Motorcycle Mastery

The Anatomy of a Crash

Sunday, 18 March, 2018 by Alan Hearnshaw

When I first started this blog, one of the things that I always thought I would shy away from was being a “Monday morning quarterback”, as my American friends would say.

It’s all too easy to sit in the comfort of your home, and pass judgement on others’ riding, and what they could have done better. I don’t want to be “that guy”, and I know that we all make mistakes, and suffer lapses of judgement.

However, this has to be weighed against the learning opportunities that can be gained from the analysis of the many videos which abound thanks to the prevalence of dash cams and helmet cams.

Let’s not forget that us scooter riders are motorcyclists as well. Everything we can learn here applies equally well to us scooter riders.

Well, I just came across this video, which, in its mere twelve seconds, contains a wealth of learning opportunities. It also demonstrates my premise that crashes don’t often come about due to one single circumstance, but are almost always the result of a “perfect storm” of circumstances combining to set the field for the resultant crash. I feel this is too good an opportunity to miss those those learning opportunities, and am relieved to know that all riders and passengers sustained only minor injuries.

So, let’s delve into the details of this incident, and see what we can learn from it.