Fall Riding Hazards in Western New York: What Bites Buffalo Riders in October and November
Ask most Western New York riders and they will tell you fall is the payoff. The summer heat finally breaks, the weekday traffic thins out, and a run south into the Enchanted Mountains toward Ellicottville, a loop through Allegany State Park, or a cruise along Route 5 through the Chautauqua wine country with the hardwoods turning gold is the reason you bought the bike. It is also the season that puts more good riders on the ground than any other. The same cool mornings and colorful roads hide traction traps and wildlife that simply do not exist in July, and in New York the way the insurance rules treat motorcyclists makes a fall crash even more punishing than it looks. Knowing what October and November throw at you is half the fight.
The deer rut is the number one fall hazard down south
Western New York does not have a deer problem, it has a deer season, and it lands squarely in the fall. October and November are the rut, when bucks are chasing does and both are on the move at all hours, crossing roads they normally avoid. Erie, Niagara, Cattaraugus, and Chautauqua counties sit in some of the highest deer-strike country in the state, and the rural two-lanes riders love in the fall are exactly where the deer live. The wooded runs through Allegany State Park, the backroads around Zoar Valley and Letchworth, the wine-country roads off Route 5, and the tree-walled Southtowns lanes on the way to Ellicottville are prime crossing ground. For a car a deer strike is a bad morning. For a rider it can be the whole ballgame.
Deer move most at dawn and dusk, the same low-light hours a cool fall morning or evening ride is most tempting. They also travel in groups, so the one that just bolted across your lane is often not the last. Scan the shoulders and the treeline, not just the pavement, and back your speed down on any wooded two-lane at first and last light so you actually have room to react.
Wet leaves are grease, and they hide in the curves
A dry leaf is nothing. A wet, matted layer of leaves is close to riding on ice. It hides the road surface underneath, covers painted lines and potholes, and tears grip away the instant you lean or brake on top of it. Leaves pile up worst in exactly the places you least want to lose traction: the shaded sweepers on the roads into the Enchanted Mountains, the tree-lined lanes through the wine country and the Southtowns that never see full sun, and the off-ramps and shoulders where they collect against the curb. A country sweeper you have railed a hundred times in summer can be a different animal in November when it stays damp under the canopy all day.
- ✓ Treat shaded curves as wet. Corners under heavy tree cover down in Allegany, Zoar Valley, and the Southtowns hold moisture and leaves long after the open road has dried.
- ✓ Do your braking upright and early. Get your speed off before the leaves, not on top of them, so you are not asking a leaf-covered surface for grip mid-lean.
- ✓ Respect cold bridge decks and expansion joints. The steel joints and older bridge decks over the creeks and gorges out in the county get glassy the moment they are wet or frosty. Cross them upright with steady throttle and no sudden inputs.
- ✓ Respect cold tires for the first few miles. Rubber needs heat to grip, and on a 40-degree Buffalo morning your tires are stiff and cold. Take it easy until they warm up before you push a corner.
- ✓ Check your tire pressure more often. Pressure drops about a pound for every ten-degree fall in temperature, and an underinflated tire handles worse right when the roads are least forgiving.
Early sunsets, low sun, and the first cold snaps
Fall does not just change the road surface, it changes the light. As the days shorten, the evening ride slides into dusk, and the clocks falling back in early November pushes sunset into the late afternoon. You are harder to see, and a driver who "just didn't see the motorcycle" has even more cover for that excuse. Reflective gear and running your headlight stop being optional. Then there is the glare. In fall the sun sits low right at the times most people are driving, blasting straight down the east-west roads through rush hour. A driver blinded by low sun on a county highway, a Southtowns arterial, or a bridge approach may never register you until it is too late. Add the season's first hard cold snaps, which leave shaded overpasses, bridge decks, and low spots frosty at dawn before the rest of the road, and you have a stack of hazards that all land on the same ride. Assume that at sunrise and sunset half the drivers around you are squinting into a wall of light, and give yourself extra space and an escape route at every intersection.
Lake-effect can end the season overnight
The one hazard that belongs to Western New York more than almost anywhere else is the early lake-effect squall. A November afternoon can start dry and 55 degrees and turn, within an hour, into a whiteout snow band rolling in off Lake Erie, dropping temperatures and dumping snow on the Southtowns and the ski-country roads while downtown stays clear. A squall does not just cut visibility, it lays down wet snow and slush that a bike cannot handle, and it can strand you far from home on cold, slick pavement. Watch the forecast hard once the calendar turns to November, do not trust a warm morning to hold, and know your bailout routes. When the lake decides the season is over, it does not give much notice.
Why a fall crash hits New York riders harder
Here is the part too many Western New York riders learn after the crash instead of before it. New York is a no-fault state, but its no-fault law specifically does not cover motorcyclists. A car occupant can tap no-fault PIP for their own medical bills and lost wages no matter who caused the wreck. A rider cannot. That means after a fall crash your own bills do not just get paid automatically, and recovering them usually depends on proving the other driver was at fault. That is exactly why the insurance company will fight so hard to hang blame on you, arguing you were riding too fast for a wet corner or should have seen the deer. Do not let "it was slippery out" get twisted into "the rider caused it." Wet leaves and low sun do not hand a careless driver a free pass.
- ✓ No-fault excludes motorcycles. New York's PIP system does not pay a motorcyclist's own injuries, so recovering after a fall crash usually means proving the other driver was at fault.
- ✓ Pure comparative negligence. New York reduces your recovery by your share of fault but never bars it entirely, so even a partly-blamed rider still has a claim worth protecting.
- ✓ Universal helmet law. Every rider and passenger in New York must wear a DOT-approved helmet, no exceptions, so keep yours on and make it work for you.
- ✓ Three years to file. The statute of limitations on a New York personal injury claim is generally three years, and it is shorter when a public entity like a county or the NFTA is involved, so waiting can quietly end a valid case.
If a fall-condition crash does happen, protect yourself and get medical care first, because hidden injuries have a way of surfacing days later. Then document the conditions while they are fresh: photograph the leaves, the low sun, the frosty bridge deck, the deer, and the exact spot it happened. In a state where no-fault leaves riders out and fault decides everything, those details are not a formality, they are the difference between a full claim and a fight.
Led by Rick Nicotra, The Nicotra Law Firm in Buffalo fights for injured motorcyclists. Reach out to their motorcycle accident lawyers in Buffalo anytime you need real answers.