Motorcycle Crash Causes Rider to Plummet Over Guardrail

Occurred on February 15, 2019 / Tampa, Florida, USA

Info from Licensor: "This video depicts the motorcycle crash which occurred on Interstate 4 Eastbound on the bridge over E Columbus Drive in Tampa, Florida. Two motorcycles were dodging in and out of traffic. I was in the center lane of traffic and my dash camera runs continuously. They quickly darted around me to my right to pass me and a cement mixer in the right lane. As they passed the cement mixer in the right lane, they quickly moved back to the right lane. The lead motorcycle, which had a driver and passenger began to break or downshift and slowed. The driver on the second bike didn't break in time and his front tire bumped the rear tire of the lead bike. This bump caused his bike to veer right toward the guardrail. His bike struck the right guardrail directly enough to cause the rear tire to lift off the ground. The vertical motion of the back tire took him off the bike. His lateral momentum carried him onto and then over the guardrail because the guardrail and his bike were the same height. He tried to grab the guardrail with his right arm until it hit a construction sign attached to the guardrail. This shattered his arm and slung his glove directly at my car. He fell from there down onto E Columbus Dr where he landed in the center of the two-lane road. The bridge is approximately 35 feet high but including the angle at which he fell, he traveled about 100 feet before striking the ground. He was still breathing when we looked over the rail but there was nowhere for us to climb down to assist him. Passengers from the vehicles now blocked on Columbus Drive called 911 and an ambulance was there within minutes. Within two minutes of their arrival, they began CPR on him."