They're called blind spots for a reason and should be avoided at all cost. Sadly there was a cost and I would have to agree that backing up in traffic is not the thing to do.

 

Prayers to the families involved.

When my father was teaching me to drive, he taught me that if I missed my turn, find a safe place to turnaround and go back, or make the block, don't be in such a hurry to get in a wreck. That said, if you drive around Mobile, AL, you will see folks stop in the left lane because they suddenly realized that there turn/buisness is on the right, they will wait until they have a opening then try to squirt through to their destination instead of turning around. It seems they do not want to be inconvienced to do the right thing. You will also see folks backing up to make a missed turn. It all goes back to being a "ME" thing.

Just MY 2 cents.

 

Great advice! I guess that makes it okay for the trucker to slam on the brakes in traffic, take a quick glance in his mirrors, and back up in a driving lane running over the poor sob that nearly rear ended him because the trucker was driving like an a$$hole. It isn't the truckers fault. Dumb A$$ on the bike should have known the truck was going to make a sudden stop and throw it in reverse. We all know to stay out of a truckers blind spot, but when a trucker is doing something moronic, like stopping and backing up in a driving lane, it ain't always possible to avoid getting stuck in that blind spot.

 

Very sad to hear this. What does a rider do if a truck stops so quickly that he/she has only enough time to stop safely. The the truck comes at you in reverse and a car is right behind you because it had to stop just as fast to avoid hitting the bike. It is very hard to push these heavy bikes back wards. Because this was a construction site area, there might have been some crap on the road that she could not get a good footing. Give this women some slack. It was the drivers fault. Plain and simple.

I just retired with 40 years of driving a 18 wheeler. A few years back I was stopped at a light in the left turn lane in my International big rig. A semi was in front of me making a left turn and I was about 5 feet behind him. He was stopped because a flagman was telling him he could not drive into that lane because it was new pavement.

I could see the side of the truck and the driver in his cab talking to the flagman. With out even looking behind him he starts backing up, I start blowing my horn, a air horn, he does not hear it. I then lock up my brakes, jump out of my cab and start yelling. He still does not hear me. I start runing toward him yelling, stop, stop. He never hears me and backs up into my truck and pushes it back about 4 feet.

He finely stopped when a truck stopped next to him seeing what was happening blew his air horn and got the drivers attention. There were cars behind me waiting to turn left also. I was lucky no car behind me got damaged.

So now we have the whole intersection blocked and no one can move. The construction foremen comes over and says we have to move because his crew has to finish paving the rest of the road. I told him we have to wait for the police so he can see what happened here. The dumb *** driver wanted to move also. I walk back to my truck and the hood is pushed up to the windshield. Antifreeze all over the road. Now we have a Haz-Mat problem. Anything leaking from a commercial vehicle in a accident is Haz-Mat. I go back and tell them the situation and the foremen says he has some oil dry in his pickup and he will pour some on the antifreeze and then we have to move across the street to a parking lot.

I moved under protest. Now there is no accident seen left for the police to see and all witnesses left. The cop shows up about 15 minutes later. Now it's my word against this ahole. The cop couldn't give out a ticket and said the insurance company's would have to fight this one out.

I did find a witness to the accident, he was fueling his truck at a gas station on the corner and saw the whole thing. Good thing, when I called the company the driver worked for, he told his boss I hit him when he was turning. His boss told me I had to pay for the damage done to his trailer. I told him my damage was about $8000.00 and he was going to pay me because I had a witness to the accident and he had a time stamped receipt that shows the same time of the accident. I told him I would send him a copy and he had noting left to say but OK, send it to me..

This woman could have blown her horn. The trucker would never hear it. And if he did, he wouldn't know were it came from.

If you are in a truck or a car, you never back up unless you know for sure the area is clear.

A friend of mine drove a cement truck. He was at a site with a flagman waveing him clear to backup to pour his load. The flagman moved out of site and my friend kept backing up and ran him over and kiled him. He still can't stop thinking about it after 30 years. This driver will never forget this for the rest of his life.