Dump Truck Driver Mows Down Nine Bikes In Massive Motorcycle Crash

[RSVDon]

damn

Sorry to pop your

Edited March 26, 2010 by RSVDon

[Casper]

I'm at a loss for words. Wow.

[jsheikh]

Thats just insane... 3 dead for sure and 2 more a possibility?!... Wow, a lot of lives just changed. Prayers go out to the riders and their families.

[Funjunkie]

Another multitasking driver. WTF. Id like to choke a bitch!! its so not worth it. It changed our lives..I wish people would see the importance of staying focused while driving. I see it all the time, people shaving, reading or putting on make up. Totally pisses me off.

[KawiGurl]

God Bless the families involved. I hate to see that so many lives where changed because of some damn papers! Wow guy really? "Fishin for papers" has cost possibly 5 lives to be lost. Nice going dumb ass!

[Cbosman]

We can only pray for safety ourselves. We can't trust anyone else on the road. My God be with them.

[mhallam85]

Yea I hope that driver gets what he deserves for this one.

[Cheech]

Sucks. I hope this makes everyone think and take pause the next time they try to do anything in the car that distracts them from the road. I'm guilty and so is everyone reading this thread. Whether it be texting' date=' dialing, lighting a cigarette, turning around to smack a mouthy child.. etc. There is a time and place and motorcycle season is NOT that time or place.

RIP to the riders and I hope the truck driver finds a way to live with what he's done [b']in jail.

Fixed.

[Thunder99]

Don't get that false sense of security in group rides. . Anything can happen anywhere, anytime. One bike or twenty, be aware. RIP and thoughts to families.

[kreator]

Watch your mirrors and stay in gear not neutral at lights and intersections....... been said before needs said again.

Yes, and always know where you are going to go in case it looks like someone behind you is not going to stop. You have do this at EVERY light. RIP

Edited March 26, 2010 by kreator
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[Disclaimer]

Commentary on the issue (once again, via Jalopnik): Pro-lane splitting

The Phoenix Dump Truck Motorcycle Deaths Were Preventable

A bill killing motorcycle "lane splitting" laws sits stalled in the Arizona legislature. It could have saved the lives of three motorcyclists killed in yesterday's horrific Phoenix crash caused by a careless dump truck driver.

Yesterday's horrific accident when a dump truck driver reportedly took his eyes off the road to go "fishing for papers." He collided with three stationary motorcyclists waiting behind a line of four cars at an intersection. The truck then caught fire with the riders trapped underneath.

According to ABC-15, the riders were dragged 75 yards underneath the flaming truck in something that the news channel describes as "a disturbing and horrific scene."

"I saw the fire go up and black smoke off the truck, I saw motorcycles and people all over the pavement," one witness told the station.

Had the three dead and six critically injured motorcyclists been able to safely and legally move to the front of the line of four cars reportedly in front of them at the stoplight, they'd have been, at minimum, cushioned from the impact and not trapped under the truck. At best, they've have avoided injury altogether.

Lane splitting — the practice of carefully riding through stationary or very slow moving traffic — is inexplicably controversial in the US and Canada, yet legal and encouraged in just about every other industrialized country in the world. It was also recently made legal in California. It's generally accepted to be a safe, environmentally friendly practice that reduces the odds of motorcyclists being killed or injured in rear end collisions. It also reduces congestion.

Even while equipped with full safety gear that often includes a helmet, a back protector, body armor, a leather jacket, leather pants, reinforced gloves, and protective boots, motorcyclists lack the inherent safety of an automobile. When in motion, they can take advantage of their machine's diminutive size and increased agility, but when stationary, motorcyclists remain uniquely vulnerable to rear-end collisions.

The 1981 Hurt Report is the last and only major statistical analysis of motorcycle accident cause factors. It's generally accepted to be the motorcycle safety bible, forming the statistical basis for helmet laws and other legislation concerning roadgoing two-wheelers. It concluded that lane splitting improves motorcycle safety by preventing rear-end collisions.

