As warmer weather starts to emerge, so does an increase in motorcyclists on the roadways. But with casual motorcycle riding also comes more awareness, not just for motorcyclists but for drivers in cars as well because drivers may not be used to seeing so bikes on the road when the weather was colder.
Justin McDonald, the Program Administrator for the Nevada Rider Motorcyclist Safety Program says, "Car drivers are used to looking for other cars and a lot of them aren't used to looking for bikes, so if they get it in their mind that ‘hey there's other vulnerable road users, there's bicyclists, there's pedestrians’, motorcyclists if they start looking for that they're going to start seeing it."
McDonald also says a lot of drivers can experience what's called unintentional blindness, which is something plainly visible that a driver may not see because they don't usually focus on it, such as motorcyclists on the roads or in a vehicles blind spot.
He also mentions in 2022 there was 81 motorcyclists’ fatalities in the state of Nevada, with 71,000 registered motorcyclists and 2.7 million registered vehicles in the state "Yet that accounts for 21% of all traffic fatalities is motorcyclists, such a small number of motorcyclists and such a large percentage of deaths." McDonald explains.
McDonald also highly recommends motorcyclists take a class no matter how long you've been riding to ensure you're being as safe as you can be on the roadways.
