It's summer and you're driving in your brand new car with the radio blasting and cool air hitting your face. Your windows are up and you're singing your heart out when you click your left turn signal on and get into the turning lane. You've been on this road before, you've made this turn endless times.This is too familiar, you're just ten minutes from your house when you begin to make the turn. The traffic was heavy today so you try to make a quick left, but before you have time to the hit the brakes the motorcycle you hit goes flying across the road as well the biker who was riding it.
Soon as the temperature begins to rise motorcyclists begin to ride. It's easy to find yourself driving down a familiar road, highway, or back road but what's different between the months of February and October is that motorcycles are out. For some, always keeping a second eye on our two wheeled drivers is second nature. Always double checking before making a quick turn, never pulling out in front of a motorcycle and always keeping a safe distance. That person riding that motorcycle is not just another car on the road. That person is someone doing something they love and relying on us car drivers to take a second look, because their lives are much more vulnerable than if they were in a car.
Why is it that most car drivers who have hit a motorcyclist have claimed they didn't see them? Could this be true that they simply were blind to the noisy two-wheeler blaring down the road? In fact, the truth is just that. Let me give you some insight. As humans, we are all born for the most part with two eyes and a brain. Both the eyes and brain rely on each other to tell you what exactly you're looking at. But, how great is that process from what the eyes perceive to what the brain interprets? Although we humans like to think we have sharp vision, in reality, our eyes aren't so great. The human eye is always moving and scanning any given area at a time, and although you think you are seeing everything your brain isn't always processing everything. Especially if you are in a familiar area. If you are driving on a road you've been on hundreds of times the brain is so advanced it will quickly interpret what the eyes see faster than if you were somewhere you've never been. This is what can lead to us missing out on something different if we don't take a second look. Hence, motorcycle accidents where the motorcycle just wasn't there.
How can we help prevent the number of motorcycle crashes when we can't tell what our own eyes and brain are even seeing? The answer is simple, look twice. No matter what type of situation, no matter what road, no matter how confident you are with the first glance you take always look again. That second glance not only will help your eyes pick up something that may have been missed but it can very well safe someone's life if your eyes and brain did miss him or her the first time. It takes less than five seconds to take one extra look before you accelerate your car in any direction. That extra second could be saving a husband, a father, a wife, a brother, a sister, a daughter, a son, a person's whole entire life. So please, look twice while driving and you may very well save a life.
