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Getting a motorcycle license was a very good thing I've done for my life. Cruising on long roads, beautiful views, wild camping and meeting other people in a li

Getting a motorcycle license was a very good thing I've done for my life. Cruising on long roads, beautiful views, wild camping and meeting other people in a like-minded community. It really heals your mind and body. But obviously it comes with higher risk as you are more exposed and higher demands on your abilities. And good gear can help, but if it is not combined with training and of course a sound attitude, you may sooner or later find yourself in an undesirable situation. Go to refresher courses. I do it every year to update myself and get an idea of my current limits. It really helps. To see what I meant about attitude, just go on Instagram and check for motorcycle reels, you'll see soo many examples of how to not act in traffic or what to do on a motorcycle.

xandrius 1y ago
I love the idea but our roads almost worldwide are cursed with ever-present cars which do not cars about anything else. I've heard lots of and lots of near-misses, accidents and bullshit interactions between bikes/motorbikes and cars. I just finished reading a travelogue about the dude who cycled around the world in 1800s. Sure, one could do it today but the roads he was riding on were almost empty, now you would have to be cautious every time, since 1 asshole and you're out.
- diggan 1y ago
  > our roads almost worldwide are cursed with ever-present cars which do not cars about anything else Kind of feel like you're over-generalizing here. Where I live, there is almost more motorbikes than cars a lot of the time, which considering the rush hour traffic, kind of makes sense as most people don't wanna get stuck in those queues. Of course, there are accidents and near-misses (almost by definition, since those on motorbikes tend to go between car lanes), but it's not like there is a 99% chance of you dying every time you use a motorbike. I think it depends a lot on how used to motorbikes the car drivers are. Since I live in a place where there is a bunch of them always (and cyclists!), I feel like most of us pay attention to where they could show up. Compare that to countries where motorbiking isn't as popular, I could understand how it's more risky to go with the motorbike as the car-ists aren't as used to them appearing wherever.
  - plemer 1y ago
    My doctor buddy told of a room in the hospital called the Cabbage Patch, full of braindead people who absolutely will die but can’t be let to die yet. Who is that room full of? Consider that the fatality rate is roughly 30 times higher per mile for motorcycles vs cars. I fully understand the freedom of the open road riding on a metal stallion - I’ve genuinely never felt anything else like it. But it’s really god damn dangerous. Let’s not kid ourselves.
    - diggan 1y ago
      > Consider that the fatality rate is roughly 30 times higher per mile for motorcycles vs cars. I guess it's worth asking, what country? In Spain, I think it's closer to ~10x, probably because we're very used to motorcycles driving all around us all the time. But still, riskier, no doubt. I'm guessing that numbers come from the US in some way or similar? Watching dashcam footage sometimes, I keep seeing people riding motorbikes in the US without helmets, something I almost never seen in Spanish traffic, I can only recall seeing that once in my life, and it's really uncommon to ride a bike without a helmet here. > But it’s really god damn dangerous. Let’s not kid ourselves. Agree, I'm not trying to convince anyone of otherwise. But lets have nuance as well, riding a motorcycle isn't the same everywhere, especially where motorcycles are really, really commonplace in daily traffic.
      - theshackleford 1y ago
        > I guess it's worth asking, what country? In Spain, I think it's closer to ~10x From what I've been able to gather, it looks to be closer to 20-23x on a per kilometer basis.
      - hilbert42 1y ago
        "I keep seeing people riding motorbikes in the US without helmets, something I almost never seen in Spanish traffic, <…>, it's really uncommon to ride a bike without a helmet here." In many countries it's illegal to ride without a helmet, where I am the cops would catch you in an instant.
    - 1y ago
- potato3732842 1y ago
  There was literally 1/5th as many people on earth in 1900 as there were today. Of course the roads were empty. Even if you compare to 75yr ago there's been a doubling of population in many countries.
  - giantg2 1y ago
    "There was literally 1/5th as many people on earth in 1900 as there were today. Of course the roads were empty." We're there 1/5 the number of roads back then? Number of people might not be the best measure of density. Number of people in a specific walkable/short horse rideable location, such as a city would. I think the bigger thing is that trains were the main mode of distance travel on land and very few people traveled more than 50 miles from home in their life.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      >We're there 1/5 the number of roads back then? Probably more like 1/2 or 3/4 depending on how you want to count dead end office park and residential subdivision roads of which there are many. Pretty much every road in the US and Europe that isn't in the above category or a purpose built highway existed in 1900, and likely 1850 if you're looking at europe or the american northeast. Obviously size and quality was lesser, many times they weren't even paved. But they existed because they were the roads between towns and points of interest.