Approximately three-fourths of motorcycle accidents [surveyed] involved a collision with another vehicle. In two-thirds of these accidents, the driver of the other vehicle... caused the collision." —

The Hurt Report, 1981

The US Department of Transportation's Fatality Analysis Reporting System also indicates that fatalities resulting motorcycle rear-end collisions are 30% lower in California, where lane splitting is legal, than they are in Florida or Texas, which enjoy similar riding seasons and demographics but don't allow lane splitting.

Arizona's HB2475 will allow motorcyclists in the state to split lanes of stationary traffic. If the Arizona state senate passes it, lane splitting will be made legal in Maricopa county for a one-year trial period. If that proves successful, which statistics indicate it will, the law could be rolled out across the entire state.

It's too late for these three motorcyclists, but future lives can be saved by killing laws against lane splitting in Arizona and the rest of the country.

[NinjaNick]

Great post JRMMiii. I totally agree with all it said.

[drew95gt]

Wow that sucks...RIP riders. This is one of my major fears while riding is being rear ended from someone not paying attention. I am always watching my mirrors at a stop and stop way back from any cars in front of me to give myself at least 2 ways out if someone flies up behind me.

[BiggO]

That is tragic. Prayers go out there families!

[MattGS550]

RIP to the riders.

[the_silverfox]

Commentary on the issue (once again, via Jalopnik): Pro-lane splitting

Totally agree with the lane splitting commentary. I was a rider in CA and splitting traffic was one of the best assets we had as motorcyclists. It got us out of the standstill parking lots known as roads so much faster. We used this practice on the freeway and on local streets. It's become so common that cars and even buses will even move a foot or two over in their own lane just to make sure you have room to pass.

I've been rear ended on my bike (by a person who was smoking and on a cell phone at the same time), and being able to slither through cars at a dead stop at the front of a line almost eliminates the chances of being rear ended. We get out of the lane faster because of the bike's acceleration, and we don't become part of the conga line of cages.

There are days when I'm sitting on a street out here in Columbus and there's a wonderful unused lane between two cars that could've gotten me out of that mess. I'd do it, but drivers out here wouldn't understand. I'd be paranoid enough to say that they'd just hit me out of spite...

[Likwid]

crucify the driver please. death penalty for distracted driving

[BikerBoy]

.....

[ReconRat]

It was hard to find a 2 1/2 year old thread. The dump truck driver was finally sentenced. After a first trial resulted in a hung jury 9-3 for acquittal. He was re-tried and sentenced to 26 years in prison. A combination of concurrent and consecutive sentencing.

Truck driver receives 26 years for killing motorcyclists

Michael Jakscht, Dump Truck Driver Who Killed 4 Motorcyclists, Gets 26 Years

[swingset]

Watch your mirrors and stay in gear not neutral at lights and intersections....... been said before needs said again.

And stay the fuck out of clusters of motorcycles. Space is your friend on a bike, always.

[dugan n rita]

Must not have been Harleys, he may have heard the pipes. Sorry for the families who lost loved ones

[Pokey]

And stay the fuck out of clusters of motorcycles. Space is your friend on a bike, always.

They only have a herd mentality, but yes.......space is your friend, so is staying off the slab.

[Revelstoker]

Liberal pansies courts will probably give the truck driver the benefit of doubt, his license back and a too bad so sad to the riders and their families.

http://www.ehow.com/way_5185339_involuntary-manslaughter-sentencing-guidelines.html

When, MFer should get the chair!!!!!!!!! Terrible beyond any level of comprehension.

Sure, there is some level of assumed risk with everything we do but when the error is so large, "my bad" just doesn't seem quite equitable.

[jbot]

uhh... didnt you read the part where he got like 26 years in prison?

[Scruit]

He'll be 75 when his stated term is up. His earliest possible release is when he is nearly 72 years old. I think the interests of justice have been served.

His life is effectively over. I think that is an adequate punishment.