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Are you at peace with motorcycle riders? They also die at disproportionate rates. Try to think about unvaccinated as motorcycle riders: living and risking death

by xyzzyz 5y ago

Are you at peace with motorcycle riders? They also die at disproportionate rates. Try to think about unvaccinated as motorcycle riders: living and risking death the way they enjoy it.

Blueskytech 5y ago
This is a great analogy, I’m going to use this moving forward.
analog31 5y ago
Do you mean trained, licensed, experienced, and law abiding motorcycle riders, acting on reliable information? It's certainly a good question. We do place limits on risking death in our society. I don't know if it can be based on objective criteria. We don't let people drive cars without seat belts, or attend school without certain vaccinations. Widespread exposure to a disease of the nature of COVID, under a flood of misinformation, had exactly zero advocates two years ago. I don't have an answer, and was deliberately being a bit vague about whether I'm at peace with it or not. I'm willing to leave it at being on the fence.
notch656a 5y ago
Motorcycles would probably not have been accepted were they invented yesterday. They've been grandfathered into society, like tobacco. I say this as a licensed motorcycle rider.
- analog31 5y ago
  I'm a bicyclist, same deal, except no license. There are a lot of people out there who believe that riding a bike on public roads is unacceptably risky.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    Yeah. I used to ride bikes (bicycles) in some super dense urban areas of US for years. Got hurt more on bicycles than on my motorcycles (my 70+ mph interstate crash on motorcycle not nearly as bad as getting whacked on bicycle by a valet going 10mph in downtown Chicago!) Bicyclist probably get way more injuries per mile than motorcyclists. It's risky!
    - Schroedingersat 5y ago
      Cycling isn't risky, sharing poorly designed roads with cars is risky. Dedicated, fully separated paths with no conflict points have very low fatality rates. Also, even in risky areas there is a net positive effect on mortality.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - wutbrodo 5y ago
        Yea I was going to say this. I moved to downtown Manhattan and finally mustered up the courage to start road biking after ten years of avoiding it in SF and.... It's amazing and feels almost 100% safe on the routes I take. The only real risks I've seen come from asshole deliverypeople barreling down the bike path the wrong direction, and even those risks have felt pretty capped. They've never been going fast enough that I would've been anything but banged up a bit.
    - analog31 5y ago
      Indeed, and it's very hard to assess individual safety from broad based statistics. How do cycling injuries per mile translate into my personal risk? I've had one cycling injury in 50 years, when I hit a patch of ice on a bike path and cracked a rib. Ouch. Cyclists have to figure out safety by guesswork. One thing that's reasonably certain is that cars cause the majority of cycling injuries (not counting mountain biking, which I'm not equipped for). I have a rule of thumb, which is that if a car can crash into another car, or into stationary objects such as buildings, then it can crash into a cyclist. So I look at where car crashes occur: Mostly on higher speed, congested roads, and especially at intersections. My first safety rule is route choice, and I avoid routes with a lot of car traffic. I rarely encounter cars on my commute to work.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  That’s quite likely, I agree (I am a motorcycle rider too).
- gruez 5y ago
  What about electric unicycles, which were invented "yesterday" and are legal? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pahL4MPPOek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pahL4MPPOek
  - analog31 5y ago
    The US tends to have a laissez faire approach to product safety. Rare problems are ignored unless they become newsworthy. More frequent problems are addressed through lawsuits. Regulation is applied (either new regulations or enforcement of existing ones) after the fact if problems reach a certain level of visibility or persistence. From what I can tell, Europe has more regulations and fewer lawsuits.
thenayr 5y ago
heavyset_go 5y ago
Motorcycle riders take out other people on the road, too. Even if you aren't killed by someone on a motorcycle, your family getting PTSD because their mangled corpse flew through your windshield isn't exactly a great outcome, either.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  This is of course, true, but what is your point, exactly? Are you arguing that government should ban riding motorcycles just like they are trying to ban refusing to take COVID vaccine?
- juanani 5y ago

by xyzzyz 5y ago

Are you at peace with motorcycle riders? They also die at disproportionate rates. Try to think about unvaccinated as motorcycle riders: living and risking death the way they enjoy it.