      - giantg2 1y ago
        I doubt this. The interstate project in US added a massive number of roads. Not just the interstate, but new tributaries. Those office parks and subdivisions have to hook up to stuff too.
oulipo 1y ago
[flagged]
- theshackleford 1y ago
  What are you talking about? My bike is quieter than most cars. How about not generalising?
  - oulipo 1y ago
    It's not, it's fucking loud. Source: I live in a city, and I see that 99% of bikes are fucking twice louder as any car
    - theshackleford 1y ago
      > It's not, it's fucking loud. It's not. Source: I actually own it rather than having to rely on making broad generalisations. > I live in a city I also live in a city, many of us do. You are not unique. Many of us in my street have had to file numerous noise complaints against various cars in the street, yet i've never received a single complaint about my bike. > I see that 99% of bikes are fucking twice louder as any car Sounds like an issue specific to were you live. I couldnt tell you the last time I heard a bike around here, but the peace is disturbed here by a car almost every other minute of the day. In fact, we have to pack up and move house because our neighbours car and his friends cars are so absurdly loud and they will sit there and just rev the shit out of them for 20-30 minutes at a time multiple times a day.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  You're probably on the wrong side of history. As society gets wealthier fancy toys like motorcycles proliferate and more people have a stake in being able to use them. I think the way the flood of Side by Sides onto the market gave enough of the public an interest in off road motoring to overwhelm the "hikers only" advocates decades old tactic of variously allying with different groups to get the others kicked out is highly illustrative here. When motorcycles are commonly electric and require basically no maintenance and can simply be turned on in the spring year after year the barrier to entry is gonna drop even further and you're really gonna be up shit creek.
lifis 1y ago
I think that motorcycle and e-bike safety can be greatly enhanced by never doing things a car couldn't do. Always stay in the middle of the lane (unless you need to avoid a pothole), never overtake unless a car would have space to overtake, never enter an intersection alongside a car in the same lane. On a bike, you also have the option of behaving like a pedestrian (cycle on the sidewalk slowly) occasionally. If you don't do this, it's only a matter of time before a car hits you because it didn't expect a vehicle or pedestrian doing what you are doing.
- travoc 1y ago
  The middle of the lane is where cars drip years of oil and coolant.
- giantg2 1y ago
  "Always stay in the middle of the lane" Usually the middle is more slick from oil drips and contains more debris. That's why most people ride in one of the tire tracks from the cars.
  - Zambyte 1y ago
    It's also the best place to be to maximize damage if you happen to rear ended. It's also illegal where I live (edit: for specifically e-bikes).
    - s0ss 1y ago
      Also, riding where cars/trucks/whatever mirrors are able to see you is another dimension.
      - reddit_clone 1y ago
        Also you can see much farther between cars. I usually ride switching left of the lane to right of the lane occasionally, to create lateral movement so car drivers will notice more (one hopes).
- 1y ago
TacticalCoder 1y ago
I've done MX (Yamaha YZ 250 two strokes: a monster), enduro (big mono-cylinder) and road driving on a variety of motorbikes. Road driving is by very far the most dangerous of them all. I just quit about 15 years ago. Now I'm a petrolhead at heart so I still enjoy scenic roads but with a car. It's much safer.
- theshackleford 1y ago
  > Now I'm a petrolhead at heart so I still enjoy scenic roads but with a car. It's much safer. I've tried it in a car, but it's not the same. For me, it's not even 1/10th of the experience of being on a bike. It's like all the soul has been sucked out of it. I might as well be in a minivan on the freeway for all the joy it gives me. I'm not riding at the moment due to an unrelated (incomplete) spinal cord injury and some long term issues relating to that, and so i've been trying it in a car, and I even bought a "fun" car thinking it would help. But it just feels so...meh that i've largely just given it up full stop and am going to just sell the car. I'd been riding since I was five years old, I dont think anything will ever touch it for me honestly. It was my zen place, the place I was truely happiest and at peace. It's been the biggest loss for me since my injury. There is still a chance I could one day return to riding, so i've kept the bike (a 2012 BMW F800GS) out of sheer hope, but I must admit that it's likely by the time I can physically, I may no longer be mentally capable of the return.