Spotting Motorcycles at Junctions Before You Pull Out

Riders have a phrase for it: "Sorry mate, I didn't see you." It is what the driver says, standing beside the car, while the rider is still on the road. The crash it describes is depressingly regular. A car waits at a junction or in a turn lane, the driver looks, sees nothing, and pulls across the path of a motorcycle that was there the whole time.

Most of these drivers are not reckless. They looked. They just looked in a way that a car fills but a motorcycle does not. I ride touring bikes on public roads most weekends and I have been on the receiving end of this more times than I can count, mostly as near misses. Here is what I have learned about why it happens and what a driver can do differently at every junction.

Why a motorcycle disappears from a quick glance

The classic study on this is still the Hurt Report, published in 1981 after investigators examined around 900 motorcycle crashes in Los Angeles. In collisions between a motorcycle and another vehicle, the other driver violated the rider's right of way in roughly two thirds of cases. The most common version was a car turning across the bike's path. Plenty has changed since 1981, but riders and instructors still see that same pattern every week.

Three things work against you as a driver.

Size. Seen head on, a motorcycle is about as wide as a person. Your brain judges the speed of an approaching vehicle partly by how fast it grows in your view. A car's front end expands quickly. A slim headlight and a rider barely change shape until they are close, so the bike looks further away and slower than it is.

The A-pillar. The post between your windscreen and side window is wider on modern cars than it used to be, partly for rollover strength. At a junction, a motorcycle at the right distance and angle can sit entirely behind it for a second or two. If your glance lands in that window, the road looks empty.

Expectation. When you scan for traffic, you are mostly scanning for cars, because that is nearly all you ever see. Researchers call it inattentional blindness: the eye points straight at the bike and the brain does not register it, because it was not what you were looking for.

"Look twice" is not quite the right advice

The road safety slogan most drivers know is "Think bike, look twice." It is well meant, and the second look does help. But two quick glances can both fall into the same blind window. If the bike is hidden by your A-pillar on the first look, it may still be hidden half a second later, because it is coming almost straight toward you and its position in your view barely moves.

What actually helps is looking longer and moving your head.

A motorcycle at 50 mph covers about 73 feet every second. At 40 mph it is roughly 59 feet. A glance that lasts a fraction of a second captures one frozen picture. Holding your look on the far lane for a full second, while consciously checking the point where a bike would appear, gives your brain time to pick up something that is growing.

Then there is the head movement, which most drivers never do. Rock your upper body forward and back a few inches while you look. It shifts your eyes around the A-pillar and reveals whatever was behind it. Driving instructors teach this as a pillar check, and I wish it were as famous as the slogan.

If the gap you are about to pull into looks empty, ask whether you saw the road or just failed to see a car.

A junction routine that catches bikes

This is what I would ask any driver to practise until it becomes automatic. It adds about two seconds at a junction.

1. Come to a full stop if the view is restricted, even at a give way line where rolling through is common. A moving car moves its own blind spots.
2. Look the full length of the road, not just the first hundred yards. Bikes often appear from further away than you expect, because at that distance they are too small to register as a threat.
3. Rock your head forward and back to clear both A-pillars, especially the one on the side traffic is coming from.
4. Look for the headlight rather than a shape. Most modern bikes run with headlights on, so a single bright point that does not belong to a parked car is your cue.
5. Watch the edges of the lane, not just the centre. Riders often position near the centre line or near the kerb to see and be seen, and a bike there is easy to skip past.
6. Look again immediately before you move, and hold it until you are sure nothing in the gap has grown.

On a right turn across oncoming traffic, or a left turn if you drive on the left side of the road, be extra cautious of a bike hidden behind a larger vehicle. Riders tuck in behind vans and trucks all the time. When the van passes and the road looks clear, give it a beat. There may be a motorcycle a few lengths back that the van was hiding.

What riders do, and what they cannot do

From my side of the junction, I do several things to help. I ride with the headlight on day and night. I wear a hi-vis vest over my jacket on commutes. When I see a car waiting to pull out, I shift my position in the lane so I am not hidden by its pillar, and I cover the front brake. New riders tend to learn that habit late, often while still wrestling a bike that is too heavy for them, which is why our guide to choosing a first motorcycle argues for a lighter machine. I also treat every waiting car as if the driver has not seen me, because often they have not.

Some riders slow down near junctions or weave gently within the lane, since a moving shape is easier to notice than a still one. All of this reduces the risk. None of it removes it. A rider can make themselves more visible, but only the driver can decide to wait.

The same thinking applies to blind spots behind and beside you. If you have not set your side mirrors using the wider method, our piece on adjusting your mirrors so you lose the blind spot takes about five minutes and helps with motorcycles filtering alongside you in slow traffic.

Try it on your next ten junctions

For the rest of this week, add the head rock to every junction you pull out of, and count a slow "one thousand" while looking down the road before you commit. Notice how often something appears during that second that was not there on your first glance. It does not have to be a bike. Cyclists, pedestrians and small cars hide in the same places. After a week the routine stops feeling deliberate, and that is when it starts protecting people. More from our instructors and riders sits in the road safety section.