The majority of motorcycle-automobile collisions are the result of a violation of the motorcyclist's right-of-way by the automobile driver. The predominating cause of the multiple vehicle collision is a failure of the automobile driver to detect the presence of the motorcyclist in traffic when a traffic conflict develops. Such detection failures are associated with low conspicuity for the motorcyclist, and effective countermeasures have been investigated and applied to reduce accident involvement of motorcycles. However, comparable investigations of culpable automobile drivers have not been done to distinguish the exact nature of these detection failures.
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