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  I tell people worried about motorcycles (I've had motorcycles around more or less since I was 12) — if safety is the most important thing for you, skip motorcycles (and bicycling, etc.). I'm surprised how often people project their own fears on me with comments like, "Aren't you afraid you'll get killed?" As though that never occurred to me, ha ha. Obviously I choose to do some things in life that are not the safest — but I do them because they make life more worth living. (Sound like a bumper sticker? Hopefully you get the point though.) Likely there are things others do that add a degree of risk to their life but they feel are worth it.
lylejantzi3rd 1y ago
If you're really worried about it you could buy an airbag. FortNine on motorcycle airbags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2jZryt607U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2jZryt607U
- ubermonkey 1y ago
  I'll chime in here and note that, until very recently, there wasn't an airbag system that really appealed enough to ME. The affordable ones, now long in the tooth, required a tether. The nicer ones were built into vests that weighted more, were hotter, and sometimes required a subscription, meaning a billing error could result in a nonfunctional safety device. Um, no. AlpineStars released one that was ALMOST right a year or two ago called the Techair 5. It was (is) accelerometer driven, so no tether, and while it has an app it doesn't require a subscription. However, it IS heavy, and it IS hot, and it DOES require that you mail it in to be serviced after a deployment, so that was still a no-go for me. However, last year AStars released the updated TechAir 5 Plasma, which has all the goodness of the original TechAir 5 while also being materially lighter and cooler -- plus, the canister can be replaced by the end user. It's spendy ($800 or so), but I bought one immediately. I wear it more or less every time I get on the bike. I live in the American South, so when I say I'm not any hotter wearing it than I would be without it, you know it's vented well. (In fact, I wore it on a 4-day road trip between where I used to live (Houston) and where I live now (Durham) 2 weeks ago. Was it a hot trip? Absolutely; I was riding a motorcycle in TX, LA, MS, TN, and NC in the summer. Did the airbag make me less comfortable? No.)
- jpgvm 1y ago
  Hopefully these go from being expensive pieces of gear that only few have to being completely normal/common-place. They are a great technological improvement but right now they are out of the budget of most of the motorcycling world (which outside of the West skews heavily towards lower incomes).
xnyan 1y ago
> but if it is not combined with training and of course a sound attitude, you may sooner or later find yourself in an undesirable situation. I ride motorcycles, so this is not a argument against it, but even with all the best safety gear and perfect habits you’re still significantly more likely to die in an accident compared to a motorcycle per mile driven.
- bityard 1y ago
  Motorcycle fatality and injury statistics don't control for a rider's skills, experience, or attitude. Add to that the fact that motorcycles tend to attract a large number of young thrill seekers on crotch rockets and counter-culture types on choppers--neither of which put much, if any, level of effort into safety--and you get studies and statistics saying that motorcycles are basically two-wheeled insta-death machines. Yes, a motorcycle rider will never be as protected as a person in a car surrounded by a steel frame and airbags. That should go without saying. But it would be nice if we can acknowledge that people who actually make an effort to wear their gear and maintain situational awareness generally aren't well represented in the statistics.
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    It's been probably over a decade since I dug into this, but IIRC, if you have a motorcycle license, insurance, a registered bike, and wear a helmet, your fatal accident chances drop by 70%.
    - philwelch 1y ago
      That’s equivalent to saying that if you don’t have a motorcycle license, don’t register your bike, don’t have insurance, and don’t wear your helmet, your fatal accident risk increases by over 3x. Put that way, it’s not surprising, nor does it actually tell you anything about the base rate safety of lawful motorcycling. By way of analogy, you could just as easily say “not dousing yourself in gasoline reduces the risk of death by smoking by 98%”, which is both true and useless.
hilbert42 1y ago
