Can you see me now?

One of a motorcyclist’s biggest challenges is to make sure car drivers see him.

Hundreds of riders are killed every year by car drivers who pull into their paths and later claim they never saw the bike.

The leading cause of death to riders in two-vehicle crashes involves a car driver violating the rider’s right-of-way at an urban intersection. That can either be an oncoming driver making a left turn in front of the bike or a driver pulling out from a side street. Either way, the rider loses.

I taught the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s RiderCourse for 10 years back in the ‘80s and ‘90s and we spent hours hammering home the point that motorcyclists should ride as though they were invisible. I taught my students to never trust that a driver sees you just because you see him looking at you. If you want to know what a driver is going to do, look at his front wheels, not his eyes. That habit saved me last month when a pickup truck driver looked in my direction, then pulled out into my path on U.S. 412 at Senath, Mo.

We also taught our students to make themselves and their bikes as conspicuous as possible. The late Dr. Harry Hurt, who did the first scientific analysis of motorcycle accidents back in the 1970s, found that riders who turned on their headlights in daytime were underrepresented in crash statistics and that riders who rode with the high beam on didn’t show up in the accident stats at all. Since then, all bikes have the headlight on when the engine is running. We also recommended that riders increase their conspicuity with additional driving lights, headlight modulators and bright clothing in daytime and highly reflectorized garments at night.

So I wasn’t particularly offended this morning when this guy came into IHOP where I’m having breakfast and waiting for Gateway Tire to fix the Subaru air conditioning. He’s with a group of Harley-Davidson riders and their wives who apparently make breakfast here a regular Saturday morning ritual.

“Can you see me now asshole?” seems a bit rude, but it’s understandable when you realize the consequences of not being seen.