[markem]

Sigh. I don't think that Duane meant for this to become a thread about good / bad motorcyclists and good / bad behavior. I think that he was pointing out that a helmet may have (not would have) made a big difference in this case.

The bike was already down when the car was hit, at least from what I can tell from the picture; however, there are no pavement scrape marks at the bike or elsewhere in the pic as far as I can tell. Without a wider shot, it is difficult to make a call.

It is likely that this is a single vehicle accident wherein the result was a secondary collision with a car. The accident report might be well worth reading. The statistics on motorcycle accidents (you can find them on the NHTSA website) are overwhelmingly single vehicle accidents or accidents where the motorcyclist is at fault; e.g., apex too early, too hot and losing control. The largest car/motorcycle area where the motorcyclist is not at fault is where cars turn in front of an oncoming motorcycle; they misjudge the distance because they expect cars and "see" the motorcycle as being a car farther away, or they don't see the motorcycle because they are only expecting to "see" cars. The crash statistics for western Europe are most interesting. While I've only seen presentations on those statistics and not seen the raw data, it seems that incidents of cars not seeing motorcycles is substantially lower than here. Of course, the percentage of the population that rides either motorcycles or scooters is much higher as well. Yes, it is true that I used to be a technical reviewer for the NHTSA conferences on motorcycle safety.

As Adam said, some riders give motorcyclists a bad name / image. In the safety game, we tell motorcyclists to watch out when they see such behavior because the angry driver may not be able to take it out on the person who made them angry but they can take it out on you. You are the smallest thing on the freeway, so don't get an attitude.

Don't forget, every rider is an idiot on two wheels and every cager is a homicidal maniac. But I'd never stereotype.

At the end of the day, it is your job (car or bike) to be as safe as you can within the tolerances of the risks that you are willing to take. Sometimes that is not good enough, but being mindful can reduce those "sometimes".