"Go to refresher courses. I do it every year to update myself and get an idea of my current limits. It really helps." I'll preface this by saying I love motorcycles but haven't been on one for decades. As a driver of four-wheeled vehicles, the biggest problem I have with motorcycles is seeing them. Fortunately, I've never had an accident with a motorcycle but have had some near misses. All of those were because (a) I did not see the rider and (b) they were in positions where I did not expect them to be—on my wrong side, quickly switching lanes seemingly appearing out of nowhere, etc. Whilst hardly in that league, I experienced an incident only three days ago that illustrates the point. At a shopping centre on a busy road I found a parking spot tight enough to require multiple maneuvers to park. When about to leave a motorcyclist pulled in behind me without me being aware of it (I was arranging shopping stuff so it wouldn't go everywhere when vehicle was in motion and there was no noise to indicate his presence). He wasn't there when I got in the vehicle and I couldn't see his motorcycle both from my rear vision and side mirrors. I reversed slowly and felt a resistance and stopped immediately (I touched so gently there was no noise—and not even a scratch to show). (He wasn't on the motorcycle or I definitely would have seen him.) What this motorcyclist did was to sneak into an illegal parking space so small that he effectively blocked my exit, I could not leave before he did. Sure, I wasn't really inconvenienced as he was delivering something to one of the businesses so he wasn't long. Motorcycles offer conviences other vehicles do not, here being able to park in a small space. Motorcyclists get used to such conviences without realizing that other motorists might not be aware of them. For example, motorcycles allow for easy maneuverability which tempts riders to make illegal maneuvers that car drivers wouldn't even consider doing in the same circumstance. If the last thing on a car driver's mind is an unexpected maneuver by a motorcycle then it doesn't bode well for its rider. From my experience, many motorcyclists drive from their perspective and not that of four-wheeled driver's. It's why I don't own a motorcycle, if I did then before long I'd be in motorcyclist thinking mode, and that'd be damned dangerous for my health.
- snozolli 1y ago
  on my wrong side What's a wrong side? I couldn't see his motorcycle both from my rear vision and side mirrors. You seem inattentive. The motorcyclist didn't "sneak" into a spot, he simply minded his own business and parked. You didn't even notice a motorcycle park behind you while you were moving things around inside your car? I'm sorry, but you're simply inattentive. many motorcyclists drive from their perspective and not that of four-wheeled driver's This statement strikes me as extremely ironic.
Workaccount2 1y ago
Probably the single most important thing is learning good defensive driving. Which is different than "good driving". Lots of "good drivers" T-bone the guy who ran a red light. Defensive drivers see him barreling towards the intersection, as they check both ways despite it being green. On a motorcycle, even if a crash is not your fault, you're still dead.
- jpgvm 1y ago
  The road to heaven is full of bikers who had right of way.
  - hilbert42 1y ago
    …And car drivers too (although not as many).
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Every time I make this point to bicycling communities I'm told that I'm "victim blaming." OK, you were a victim. You're still dead.
  - kjkjadksj 1y ago
    Bicycling communities suck for learning safety. The correct thing to do is take the full lane and take dutch lefts (turning right into perpendicular traffic then going straight to avoid changing to a left hand turn lane). People should be preaching it from the rooftops to save lives. Wouldn’t need to have bike lanes everywhere if people were fully taking lanes, forcing a merge to pass them, and being far more visible to traffic vs riding along the shoulder and getting doored and right and left hooked. The current bike lane gold standard of buffering traffic with parked cars means bikes are invisible at intersections and driveways to cars which is where many accidents tend to happen.
ubermonkey 1y ago
I learned to ride in my 50s, and I am 100% convinced it made me a better driver.
- mianos 1y ago
  As a motorcyclist myself, I always felt drivers should be forced to do a certain number of hours on a motorcycle to make them more aware. But, those atrocious drivers would probably get injured so quickly that the idea would never fly. Now they are just driving.
EdwardDiego 1y ago
Yeah my mindset was "Everything that happens is my fault" when riding - obviously false, but it was a good way to approach defensive riding. That car that changed lanes into me? My fault for being in its blind spot and assuming they'd actually check it. So make sure to never linger in blind spots. The car that did a u-turn in front of me that I nearly hit - my fault for not interpreting the car's body language. Make sure to note the angle of the front wheels of cars pulled to the side of the road in my scans in future. That time I low sided because I was thinking about work not my ride and then hit a corner slightly too fast right as my front wheel hit a pile of small gravel from a road resurfacing - that was entirely my fault for not focusing on the ride.

