WTF? Motorcycle Left Hanging From Traffic Light After Crash
Rider suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries
We tend not to share news about motorcycle accidents here on MO, mainly because we’re all too aware of the risks riders face every day, but also out of respect to the people involved. But sometimes, the circumstances around a crash are so remarkable, they have to be discussed.
Case in point is a crash from this past weekend in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver, Canada, that left a Suzuki GSX-R750 (and a 40th anniversary edition one, at that!) dangling from an overhead traffic light pole. First and most importantly, as bad as the aftermath might sound, the rider reportedly suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
The motorcyclist was apparently going southbound through an intersection, when a car traveling from the other direction tried to turn left into a shopping center parking lot. CCTV footage of the crash (if you don't want to see it, we can respected that, but if you do, it's available here) showed the rider hitting the brakes hard enough to lift the rear up. With the GSX-R sliding on its front wheel, the rider flew across the car, clipping the edge of the windshield before sliding to a stop on the road. Meanwhile, the GSX-R had enough rotational inertia to bounce off the car and cartwheel through the air before catching the light pole under the fork legs.
When accidents happen, there’s always an immediate instinct to place blame. Who had the right of way? Was the rider going too fast? Could the driver have given themselves a better viewpoint without going too far into the oncoming lane? We’ll leave that to the insurance companies and local law enforcement.
This accident already happened, and no amount of finger-pointing is going to undo it. Instead, as it is still Motorcycle Awareness Month, we want to use this crash as yet another example of why all road users, including riders and drivers, should practice safe habits to keep riders safe. If remembering this particular crash can help prevent another, then we are all better off.
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Dennis has been a part of the Motorcycle.com team since 2008, and through his tenure, has developed a firm grasp of industry trends, and a solid sense of what's to come. A bloodhound when it comes to tracking information on new motorcycles, if there's a new model on the horizon, you'll probably hear about it from him first.
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The driver of the car should be in jail for attempted murder. I don't care if the bike was speeding. The car caused this and could have killed the motorcyclist. But the general public, and even some moronic motorcyclists, don't care if a motorcyclist is killed on the road by an ignorant car driver.