Rear-Ended Motorcyclists Shows Why Filtering Is a Good Idea

And yet, if you look on any street of a non-Asian city, you'll see cars outnumber motorcycles by a factor of 100 to one, if not even greater. Why is that? Well, the simple answer is safety. The more complicated one is that we all have somebody who cares about us and won't allow us to buy a motorbike. You heard it here first, guys: the reason why the streets are not filled with two-wheeled vehicles is... love.

Being on the street without a ton or two of plastic and metal around to protect you from the other drivers is clearly not what the doctor prescribed, but that doesn't mean there aren't ways it can be made safer. Wearing a full protective suit, for starters, would be ideal, not to mention the best helmet you can afford.

Paying attention to what's going on around you helps as well, as does driving predictably and obeying the rules. Finally, assuming the other drivers give a damn about your safety is the biggest mistake you can make, so being a little paranoid never hurt anybody.

We don't have any information about the equipment this rider from Brisbane, Australia was wearing, but just by looking at the video, we can identify a few mistakes that led to the unfortunate outcome. The first one is ignoring that huge shadow on the ground. A driver that comes this close to a biker is clearly bad news and should be avoided at all costs. Yes, the sun was down, and the shadows were long, but that guy was still too close.

The second is accelerating too hard and braking too late in a stop-and-go situation. There was no need to pick up the pace as it was clear the column of vehicles would come to a halt in just a few moments, so cruising at a leisurely speed would have sufficed.

Finally, it's the fact the rider did not filter (or lane split). There's a good reason why this method is being legalized all over the world, and that's because it offers motorcyclists more safety precisely in situations such as this. Yes, a few drivers will wish you got the bubonic plague, but so what? It's not your problem their wives or husbands won't have them on bikes so they have to sit in traffic.