Blueskytech 5y ago

This is a great analogy, I’m going to use this moving forward.

analog31 5y ago

Do you mean trained, licensed, experienced, and law abiding motorcycle riders, acting on reliable information? It's certainly a good question. We do place limits on risking death in our society. I don't know if it can be based on objective criteria. We don't let people drive cars without seat belts, or attend school without certain vaccinations. Widespread exposure to a disease of the nature of COVID, under a flood of misinformation, had exactly zero advocates two years ago. I don't have an answer, and was deliberately being a bit vague about whether I'm at peace with it or not. I'm willing to leave it at being on the fence.

notch656a 5y ago

Motorcycles would probably not have been accepted were they invented yesterday. They've been grandfathered into society, like tobacco. I say this as a licensed motorcycle rider.

analog31 5y ago
I'm a bicyclist, same deal, except no license. There are a lot of people out there who believe that riding a bike on public roads is unacceptably risky.
- notch656a 5y ago
  Yeah. I used to ride bikes (bicycles) in some super dense urban areas of US for years. Got hurt more on bicycles than on my motorcycles (my 70+ mph interstate crash on motorcycle not nearly as bad as getting whacked on bicycle by a valet going 10mph in downtown Chicago!) Bicyclist probably get way more injuries per mile than motorcyclists. It's risky!
  - Schroedingersat 5y ago
    Cycling isn't risky, sharing poorly designed roads with cars is risky. Dedicated, fully separated paths with no conflict points have very low fatality rates. Also, even in risky areas there is a net positive effect on mortality.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - wutbrodo 5y ago
      Yea I was going to say this. I moved to downtown Manhattan and finally mustered up the courage to start road biking after ten years of avoiding it in SF and.... It's amazing and feels almost 100% safe on the routes I take. The only real risks I've seen come from asshole deliverypeople barreling down the bike path the wrong direction, and even those risks have felt pretty capped. They've never been going fast enough that I would've been anything but banged up a bit.
  - analog31 5y ago
    Indeed, and it's very hard to assess individual safety from broad based statistics. How do cycling injuries per mile translate into my personal risk? I've had one cycling injury in 50 years, when I hit a patch of ice on a bike path and cracked a rib. Ouch. Cyclists have to figure out safety by guesswork. One thing that's reasonably certain is that cars cause the majority of cycling injuries (not counting mountain biking, which I'm not equipped for). I have a rule of thumb, which is that if a car can crash into another car, or into stationary objects such as buildings, then it can crash into a cyclist. So I look at where car crashes occur: Mostly on higher speed, congested roads, and especially at intersections. My first safety rule is route choice, and I avoid routes with a lot of car traffic. I rarely encounter cars on my commute to work.
xyzzyz 5y ago
That’s quite likely, I agree (I am a motorcycle rider too).
gruez 5y ago
What about electric unicycles, which were invented "yesterday" and are legal? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pahL4MPPOek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pahL4MPPOek
- analog31 5y ago
  The US tends to have a laissez faire approach to product safety. Rare problems are ignored unless they become newsworthy. More frequent problems are addressed through lawsuits. Regulation is applied (either new regulations or enforcement of existing ones) after the fact if problems reach a certain level of visibility or persistence. From what I can tell, Europe has more regulations and fewer lawsuits.

thenayr 5y ago

heavyset_go 5y ago

Motorcycle riders take out other people on the road, too. Even if you aren't killed by someone on a motorcycle, your family getting PTSD because their mangled corpse flew through your windshield isn't exactly a great outcome, either.

xyzzyz 5y ago
This is of course, true, but what is your point, exactly? Are you arguing that government should ban riding motorcycles just like they are trying to ban refusing to take COVID vaccine?
juanani 5y ago