xandrius 1y ago

I love the idea but our roads almost worldwide are cursed with ever-present cars which do not cars about anything else. I've heard lots of and lots of near-misses, accidents and bullshit interactions between bikes/motorbikes and cars. I just finished reading a travelogue about the dude who cycled around the world in 1800s. Sure, one could do it today but the roads he was riding on were almost empty, now you would have to be cautious every time, since 1 asshole and you're out.

diggan 1y ago
> our roads almost worldwide are cursed with ever-present cars which do not cars about anything else Kind of feel like you're over-generalizing here. Where I live, there is almost more motorbikes than cars a lot of the time, which considering the rush hour traffic, kind of makes sense as most people don't wanna get stuck in those queues. Of course, there are accidents and near-misses (almost by definition, since those on motorbikes tend to go between car lanes), but it's not like there is a 99% chance of you dying every time you use a motorbike. I think it depends a lot on how used to motorbikes the car drivers are. Since I live in a place where there is a bunch of them always (and cyclists!), I feel like most of us pay attention to where they could show up. Compare that to countries where motorbiking isn't as popular, I could understand how it's more risky to go with the motorbike as the car-ists aren't as used to them appearing wherever.
- plemer 1y ago
  My doctor buddy told of a room in the hospital called the Cabbage Patch, full of braindead people who absolutely will die but can’t be let to die yet. Who is that room full of? Consider that the fatality rate is roughly 30 times higher per mile for motorcycles vs cars. I fully understand the freedom of the open road riding on a metal stallion - I’ve genuinely never felt anything else like it. But it’s really god damn dangerous. Let’s not kid ourselves.
  - diggan 1y ago
    > Consider that the fatality rate is roughly 30 times higher per mile for motorcycles vs cars. I guess it's worth asking, what country? In Spain, I think it's closer to ~10x, probably because we're very used to motorcycles driving all around us all the time. But still, riskier, no doubt. I'm guessing that numbers come from the US in some way or similar? Watching dashcam footage sometimes, I keep seeing people riding motorbikes in the US without helmets, something I almost never seen in Spanish traffic, I can only recall seeing that once in my life, and it's really uncommon to ride a bike without a helmet here. > But it’s really god damn dangerous. Let’s not kid ourselves. Agree, I'm not trying to convince anyone of otherwise. But lets have nuance as well, riding a motorcycle isn't the same everywhere, especially where motorcycles are really, really commonplace in daily traffic.
    - theshackleford 1y ago
      > I guess it's worth asking, what country? In Spain, I think it's closer to ~10x From what I've been able to gather, it looks to be closer to 20-23x on a per kilometer basis.
    - hilbert42 1y ago
      "I keep seeing people riding motorbikes in the US without helmets, something I almost never seen in Spanish traffic, <…>, it's really uncommon to ride a bike without a helmet here." In many countries it's illegal to ride without a helmet, where I am the cops would catch you in an instant.
  - 1y ago
potato3732842 1y ago
There was literally 1/5th as many people on earth in 1900 as there were today. Of course the roads were empty. Even if you compare to 75yr ago there's been a doubling of population in many countries.
- giantg2 1y ago
  "There was literally 1/5th as many people on earth in 1900 as there were today. Of course the roads were empty." We're there 1/5 the number of roads back then? Number of people might not be the best measure of density. Number of people in a specific walkable/short horse rideable location, such as a city would. I think the bigger thing is that trains were the main mode of distance travel on land and very few people traveled more than 50 miles from home in their life.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >We're there 1/5 the number of roads back then? Probably more like 1/2 or 3/4 depending on how you want to count dead end office park and residential subdivision roads of which there are many. Pretty much every road in the US and Europe that isn't in the above category or a purpose built highway existed in 1900, and likely 1850 if you're looking at europe or the american northeast. Obviously size and quality was lesser, many times they weren't even paved. But they existed because they were the roads between towns and points of interest.
    - giantg2 1y ago
      I doubt this. The interstate project in US added a massive number of roads. Not just the interstate, but new tributaries. Those office parks and subdivisions have to hook up to stuff too.

