Joey--
You were so right when you said that plenty of bikers have been hit by perfectly sober drivers who then say they never saw the biker. It happens all the time, and--years ago, when I rode--happened to me. The reality is that people literally do not mentally process what their eyes actually see because most people are looking for other four-wheeled vehicles, not motorcycles [or bicycles, for that matter]. You can have your bike's lights lit up like the 4th of July, even, and people still do not process your presence. As unbelievable as it may sound, a significant percentage of [sober] people who claim they never saw the biker they hit are telling the truth, or at least the truth as they genuinely believe it to be.
Sometime in 1980 I was sitting on a city street in the slow lane at a stoplight, waiting for the signal to turn green. My headlight and tailights were on [a little unusual for 1980, as was the helmet I always wore]. It was about 10:30 A.M. on a clear, sunny morning. Traffic was moderate. All of a sudden I feel an impact on my back wheel, and simultaneously get pushed forward about a foot. Fortunately I remained upright and seated on the bike. I look around to see a middle-aged lady--the driver of the car which had just struck me--with her hands to her face and a look of absolute shock on her face. She shakily gets out of her vehicle, comes forward to my position, and says--these were her exact words--Oh my God, I didn't see you! There was really not much I could do except shake my head and thank the good Lord that it wasn't my time to go. I always loved riding that bike--it was a super-fast Triumph 750cc Bonneville with a teardrop-shaped gasoline tank and that classic British-bike rumble coming from the dual exhaust pipes, and handled like a dream. But...this experience, along with a few other encounters involving four-wheeled vehicle operators doing dumb-a** things, led me to abandon bikes. It simply wasn't worth my life.
Eric
