When it comes to the rules of the road, there are some you should always follow. That’s especially true for motorcycle riders who cruise down busy streets on their bikes, since they often have to keep their heads on a swivel to make sure that the vehicles around them see them as they drive down the street.
But there are riders who travel with a more casual approach to detail and don’t always follow the letter of the law on the road. For example, take this one motorcycle rider who is lucky to be alive after his bike ended up under the wheels of a large semi, which dragged him down the road for quite a bit before coming to a stop.
The incident was caught on video and shared to the Truckers Wall of Shame “Unchained” account, where it quickly generated a lot of attention from his fellow riders and critics alike.
The good news is that it doesn’t appear that the rider was hurt. However, the bad news is that he’ll likely never be able to get back on that bike.
A Motorcycle Rider’s Dangerous Move May Have Cost Him His Bike
In the video, a rider can be seen cruising behind a white van and a semi truck as they drive through a tunnel. There appeared to be quite a bit of traffic at the time, and you can see other cars ahead of both vehicles in the short clip. That’s also likely why the van and semi were driving right next to one another, with no room for the rider to pass on either side.
Instead of waiting until the flow of traffic improved, the rider decided to pull a move known as a “lane split” and attempt to ride between the two vehicles. Unfortunately for the rider, he lost control of the bike just as he got between the two vehicles, almost costing him his life.
The Semi Dragged the Rider for Several Feet
Anyone who has ever driven next to one of these trucks knows they can’t stop on a dime, so it took a little while for the trucker to come to a stop. That left the biker holding onto his ride for dear life as he tried to keep his body off the road, while sparks shot out behind him as his motorcycle dragged along the asphalt.
In the very last seconds of the clip you can see the biker stand up, which hopefully means that he didn’t have any real injuries after the incident.
People Speculated About the Cause of the Accident in the Comments
While it may have looked like the biker simply lost control of the bike, eagle-eyed followers believe that he actually got caught on the semi’s oversized load. “He didn’t catch a flag, he caught the blade of the dozer, look again,” one person said of the flags hanging off the sides of the semi to indicate that part of the load was hanging over the bed.
“He is so lucky the blade on the dozer didn’t cut through him like a knife through butter,” another person wrote.
Of course, many people chastised the biker for lane splitting in such close quarters, especially next to a semi with a clearly oversized load. “Even if it’s legal to lane split, sometimes better judgment would say no, not this time,” one person wrote.
Hopefully the rider was no worse for wear after that incident, even if his bike did bear the brunt of the damage — you have to imagine he won’t be trying that move again anytime soon!