As the Maine Sunday Telegram reported on June 2, a 29-year-old Saco motorcyclist was seriously injured the day before when a car driven by an 18-year-old pulled out in front of him on Route 302 in Naples. The motorcyclist, who was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash, apparently couldn’t avoid the collision. He was flown by helicopter to the Maine Medical Center, where he was being treated for what police described as potentially life-threatening injuries.

It would have helped had the newspaper reported it this way. Instead, the staff report said the motorcyclist was injured “when his motorcycle collided with a vehicle on busy Route 302 in Naples.” It wasn’t until the third paragraph of the article that readers were given enough information to figure out what had happened. The driver of the car “turned left onto Route 302 from Kansas Road,” the report said. “As he was turning, (the motorcyclist) struck the driver’s side of the vehicle with his 2007 Kawasaki motorcycle.”

While technically correct, this is like saying that someone was injured when his head ran into a fist in a scuffle outside an Old Port tavern. Or that someone was hurt when he ran into a car in a crosswalk on Commercial Street. In other words, the report makes the motorcyclist the active cause of the accident, not the other way around.

The only possible way this accident could have happened is that the driver of the car didn’t look or wasn’t paying attention and pulled out in front of the motorcyclist. Indeed, we learn in the next-to-last paragraph that the driver was issued a summons for failing to yield.

Motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable on the road, and unexpected turns by inattentive drivers are a lethal peril.

A vehicle pulling out in front of an approaching motorcyclist, as was the case here, is one hazard. Another is a driver turning left into the path of an oncoming motorcycle – a depressingly common occurrence and an especially ugly scenario.

There is virtually nothing a motorcyclist can do to avoid a crash, and while protective gear such as helmets and specialized clothing certainly helps, that’s no guarantee the rider will escape uninjured or even alive. Even hypervigilant motorcyclists alert for this possibility are essentially defenseless. The widespread use of cellphones by drivers makes it worse.

I believe it would be helpful if reporters and editors were more careful in reporting these accidents, and more precise in choosing and prioritizing their words. Get the basics right, including the displacement of the motorcycle, and include details such as whether or not the rider was wearing a helmet. If accidents like these are reported in greater detail, more drivers may be coaxed into paying better attention.