Costa Mesa auto accident and product injury legal blog

Not only does your motorcycle offer transportation, but it also provides you with an effective way to clear your head. When you are on the open road, though, you must worry about a crash. After all, motorcycle accidents are likely more common than you realize. 

Because your bike does not have a steel cage to protect you, you could suffer a serious injury on your motorcycle. That is, you must worry about injuries that usually do not affect other motorists. Here are three injuries motorcycle riders commonly sustain during a slide, collision or crash.

California motorists may have heard that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began an investigation in July 2015 after reports emerged of people being injured by flying shrapnel from airbag inflators during traffic accidents. The investigation centered on ARC Automotive, which had developed the airbag inflators. In the course of the investigation, the NHTSA estimated that 8 million Hyundai, Fiat Chrysler, General Motors and Kia vehicles in the United States had the airbag inflators in question.

In 2016, a woman in Canada was killed after being hit with shrapnel from the airbag inflator while driving a Hyundai. Though the death made the investigation urgent, public records show that no conclusions were made or solutions offered. Another injury occurred in a General Motors vehicle in September 2017 due to an exploding ARC inflator. The president of the Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, a California-based company, is calling out the federal investigators for taking so long in the probe.

Large truck accidents are on the rise, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Statistics show a three-year rise in fatalities among truck occupants and work zone accidents involving large trucks. Though high-tech measures can make trucks safer, the administrative agency claims that truck drivers in California and elsewhere can take other immediate steps to reduce these statistics.

According to the FMCSA, there were increases in both accidents and fatalities among large trucks between 2015 and 2017. The FMCSA points out that more than one-third of all truck occupant fatalities involved victims not wearing a seatbelt. Though drivers report seat belt use at an all-time high of 86 percent, advocates say the figure should be closer to 100 percent. It could prevent nearly one-third of all deaths.

Anyone who has spent any time on a motorcycle should automatically have high standards for road safety. It is clear that there is a great deal of freedom from riding, but the vulnerability is also obvious.

People do what they can to use motorcycles safely. They ride in groups, maintain a good distance from other vehicles — and the list goes on. However, no amount of preparation or caution could protect a biker from the negligent or malicious actions of someone operating a much larger vehicle at high speeds.