When I’m riding a motorcycle, I find myself imagining all sorts of unlikely scenarios.
The same thing happens when I’m working with machine tools…
What if a person suddenly stepped out from between those cars? What would I do?
Maybe it’s because I’ve experienced accidents and embarrassingly numerous crashes that most people never would.
There’s one thing I can say for certain:
accidents happen when impossible timing aligns perfectly.
Impossible people exist.
Even if you’re driving safely, if the other person is reckless, an accident will happen.
You can’t survive safely without constantly thinking ahead.
For example:
a large main road, waiting at a red light at the front of the line. Picture this.
Even while waiting at a light, whether in a car or on a bike, you absolutely must check behind you, and these days with all the reckless elderly drivers, you need to check ahead and to the sides too.
Tapping away on your phone while waiting at a light… that’s risky. It’s better to avoid it except in very safe situations.
Waiting at a right-turn lane signal on a three-lane or wider road with no vehicles behind you.
On roads like Route 7, there are tons of large trucks. A rear-end collision out of nowhere would be catastrophic for both cars and bikes—almost certainly fatal.
I want to flash my brake lights to make my presence known and keep enough distance to escape into a gap if needed.
Both cars and bikes are operated by humans, and a driver’s hesitation creates erratic behavior. Spotting it quickly is crucial. Taxi drivers really teach you a lot.
Pedestrians and cyclists who cross the road unexpectedly.
They cross without looking left or right. Accidents don’t happen unless the situation is impossible.
Imagine this:
if a person suddenly stepped out from between those cars, could you avoid them? Swerve right? Swerve left? Hard brake? You have multiple options.
If you’re constantly imagining what’s ahead, you can execute that maneuver, and the chances of a slightly better outcome go up a bit. Sometimes I think of it as a game to increase safety odds.
Depending on the time of day, shadows from the sun can help too.
Shadows don’t hide anything—use whatever tools you can to raise your safety level.
Trouble is always better avoided. If someone thinks this kind of imagining is a hassle, I suppose they don’t need to do it.
But maybe they should weigh the possibility of problems that money can’t fix and that could disrupt their future life.
Lately I see motorcycle accident videos on YouTube.
It’s easy to chalk it up to bad luck, but people who lost their lives or livelihoods in that first impact never had a chance to reflect.
On a tangent, recent random stabbing incidents on trains aren’t someone else’s problem either. You might need to know where the emergency button and fire extinguisher are beforehand.
Accidents and incidents always remind us that it could be us tomorrow.
Let’s keep safety in our own hands and ride defensively (*´▽｀*)
