It’s not hard to see why motorcycles almost always wind up bearing the brunt of any collision with a passenger vehicle. After all, when you take the heavier mass of a passenger car or truck and multiply it by its acceleration, you get a large amount of force being absorbed by the bike and its occupants. But what some people forget is that a similar force can be attained if the acceleration is coming from the motorcycle, not the passenger vehicle.

It is this second scenario that proved deadly for a motorcyclist over the weekend in Las Vegas. Just before 11pm on Saturday night, a 45-year old man was operating a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and was transporting a 51-year old woman as a passenger. The bike had exited U.S. 95 North and tried to make a left turn onto Rainbow Boulevard. But the bike turned too sharply and began traveling the wrong way in traffic, where it slammed head-on into a Ford F-150 pickup truck that had stopped in the left turn lane. The force of the impact ejected both of the bike’s occupants onto the roadway. The man was pronounced dead on the scene, while the woman was rushed to University Medical Center with critical injuries.

It is pretty apparent that the fault of this motorcycle accident lies with the 45-year old man. Even though he did not survive the crash, the 51-year old woman still has the option of filing a personal injury lawsuit against his estate if she wishes to do so.