The South Bruce OPP were called to two collisions involving motorcycles in Brant Township and near Paisley this weekend which saw the same incident occur.
The first was Saturday evening around 6:21 pm with a pickup & motorcycle involved on Queen Street south of Paisley.
The motorcycle operator was airlifted to a London hospital with serious injuries.
The pickup driver, a 49-year-old of Alberta, was charged with an improper left-hand turn.
Then on Sunday morning just before 9am a pickup & motorcycle collided on Bruce County Road 4 in Brant Township after another improper turn.
The motorcycle operator was treated for non-life threatening injuries and the pickup driver, an 81-year-old of Brockton was charged.
The South Bruce OPP offered the following tips to help motorists avoid collisions with motorcycles:
- Be sure that you are safe to proceed before doing so; check your mirrors and all around your car
- Over 1/3 of all crashes with motorcycles are intersection related. Slow down as you come to an intersection and look carefully for traffic, tr affic control signals, cyclists, pedestrians.
- Be extra cautious when turning left in front of a motorcycle. It’s difficult to judge their speed and the turn signal may unintentionally be on as some models don’t shut off automatically.
- Watch for signs, such as shoulder checking or leaning, that indicate the rider is going to change lanes.
- A motorcycle is more difficult to see than other vehicles and its profile is smaller from most angles.
- Drivers can easily misjudge a motorcycle’s speed or distance.
- Make sure you don’t pull out in front of, or cut off, a motorcycle.
- Speed and other aggressive tactics such as tailgating can be more dangerous to the motorcyclist who has less protection on a smaller open vehicle.
- Give other drivers space to change lanes, avoid cutting them off, signal your turns and lane changes properly.