Motorcycles Crashes From Coast Have Common Element - Riding in Groups

On the evening of April 17, a crash involving a group of motorcyclists and a Mercedes sedan took place on I-264 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. According to Virginia State Police reports, a group of eight motorcyclists was traveling on the highway and weaving in and out of traffic. One of the motorcyclists, driving in the left lane, struck the rear of the Mercedes. A second motorcyclist then lost control of his vehicle; he eventually succeeded in laying his bike down on the road. Following that, two further motorcyclists collided with each other; one ran off the roadway and struck a steel cable, while the other ran over the aforementioned driver who had laid down his Kawasaki.

All four were transported to the hospital, three of them with life-threatening injuries. The driver of the Mercedes was unharmed. All four motorcyclists were men in their 20s; three handguns, marijuana and a large sum of cash were recovered at the accident site. An investigation is ongoing.

Less than a week earlier, on April 11, another crash involving motorcycles traveling in a group took place near Albuquerque, New Mexico. A large group of motorcyclists was driving on I-40, blocking all lanes of traffic, performing stunts and, at times, slowing to speeds as low as 35mph. A truck attempted to pass the group on the left shoulder and collided with one of the motorcycles. The rider of the motorcycle and his passenger were seriously injured and taken to the hospital. Following the collision, a group of the motorcyclists circled the truck and began banging on the windows and otherwise harassing the driver, who eventually escaped. He has since been in contact with authorities.

“When motorcyclists are doing these types of things in the middle of heavy traffic it puts the whole public and drivers in danger,” said an Albuquerque Police Department spokesperson. “The worst thing you could do is to react to and do something dangerous yourself because again you never know how the other driver is going to respond.”

In 2017, there were 8.4 million registered motorcycles in the United States. We may assume that most of them are driven by law-abiding citizens who follow the rules of the road for their own safety as well as for the safety of others. Motorcyclists have established a clear set of rules to be followed, especially when riding as a group. There is even an entire vocabulary of hand signals with which group riders communicate with each other. These motorcyclists pay their registration fees and gas taxes, and, therefore, have as much right to the road as operators of automobiles.

On the other hand, in the Virginia Beach accident, the motorcycles were being driven recklessly. The drivers clearly weren’t respecting such important factors as keeping a safe distance from each other, to the extent that one of them actually ran over one of his companions.

The behavior of the larger group of motorcyclists in the New Mexico crash was even worse; what is surprising is that only two of their number were injured. They were probably a group that was too big to begin with (the Motorcycle Safety Foundation recommends groups be no larger than seven motorcycles), and, they were driving like scofflaws, to say the least.

Traveling in groups is an integral part of motorcycle culture, and motorcyclists have their right to the road and to pursue their brand of happiness. On the other hand, that doesn’t authorize them to operate their vehicles recklessly or dangerously, which, as the two accidents above show, can happen with tragic results (indeed, motorcycle riders are 27 times more likely to die during a crash than people in cars.) Although the imposition of more laws may seem like anathema to the loose-limbed motorcycle culture, perhaps turning motorcycling custom into law might provide something of a solution to the problem. If motorcycles could be ticketed for not riding in formation, for example, accidents might be prevented.

Of course, if motorcyclists are going to perform slow-motion stunts in the middle of the interstate, no amount of new laws will solve the problem. Better policing of our highways might, although one of the problems of traffic “crimes” is that they’re fast-paced and all evidence of them can disappear in seconds.

Perhaps, then, the only solution is to get motorcyclists to ride more responsibly. Just how that is to be achieved remains an ongoing problem.