oulipo 1y ago

[flagged]

theshackleford 1y ago
What are you talking about? My bike is quieter than most cars. How about not generalising?
- oulipo 1y ago
  It's not, it's fucking loud. Source: I live in a city, and I see that 99% of bikes are fucking twice louder as any car
  - theshackleford 1y ago
    > It's not, it's fucking loud. It's not. Source: I actually own it rather than having to rely on making broad generalisations. > I live in a city I also live in a city, many of us do. You are not unique. Many of us in my street have had to file numerous noise complaints against various cars in the street, yet i've never received a single complaint about my bike. > I see that 99% of bikes are fucking twice louder as any car Sounds like an issue specific to were you live. I couldnt tell you the last time I heard a bike around here, but the peace is disturbed here by a car almost every other minute of the day. In fact, we have to pack up and move house because our neighbours car and his friends cars are so absurdly loud and they will sit there and just rev the shit out of them for 20-30 minutes at a time multiple times a day.
potato3732842 1y ago
You're probably on the wrong side of history. As society gets wealthier fancy toys like motorcycles proliferate and more people have a stake in being able to use them. I think the way the flood of Side by Sides onto the market gave enough of the public an interest in off road motoring to overwhelm the "hikers only" advocates decades old tactic of variously allying with different groups to get the others kicked out is highly illustrative here. When motorcycles are commonly electric and require basically no maintenance and can simply be turned on in the spring year after year the barrier to entry is gonna drop even further and you're really gonna be up shit creek.

lifis 1y ago

I think that motorcycle and e-bike safety can be greatly enhanced by never doing things a car couldn't do. Always stay in the middle of the lane (unless you need to avoid a pothole), never overtake unless a car would have space to overtake, never enter an intersection alongside a car in the same lane. On a bike, you also have the option of behaving like a pedestrian (cycle on the sidewalk slowly) occasionally. If you don't do this, it's only a matter of time before a car hits you because it didn't expect a vehicle or pedestrian doing what you are doing.

travoc 1y ago
The middle of the lane is where cars drip years of oil and coolant.
giantg2 1y ago
"Always stay in the middle of the lane" Usually the middle is more slick from oil drips and contains more debris. That's why most people ride in one of the tire tracks from the cars.
- Zambyte 1y ago
  It's also the best place to be to maximize damage if you happen to rear ended. It's also illegal where I live (edit: for specifically e-bikes).
  - s0ss 1y ago
    Also, riding where cars/trucks/whatever mirrors are able to see you is another dimension.
    - reddit_clone 1y ago
      Also you can see much farther between cars. I usually ride switching left of the lane to right of the lane occasionally, to create lateral movement so car drivers will notice more (one hopes).
1y ago

TacticalCoder 1y ago

I've done MX (Yamaha YZ 250 two strokes: a monster), enduro (big mono-cylinder) and road driving on a variety of motorbikes. Road driving is by very far the most dangerous of them all. I just quit about 15 years ago. Now I'm a petrolhead at heart so I still enjoy scenic roads but with a car. It's much safer.

theshackleford 1y ago
> Now I'm a petrolhead at heart so I still enjoy scenic roads but with a car. It's much safer. I've tried it in a car, but it's not the same. For me, it's not even 1/10th of the experience of being on a bike. It's like all the soul has been sucked out of it. I might as well be in a minivan on the freeway for all the joy it gives me. I'm not riding at the moment due to an unrelated (incomplete) spinal cord injury and some long term issues relating to that, and so i've been trying it in a car, and I even bought a "fun" car thinking it would help. But it just feels so...meh that i've largely just given it up full stop and am going to just sell the car. I'd been riding since I was five years old, I dont think anything will ever touch it for me honestly. It was my zen place, the place I was truely happiest and at peace. It's been the biggest loss for me since my injury. There is still a chance I could one day return to riding, so i've kept the bike (a 2012 BMW F800GS) out of sheer hope, but I must admit that it's likely by the time I can physically, I may no longer be mentally capable of the return.
JKCalhoun 1y ago
I tell people worried about motorcycles (I've had motorcycles around more or less since I was 12) — if safety is the most important thing for you, skip motorcycles (and bicycling, etc.). I'm surprised how often people project their own fears on me with comments like, "Aren't you afraid you'll get killed?" As though that never occurred to me, ha ha. Obviously I choose to do some things in life that are not the safest — but I do them because they make life more worth living. (Sound like a bumper sticker? Hopefully you get the point though.) Likely there are things others do that add a degree of risk to their life but they feel are worth it.

