What Was This Biker Thinking When Brake Checking An SUV?

Riding a motorcycle is dangerous and if you’re not careful or sensible, things can go very wrong very quickly. The biker featured in this video recently learned that lesson the hard way.

The following incident occurred in Washington State and dashcam footage of it was shared to Reddit. Even though the clip is only 9 seconds long, it shows how quickly things can go wrong if you’re on two wheels and try to mess with someone on four wheels.

Initially, the clip shows the biker splitting between the cammer and a white Lexus IS. Lane-splitting like this is completely legal in many places but Washington isn’t one of them. Things quickly take a dramatic turn as the motorcyclist briefly turns their head to the left, likely looking at the SUV or the cammer themselves. At the same time, the biker hits the brakes and swerves slightly to the left, putting them directly into the path of the SUV.

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With no time to react, the white SUV crashes into the motorcyclist, pushing them down to the pavement and appearing to run over both the bike and the rider.

Writing on Reddit, the cammer says that the motorcyclist jumped away to the right after impact and managed to escape with a broken leg and no life-threatening injuries. We suspect the bike was destroyed.

As for the SUV, it was a 1998 Mercury Mountaineer and was deemed totaled after the wreck but the owner bought it back, noting that the damage was very light.

The reasons behind the motorcylist’s actions are unclear. The cammer suspects that the biker intentionally brake-checked him but as any motorcyclist of sound mind will tell you, that’s an extremely stupid idea. We also think it is possible that the biker simply freaked out while splitting between the two vehicles and accidentally grabbed the brake.