06-09-2016, 02:54 AM
I think that we may be missing the point of the "This could have been avoided" school. It's not about blame or fault and it's not about non-witnesses and/or non-experts providing their perspective on what could have been done in a particular situation. It's about the rider taking the attitude that his safety is 100% his own responsibility. The rider taking this attitude will be constantly evaluating and reevaluating his environment while riding. If he has a close call or an actual collision, he will critically analyze the circumstances surrounding that event. It may be that he cannot come up with a single thing he would have done differently and he may then seek input from other people who may offer some insight that could help him avoid a similar event in the future. However, it is possible that he will once again come up empty in the "what would I change" department.
The point is that too many of us assume that the other guy will know that we have the right of way and will yield it to us. This is obviously not the right way to think when in any vehicle, but especially not on a motorcycle. I don't think that RandyB rides with this attitude or ever did. I think he got hit and he cannot come up with any reasonable thing that he would have done differently, but he has done the self-analysis and THAT, to me, is the key.
The point is that too many of us assume that the other guy will know that we have the right of way and will yield it to us. This is obviously not the right way to think when in any vehicle, but especially not on a motorcycle. I don't think that RandyB rides with this attitude or ever did. I think he got hit and he cannot come up with any reasonable thing that he would have done differently, but he has done the self-analysis and THAT, to me, is the key.