Hi Mel
I’d like to ask you to bear with me.
You may not remember, I am the motorcyclist you didn’t see today when turning onto xxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Had I not already been travelling at 40km/h for the roadwork sign or anticipated that you were going to pull out, I could easily be dead now while instead of reading this letter you would be in Police custody pending conviction for vehicular manslaughter, culpable driving or dangerous driving causing death.
The problem is, it is hard to picture something so small as today’s incident as ending in someone’s death and the destruction of your life & that of our respective families, but the reality is that over 250 people have been killed on the road in Queensland this year and the vast majority of those accidents happen because someone makes a simple mistake.
Speed doesn’t kill, mistakes do. I’ve done well over 200km/h on a racetrack and I’m not dead, because I didn’t make any mistakes, but plenty of people get killed in low speed accidents on the road because someone makes a simple, but fatal, mistake. I’m sure you’re in a hurry at 8am on the way to work, but so is everyone. If you’re running so late that you can’t take two seconds to look properly before pulling out, or to check over your shoulders before changing lanes, you should call in late, reschedule any morning appointments, or simply set your alarm ten minutes earlier so you can have a leisurely and safe drive to work.
To you, it was just a minor oversight - I’m sure you have a spotless driving history and think you’re a “great driver”. After all, as long as you don’t speed you’re safe and so is everyone else. I assure you, I get cut off by “great drivers” every day and these are the same drivers who would call someone an idiot for doing 120km/h on an open highway in a safe & modern vehicle, and think people on motorcycles are crazy without exception.
Half the time when I start beeping or waving at people, they don’t even know what’s going on because they don’t even know they’ve cut me off - because they don’t look and they have no idea what’s going on outside their safe little car. Half the time, they do a token look and point their head in the right direction or take a lazy glance in a mirror, and do their best to hit me anyway. My father once said “ride like 50% of people can’t see you, and the other 50% are trying to hit you”. Great advice, it makes you much safer on the road.
My girlfriend is learning to ride at the moment, and if you had pulled out in front of her rather than me then there is no guarantee she would not have lost control trying to avoid you. My girlfriend being punted into the air by 1.5 tonnes of ignorant motorist, tumbling down the road at forty or fifty km/h tangled up with 160kg of motorcycle. A horrifying thought.
On the other side of the coin, my best mate killed someone in a car accident over eight years ago and I assure you it haunts him to this day. On top of the emotion and guilt, he was dragged through the legal system over a period of almost two years, destroying him financially with $50,000 in legal fees. He was lucky to escape conviction on a technicality, but the truth of the matter is that if you make a mistake and kill someone you will be arrested and charged with vehicular manslaughter, culpable driving, and on top of any jail time, fines or legal fees you will not be entitled to a drivers license on your return to society, and will always be damaged goods living the rest of your life with a criminal history and the memory & guilt of killing that person. All to save two seconds at an intersection – so hard to link that two seconds to all of those consequences, but that’s life and I hope this letter makes you realise that.
Just a little oversight and a ‘nothing’ incident… but it could so easily be more – until you kill someone, it’s hard to relate that small mistakes can and will eventually kill someone… whether it involves you or not it happens every day. I assure you I have lost more friends in motorcycle accidents than I can count – some their own fault, some not – but the common factor is that mistakes on the road kill people.
A month after I started riding in my early 20’s, my mother asked me why there were suddenly so many bikes on the road. Nothing had changed – she was simply more aware of motorcycles because she’d never really been that aware of them before. Like most people, the only ones she sees or remembers are the few who fly past on one wheel.
My father actively discouraged me from riding, saying that “I’ve got no worries with you mate, it’s those other idiots with no idea how to drive” and honestly Mel you’re one of those idiots with no idea how to drive that he was talking about. Please, pay attention out there.
Kind regards
Another idiot motorcyclist
... returned the favor when slamming to a car few months ago 
andi - Red GPZ900R, GPZ750R1, KLR650 Tengai, KLR250
