By Talya Adams

Life can feel unexpected at times and that’s especially true for motorcyclists. Unlike people in cars, there seems to be an added element of things going terribly wrong when you’re no where near your bike more often than not. For instance, when someone taps your ride while parked and it hits a curb on the fall, cracking the plastics.

A few weeks ago, an old interviewee of mine, Mike, told me about a weird and unexpected accident he’d recently gotten in. Apparently, he was leaving his apartment complex and a moving truck was in front of him also driving towards the exit. He said the truck stopped in front of him, and after a few moments reversed quickly. Because of the speed of the reversal, Mike had to abandon his bike and watch as the truck ran over his motorcycle.

How do you prepare or anticipate such a thing happening?

I don’t know if you can, honestly. I say this after kicking this story around in my head for a while because I’m someone who likes to plan ahead and problem solve. However, this isn’t even the first time I’ve heard of such an incident. I knew a guy whose bike had been totaled while parked, then his replacement bike was crashed into the second time he took it on the road.

These types of incidents seem random, and in a lot of cases are preventable. However, accidents are out of the motorcyclists’ hands at a certain point. We’re not fortunetellers. We can’t know bad things will happen and on rare occasions there’s nothing we can do to prevent them.

With this in mind, I’ve been thinking more about preparing my mindset as a motorcyclist to combat the unexpected. If you have it in your head there will be incidents out of your control, and prepare for it, you’ll be all the better for it. Also, make sure you have good insurance. Most of the time when your bike is hit unexpectedly, it’s parked. I feel better knowing that if my bike gets totaled and no one sticks around to take responsibility, I have good enough insurance to cover it. As opposed to having the bare bones or no insurance at all and walking outside to find your bike mangled.

So, I guess at the end of the day, have ‘just in case’ plans in place. Also, have a mindset of what will be, will be. Your life matters most, and if the bike goes, better it than you.

Stay safe in these streets!