lylejantzi3rd 1y ago

If you're really worried about it you could buy an airbag. FortNine on motorcycle airbags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2jZryt607U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2jZryt607U

ubermonkey 1y ago
I'll chime in here and note that, until very recently, there wasn't an airbag system that really appealed enough to ME. The affordable ones, now long in the tooth, required a tether. The nicer ones were built into vests that weighted more, were hotter, and sometimes required a subscription, meaning a billing error could result in a nonfunctional safety device. Um, no. AlpineStars released one that was ALMOST right a year or two ago called the Techair 5. It was (is) accelerometer driven, so no tether, and while it has an app it doesn't require a subscription. However, it IS heavy, and it IS hot, and it DOES require that you mail it in to be serviced after a deployment, so that was still a no-go for me. However, last year AStars released the updated TechAir 5 Plasma, which has all the goodness of the original TechAir 5 while also being materially lighter and cooler -- plus, the canister can be replaced by the end user. It's spendy ($800 or so), but I bought one immediately. I wear it more or less every time I get on the bike. I live in the American South, so when I say I'm not any hotter wearing it than I would be without it, you know it's vented well. (In fact, I wore it on a 4-day road trip between where I used to live (Houston) and where I live now (Durham) 2 weeks ago. Was it a hot trip? Absolutely; I was riding a motorcycle in TX, LA, MS, TN, and NC in the summer. Did the airbag make me less comfortable? No.)
jpgvm 1y ago
Hopefully these go from being expensive pieces of gear that only few have to being completely normal/common-place. They are a great technological improvement but right now they are out of the budget of most of the motorcycling world (which outside of the West skews heavily towards lower incomes).

xnyan 1y ago

> but if it is not combined with training and of course a sound attitude, you may sooner or later find yourself in an undesirable situation. I ride motorcycles, so this is not a argument against it, but even with all the best safety gear and perfect habits you’re still significantly more likely to die in an accident compared to a motorcycle per mile driven.

bityard 1y ago
Motorcycle fatality and injury statistics don't control for a rider's skills, experience, or attitude. Add to that the fact that motorcycles tend to attract a large number of young thrill seekers on crotch rockets and counter-culture types on choppers--neither of which put much, if any, level of effort into safety--and you get studies and statistics saying that motorcycles are basically two-wheeled insta-death machines. Yes, a motorcycle rider will never be as protected as a person in a car surrounded by a steel frame and airbags. That should go without saying. But it would be nice if we can acknowledge that people who actually make an effort to wear their gear and maintain situational awareness generally aren't well represented in the statistics.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  It's been probably over a decade since I dug into this, but IIRC, if you have a motorcycle license, insurance, a registered bike, and wear a helmet, your fatal accident chances drop by 70%.
  - philwelch 1y ago
    That’s equivalent to saying that if you don’t have a motorcycle license, don’t register your bike, don’t have insurance, and don’t wear your helmet, your fatal accident risk increases by over 3x. Put that way, it’s not surprising, nor does it actually tell you anything about the base rate safety of lawful motorcycling. By way of analogy, you could just as easily say “not dousing yourself in gasoline reduces the risk of death by smoking by 98%”, which is both true and useless.

