May is Motorcycle Awareness Month, and Look Twice - Save A Life is the message driving the entire motorcycle safety campaign. The slogan asks drivers to do one small thing before they turn, merge, or pull out: glance once, then look again. That second look is what keeps a motorcycle rider alive.
Most fatal motorcycle accidents in California happen because a driver never saw the rider at all. The driver looked, registered "no car," and moved. The bike was there the whole time. That split-second failure is the leading cause of motorcycle accidents at intersections across El Segundo and the South Bay.
This post explains where the Look Twice, Save a Life message came from, why it works, how it applies to El Segundo roads during Motorcycle Awareness Month, safety tips riders can use, and what California riders should do when drivers fail to Check Twice.
The Look Twice - Save A Life message grew out of motorcycle safety advocacy in the 1970s and 1980s. Riders kept getting hit at intersections by drivers who swore they never saw the bike. Safety groups needed a simple phrase that got drivers to Check Twice before moving. "Look Twice, Save a Life" was short, clear, and stuck in people's heads.
Today the phrase shows up on bumper stickers, highway billboards, and state motorcycle safety campaigns nationwide. The California Office of Traffic Safety uses it. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration builds Motorcycle Awareness Month messaging around the same idea. The California Highway Patrol and the California Motorcyclist Safety Program promote it every May as the centerpiece of their motorcycle safety campaign.
The reason it has lasted so long is simple. It works. A driver who takes a moment to Check Twice at an intersection catches the motorcycle they would have missed the first time.
Human eyes and brains are trained to look for car-sized shapes. When a driver scans an intersection, the brain filters out small objects as background. A motorcycle is small enough to slip right past that filter.
Researchers call this "inattentional blindness." The driver's eyes pass over the bike, but the brain doesn't register it as a vehicle. The driver honestly believes the road was clear. Two seconds later, a rider is on the pavement. This is why so many traffic crashes involving motorcycles come down to one missed glance.
If you've experienced an injury due to someone else's negligence, contact Bloom Injury Law today for a free consultation. Call (310) 525-5985 or contact us online.
Blind spots make the problem worse. A motorcycle fits completely inside the blind spot of most passenger cars and almost every pickup truck or SUV. A quick glance in the mirror won't catch a bike tucked next to the rear quarter panel. The driver has to turn their head and Check Twice. This is especially important in California, where lane splitting is legal and riders may be moving between cars in slow freeway traffic.
Distracted driving has turned a bad problem into a deadly one. A driver checking a text message for two seconds at 45 mph covers the length of a football field. A motorcycle that was clearly visible at the start of that text is gone by the time the driver looks up. Distracted driving now ranks among the top causes of motorcycle accidents in California.
Looking twice is not a slogan. It's a specific driving habit that takes about two extra seconds at each decision point. Here is what it looks like in practice.
These are small habits. They take almost no time. They save lives.
Los Angeles County has specific intersections and corridors where Look Twice, Save a Life matters most. Motorcycle traffic concentrates on certain roads, and traffic crashes follow those patterns.
Sepulveda Boulevard runs through the heart of El Segundo and sees heavy motorcycle traffic heading to the South Bay beach cities. The stretch between El Segundo Boulevard and Rosecrans Avenue has multiple high-volume intersections where left-turn motorcycle accidents are common. Drivers turning from Sepulveda onto side streets often fail to spot oncoming bikes.
The 105 Freeway along the north edge of El Segundo is another hot spot. Lane splitting riders moving through slow traffic between the Sepulveda and Nash exits get hit when drivers change lanes without checking blind spots. On-ramps and off-ramps at Sepulveda, Imperial Highway, and La Cienega create frequent merge conflicts.
Pacific Coast Highway has the same pattern. Drivers turning left into neighborhoods and businesses miss motorcycles coming the other way, particularly near Grand Avenue and Rosecrans. The 405 at the El Segundo Boulevard and Rosecrans exits carries faster-moving traffic, and left-turn crashes on nearby surface streets tend to be more severe because drivers are moving at freeway speeds on arterial roads.
Imperial Highway, Aviation Boulevard, and Mariposa Avenue all see regular left-turn and lane-change crashes involving riders. The heavy business district traffic in El Segundo means drivers are often rushing between offices, parking lots, and meetings without scanning carefully for smaller vehicles.
California law holds drivers responsible for crashes caused by their failure to look. A driver who turns left in front of an oncoming motorcycle is almost always at fault under California Vehicle Code Section 21801, even if they swear they never saw the bike. The law requires drivers to yield to oncoming traffic, and "I didn't see them" is not a legal defense.
California is a pure comparative fault state. That means your recovery is reduced by your share of the blame, but even a rider found 90% at fault can still recover 10% of damages. This is more rider-friendly than what most states use. Still, insurance companies push hard to shift blame onto riders, especially lane splitting riders. They argue the rider was moving too fast between cars, riding unsafely, or failed to react in time.
Evidence defeats those tactics. A police report, witness statements, photos of the scene, and traffic camera footage all help prove the driver failed to Check Twice. Crash reconstruction can show exactly how the collision happened and where the driver's sight lines should have included the motorcycle.
Riders can't force drivers to Look Twice, Save a Life. What they can do is ride in ways that make it harder for drivers to miss them and easier to react when drivers make mistakes.
None of these steps excuse a driver who fails to look. They give riders a fighting chance when drivers do.
The first step is medical care. Even if you feel fine, injuries from motorcycle crashes often appear hours or days later. Head injuries, internal bleeding, and soft tissue damage don't always show up at the scene. Get checked at a hospital.
Call the police and get an official crash report. The report documents what the driver said at the scene, including any admission that they didn't see you. Those statements carry weight later with insurance adjusters and juries.
Photograph everything if you are able. Take pictures of both vehicles, the intersection, skid marks, traffic signals, and your injuries. Get the names and phone numbers of any witnesses. Witnesses are often the strongest evidence in a failure-to-look case because they saw what the driver claims they didn't.
Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurance company before speaking with a lawyer. Adjusters ask questions designed to make riders admit partial fault. A simple "I was coming down Sepulveda" can be twisted into a claim that you were speeding or lane splitting unsafely.
California gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit. For claims against government entities under the California Government Claims Act, you must file within six months. Our motorcycle accident attorneys in El Segundo recommend getting legal help well before any deadline closes.
Motorcycle crash cases are fought differently than car cases. Juries often carry unfair assumptions about riders, and insurance companies know it. They use those assumptions to cut settlement offers and shift blame onto the rider, especially in lane splitting cases where drivers claim the rider came out of nowhere.
A motorcycle accident lawyer in El Segundo who knows California roads, local crash patterns, and the specific intersections where failure-to-look crashes happen can build a case that counters those tactics. That means crash reconstruction, witness interviews, review of any traffic camera or business surveillance footage, and expert testimony when needed.
Our motorcycle accident lawyers in El Segundo fight to make sure the driver who failed to look is the one held responsible, not the rider who had no chance to avoid the crash.
May is Motorcycle Awareness Month, but the risk doesn't end when the month does. If a driver failed to Look Twice, Save a Life and hit you on Sepulveda Boulevard, PCH, the 105, or anywhere in the South Bay, call Bloom Injury Law today. Our El Segundo motorcycle accident attorneys will review your case for free and fight for the recovery you deserve.
If you've experienced an injury due to someone else's negligence, contact Bloom Injury Law today for a free consultation. Call (310) 525-5985 or contact us online.
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