A boom in motorbike sales has prompted fresh warnings about road safety this summer.
With motorcycle and moped sales on track to be the highest they've been in a decade, there's a concern more inexperienced riders are taking to the road.
Davitt Lavery, who is lucky to be alive let alone ride a motorcycle again, is warning riders after his life changed forever in 2012.
“I was riding along and I stopped at an intersection — next thing you know I've been hit by a car on the right hand side and it's continued along and it's dragged me down the road,” he said.
Lavery’s leg was trapped between his bike and the car — his scar now a permanent reminder of just how quickly a situation change, despite the 60-year-old being experienced.
“If you're not aware on a motorcycle you won't survive.”
ACC deals with around 4500 motorcycle crash injuries each year, costing the country over $100 million annually.
Research shows the most common cause of motorcycle crashes is a collision with a car and one of the main issues of concern is motorbikes not being seen at intersections.
“The concern for us at ACC is more bikes that get on the road, more crashes and more injuries that we're likely to see,” ACC injury prevention leader Dave Keilty said.
“Motorcycles make up three per cent of the vehicle fleet on the road currently, but they make up 20 per cent of injury claims.
“The day that you do take something for granted will be the day that you come off second best.”
It's recommended drivers slow down when checking blind spots and not to be complacent.
“When we turn our heads from side to side our vision tends to actually shut down and we don't realise it's happening 'cause the brain fills in what would otherwise be a cutout in the middle of our head movement,” Survival Skills UK’s Kevin Williams said.
“We actually end up getting snapshots of what's happening out here and missing a lot of the information in between the two points where we actually looked.”
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