hilbert42 1y ago

"Go to refresher courses. I do it every year to update myself and get an idea of my current limits. It really helps." I'll preface this by saying I love motorcycles but haven't been on one for decades. As a driver of four-wheeled vehicles, the biggest problem I have with motorcycles is seeing them. Fortunately, I've never had an accident with a motorcycle but have had some near misses. All of those were because (a) I did not see the rider and (b) they were in positions where I did not expect them to be—on my wrong side, quickly switching lanes seemingly appearing out of nowhere, etc. Whilst hardly in that league, I experienced an incident only three days ago that illustrates the point. At a shopping centre on a busy road I found a parking spot tight enough to require multiple maneuvers to park. When about to leave a motorcyclist pulled in behind me without me being aware of it (I was arranging shopping stuff so it wouldn't go everywhere when vehicle was in motion and there was no noise to indicate his presence). He wasn't there when I got in the vehicle and I couldn't see his motorcycle both from my rear vision and side mirrors. I reversed slowly and felt a resistance and stopped immediately (I touched so gently there was no noise—and not even a scratch to show). (He wasn't on the motorcycle or I definitely would have seen him.) What this motorcyclist did was to sneak into an illegal parking space so small that he effectively blocked my exit, I could not leave before he did. Sure, I wasn't really inconvenienced as he was delivering something to one of the businesses so he wasn't long. Motorcycles offer conviences other vehicles do not, here being able to park in a small space. Motorcyclists get used to such conviences without realizing that other motorists might not be aware of them. For example, motorcycles allow for easy maneuverability which tempts riders to make illegal maneuvers that car drivers wouldn't even consider doing in the same circumstance. If the last thing on a car driver's mind is an unexpected maneuver by a motorcycle then it doesn't bode well for its rider. From my experience, many motorcyclists drive from their perspective and not that of four-wheeled driver's. It's why I don't own a motorcycle, if I did then before long I'd be in motorcyclist thinking mode, and that'd be damned dangerous for my health.

snozolli 1y ago
on my wrong side What's a wrong side? I couldn't see his motorcycle both from my rear vision and side mirrors. You seem inattentive. The motorcyclist didn't "sneak" into a spot, he simply minded his own business and parked. You didn't even notice a motorcycle park behind you while you were moving things around inside your car? I'm sorry, but you're simply inattentive. many motorcyclists drive from their perspective and not that of four-wheeled driver's This statement strikes me as extremely ironic.

Workaccount2 1y ago

Probably the single most important thing is learning good defensive driving. Which is different than "good driving". Lots of "good drivers" T-bone the guy who ran a red light. Defensive drivers see him barreling towards the intersection, as they check both ways despite it being green. On a motorcycle, even if a crash is not your fault, you're still dead.

jpgvm 1y ago
The road to heaven is full of bikers who had right of way.
- hilbert42 1y ago
  …And car drivers too (although not as many).
SoftTalker 1y ago
Every time I make this point to bicycling communities I'm told that I'm "victim blaming." OK, you were a victim. You're still dead.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  Bicycling communities suck for learning safety. The correct thing to do is take the full lane and take dutch lefts (turning right into perpendicular traffic then going straight to avoid changing to a left hand turn lane). People should be preaching it from the rooftops to save lives. Wouldn’t need to have bike lanes everywhere if people were fully taking lanes, forcing a merge to pass them, and being far more visible to traffic vs riding along the shoulder and getting doored and right and left hooked. The current bike lane gold standard of buffering traffic with parked cars means bikes are invisible at intersections and driveways to cars which is where many accidents tend to happen.

ubermonkey 1y ago

I learned to ride in my 50s, and I am 100% convinced it made me a better driver.

mianos 1y ago
As a motorcyclist myself, I always felt drivers should be forced to do a certain number of hours on a motorcycle to make them more aware. But, those atrocious drivers would probably get injured so quickly that the idea would never fly. Now they are just driving.

EdwardDiego 1y ago

Yeah my mindset was "Everything that happens is my fault" when riding - obviously false, but it was a good way to approach defensive riding. That car that changed lanes into me? My fault for being in its blind spot and assuming they'd actually check it. So make sure to never linger in blind spots. The car that did a u-turn in front of me that I nearly hit - my fault for not interpreting the car's body language. Make sure to note the angle of the front wheels of cars pulled to the side of the road in my scans in future. That time I low sided because I was thinking about work not my ride and then hit a corner slightly too fast right as my front wheel hit a pile of small gravel from a road resurfacing - that was entirely my fault for not focusing on the ride.