Two Sonoma County men are dead after a weekend motorcycle accident in Petaluma. The Petaluma Patch reports that speed appears to be the primary factor in this accident, which occurred Sunday afternoon around 2:30 p.m.
The accident happened on Magnolia Avenue on a curve which the motorcycle driver failed to negotiate. The motorcycle slammed into a guardrail on the edge of the road at a sharp turn. The motorcycle driver died instantly in the crash and his passenger suffered critical personal injuries. Emergency crews found the passenger pinned underneath the guard rail and had to excise the passenger by cutting the wooded post of the guard rail.
Despite being alive for the rescue, the passenger expired on his way to the hospital. These are the third and fourth traffic accidents for Petaluma this year which marks a poor turn for a city that had no traffic fatalities in the prior four years.
This accident also highlights the fact that helmet use is not a guarantee that a motorcyclist will survive a crash. A helmet can drastically cut down on the number of fatal head injuries that a motorcyclist may suffer, but motorcyclists still have little to protect themselves from other blunt force injuries which often occur in a crash.
Source: Petaluma Patch, “UPDATE: Driver and Passenger Identified in Weekend Motorcycle Crash,” Karina Loffee, May 28, 2012
