Missouri June Motorcycle Accidents & Heat Hazards
June is the month Missouri motorcyclists live for. The weather is finally good, the Ozarks are bursting with life, and those wide-open roads are beckoning. It’s a great time to ride, but also one of the deadliest. June summer riding in Missouri is a bit of a perfect storm: brutal heat that quietly eats at your reaction time, a yearly flood of tourists, glare from the sun, and rural highways where getting clipped by a driver who can’t see you is a real possibility. That’s why our St. Joseph Missouri motorcycle accident lawyers team here at Patterson Legal Group have prepared this guide for you on June summer riding safety in Missouri tips.
Why June Is The Worst Time for Missouri Motorcycle Accidents
It’s easy to assume that most crashes happen in the dead of winter or during a thunderstorm. But for motorcyclists, the truth is June is a lot more deadly than January—because the things that cause these accidents can sneak up on you, and riders don’t always see them coming.
Traffic expands overnight. Memorial Day weekend basically begins summer in Missouri, and within a week the number of cars on popular routes–like U.S. 60, the Lake of the Ozarks loop roads, Highway 13, and I-29 north to St. Joseph–can basically double overnight. More cars means more lane changes, more merging, and more blind spot encounters.
Tourists have no idea how to share the road. The Missouri tourism industry is huge in the summer. Millions of visitors come to Branson, Table Rock Lake, the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, and all the other popular spots in June. And the thing is, most of these visitors are driving unfamiliar vehicles on roads they’ve never seen before, with a GPS telling them where to go while they’re trying to corral kids, pets, and boat trailers.
If they’re not used to sharing the road with motorcycles back home, they’re way less likely to be checking for bikes when they’re changing lanes. The same lack of attention applies if they are at a rural intersection where a motorcycle can appear out of nowhere and disappear just as fast.
Sun glare is at its worst. June has the longest days of the year in Missouri, which means more dealing with glare from the sun, and that means even more chances for accidents. A rider coming into an intersection late in the afternoon heading west can literally be invisible to an oncoming driver because the sun is right in their eyes. This isn’t some hypothetical; it’s a real pattern our team sees all the time in June.
June Summer Riding Safety in Missouri: Heat Exhaustion
When it comes to June hazards, heat exhaustion is the one that people tend to really underestimate and the one thing you can actually do something about.
When you’re on your bike in Missouri in June, you’re putting out a lot of body heat from the effort of riding, you’re absorbing radiant heat off the scorching asphalt that can get up to 150°F in the afternoons, and you’re doing it all while wearing protective gear that doesn’t always let air flow, and that’s all while you’re stuck in temperatures that are often in the 90s with a heat index that makes it feel 10 to 15 degrees hotter still. Your body is working overtime just to keep itself cool, and it can lose that battle a whole lot faster than you’d think.
What’s really sneaky about a heat exhaustion motorcycle accident is that one of the very first things this condition makes you lose is your sense of judgment, so you might not even know you’re in trouble until you’re already in danger.
Warning Signs to Pay Attention to Right Away
You stop sweating. This is a serious warning sign. When your body starts running low on fluids, the first thing it does is stop producing sweat, because that’s its main way of cooling down. If you stop sweating on a hot day, get off the road immediately.
You get dizzy or feel disconnected while riding. Some people have described this as feeling like the road is tilting, or that your peripheral vision has gone out. Either way, it means your brain isn’t getting what it needs.
You get sudden muscle cramps in your hands, arms, or legs. These are all signs of heat exhaustion. Don’t ignore them.
You feel queasy or get a headache or just feel off. A lot of riders push through this, thinking they just need a snack or a rest—don’t. These are heat warning signs.
You start having trouble reading signs, judging distances, or tracking moving objects. If you start feeling like your eyes are playing tricks on you, that means your reaction time is already shot. Time to pull over.
Prevention: Good Sense That Actually Works
Hydrate before you start riding. Load up on water about an hour before you hit the road. By the time you feel thirsty on a hot day, you’re already dehydrated, and that’s too late.
Make time for breaks every hour or so. Get in some shade, drink cool water, and take at least 10-15 minutes to let your body cool off.
Avoid riding between 1:00 and 4:00 p.m. on those super hot days. Missouri’s heat index can get above 100F in the afternoon in June. If you can take your rides in the morning or early evening instead, that’s not only better for your body but also safer.
Bring some electrolytes along, not just water. Long rides in the heat suck the salt and potassium right out of you, leaving you open to cramps. Sports drinks or adding some electrolyte tablets to your water make a big difference in keeping you going and preventing your muscles from seizing up.
Riding when your body is heat-impaired is a recipe for disaster—for you and everyone around you. Pulling off early isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s just plain common sense.
How Riders Can Reduce the Risk of a Blind Spot Motorcycle Collision
Proactively avoid them. In traffic, the worst place to be is right alongside another vehicle, straight out of the driver’s line of sight and into the blind spot. Either get ahead enough that they can see you, or fall back a bit so you’ve got some distance.
Improve your visibility. Ride with your high beams on during the day—it really makes a difference in how visible you are to other drivers, especially if they’re checking their mirrors at a distance. Throwing some high-visibility gear into the mix is also a good call.
Watch for lane-change signals. Before a driver decides to merge, they usually give off a little tell, such as a slight drift towards the lane marker, a check in the mirror, or a turn signal (when they even bother). Take some time to get a read on these things and give some extra space. Defensive driving is always a good idea.
Here with June Summer Riding Safety in Missouri Tips
At Patterson Legal Group, we’re here to offer the information you need on Ozarks motorcycle crash injuries, and we’re ready to help you if you’ve been injured in such an accident. Our dedicated St. Joseph motorcycle injury attorney team has a proven track record of success in securing compensation for those in Missouri, and we’re also here for clients in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado. We will fight for you every step of the way.
Get started today with a free consultation by calling us at 888-687-2400 or going online through our secure contact form. You can also connect with our LiveChat representatives.
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The information on this blog is for informational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as legal advice for an individual case or situation. This information is not intended to create an attorney-client relationship nor does viewing this material constitute an attorney-client relationship.
