed to keep a safe distance from other cars on the road, when we’re in a car, in case that car ahead of us or that truck ahead of us has to stop suddenly. We have to have time to be able to stop, to avoid hitting them.
With motorcycles, that’s even more important, but it’s also important for the motorist to know, and the rules of the road require them to know, that they have to stay actually a little bit further back from a motorcycle. A motorcycle can stop more quickly than a car can stop.
A car has to stay further back in order to avoid hitting the motorcyclist from behind when the motorcyclist is forced to stop as a result of something ahead of the motorcycle. If you’ve been hit from behind by a car while driving your motorcycle, it’s likely that the motorist behind the wheel of that car or truck wasn’t paying proper attention and was following you too closely to avoid that collision.