Motorcycle accidents are a scary thought. With nothing to protect the rider except a helmet, a serious or fatal injury is often the result of an accident. While there are certainly many causes of serious or fatal motorcycle accidents, one of the most common causes is another motorist’s failure to see or failure to yield the right-of-way to a motorcyclist. In fact, by some estimates, these two causes combined account for almost half of all motorcycle accidents.
The general rule is that vehicles are required to yield to those vehicles with the right-of-way. While the situations giving rise to a potential failure-to-yield accident are countless, a few of the more common scenarios are:
- Intersections with one or more stop signs;
- Situations that require one vehicle to merge into another lane, such as a highway on-ramp or off-ramp;
- Parking lots;
- Pulling out of a driveway or shopping center exit;
- Any time a vehicle makes a left turn in front of a motorcycle; and
- Whenever there is a posted “Yield” sign.