For years, public awareness campaigns have encouraged drivers to look for motorcycles. You have probably seen the bumper stickers that say, “Start Seeing Motorcycles.” However, motorcycle versus car accidents continue to happen regularly, and drivers who cause motorcycle accidents often claim that they did not see the motorcycle before violating the motorcyclist’s right of way.
The costs of not seeing a motorcycle can be traumatic. On Monday morning, a 33-year-old Maryland man was killed when a pickup truck pulled into his motorcycle’s path. He was a father of four children who began riding his motorcycle to use less gas.
For the past four years, he made the daily commute from Boonsboro, Maryland to his job as a welder for Pressure Tech in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. Over the past seven months, he switched from driving a car to using a motorcycle. The man and his wife found that the gas saved by using the motorcycle helped them feed their four kids.
As he headed to work on Maryland 66 near Beaver Creek, he collided with a 2007 Ford pickup. Maryland State Police investigators believe that the pickup truck driver was trying to turn left onto Interstate 70 from the southbound lane of Maryland 66 when he pulled into the motorcyclist’s path. The 33-year-old father of four was rushed to Meritus Medical Center near Hagerstown, but he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The driver of the pickup was not hurt, but he has been charged with negligent driving and failure to yield the right of way.
Source: Herald-Mail.com, “Motorcycle crash victim was trying to save gas,” Dave McMillion, 26 July 2011
