Staying Safe in Winter: Avoiding Motorcycle Accidents
When it comes to winter in Baltimore, the weather can be intense and test your skills on the road. However, when you’re on only two wheels instead of four, the roads can be particularly tricky to navigate, so staying safe while riding your motorcycle in winter requires more knowledge and care than driving a car in winter. At Murphy, Falcon & Murphy Law, we want to help motorcycle riders in our community stay safe throughout the winter, which is why we’ve gathered some top tips for avoiding motorcycle accidents when you ride during the colder months of the year. Keep reading to learn more about motorcycle safety in winter and if you or a loved one are ever injured in a winter motorcycle accident, be sure to contact our team for help.
First and foremost, it’s important to know your motorcycle inside and out. One of the best ways to ensure that you’re safe while riding in the wintertime is to know how to react in certain situations so you can stay safe. Find a safe place to practice riding your motorcycle in winter weather and temperatures, such as an empty parking lot, and make sure you know how your motorcycle will react when you attempt to stop, turn, slow down, and perform other common safety maneuvers. While you practice, you’ll also become more familiar with what to look out for while on the road, and be able to use your knowledge and experience to safely ride on the roads.
Practice, Practice, Practice
One of the most important things about staying safe on your motorcycle in winter is ensuring that your motorcycle is actually ready for winter. Prep your motorcycle for winter by ensuring that you have the right tires installed, your engine is working properly, and your drive chain is lubricated and ready for use in harsh, cold temperatures. Also, be sure to prep your motorcycle components with preventative measures to keep road salt from rusting or corroding the metal on your bike.
Prep Your Motorcycle
Driving in the winter while wearing summertime gear is not a great choice. Instead, be sure to layer up so your hands stay warm and responsive while you avoid getting too cold in the winter temperatures. Another important aspect of ensuring your road safety in winter is keeping your vision clear and unobstructed, so getting a visor that prevents or reduces fogging is a good idea. Ensuring that you’re wearing the right gear is key to keeping yourself warm, comfortable, and safe while on the road in cold weather and low-visibility conditions.
Get The Right Gear
During the winter, visibility is more often than not difficult to maintain. Winter time comes with shorter days, darker nights, and all kinds of visibility-impairing conditions, as well, so it’s important to keep yourself as visible as possible when riding your motorcycle in winter. One of the best ways to do that is to keep your lights on at all times, even during the day. Whether it’s raining, snowing, or overcast, keeping your lights on will ensure that others on the road will see you, and will help to signal where you’re going, as well. In addition to lights, be sure to use your turn signals, reflectors, and other visibility tools consistently.
Make Sure You’re Visible
In the wintertime, ice on the roads is the enemy of every driver, but it can be especially dangerous to motorcycle riders. Keeping yourself safe from sliding or losing control on the ice can make a huge impact on your life, so be sure to keep track of when and where you know ice is forming and work to keep these factors in mind when you choose to take a ride in wintertime. Knowing where ice is and how to recognize the conditions it forms in will help you to avoid losing control of your motorcycle when riding and can help to keep you from potentially unsafe situations, as well.
Know When and Where Ice Forms
Last, but certainly not least is knowing the forecast for days when you need to ride your motorcycle. Whether or not your motorcycle is your only mode of transportation, you need to be sure that you’re prepared for the weather that you may be riding through, so keep a weather app on your phone or sign up for weather alerts to stay on top of updates, winter weather warnings, and other pertinent information that can help to keep you safe on the road.
Keep an Eye On The Forecast
All of these tips are designed to help keep you safe on the road in the wintertime while riding your motorcycle, but if you or a loved one are injured in a motorcycle accident, Murphy, Falcon, & Murphy are here to help. Contact us today to get started with a consultation.