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Comment by MCllorf | Hacker News Reader

Motorcycles have about 29 times the deaths per mile compared to cars. If all you're worried about is saving space and gas they're a great option - my Honda cruiser gets about 80mpg. But it's incredibly dangerous. I think it's plausible that safety could improve with infrastructure changes and driver education, but I don't think it could ever compare to being strapped into a metal cage with airbags and crumple zones

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I drove for 6 years with 3 different bikes (125cc scooter + 125cc small bike + 600cc bike)... and as much as I love it, I gave it up. I have to fight the urge to buy a new one every few months. I've fallen & had accidents 4 times and I'm lucky to be alive to be honest. It helps to know the stats around the death rates and to watch a few accident aftermath scenes to cure yourself.

I truly do want everyone to drive them for all the benefits they bring but I also truly don't want a single person to die like that, so I no longer recommend that other people buy them (not even a scooter for short distances).

I hear a lot of how motorcycles are dangerous and they absolutely are. But 1/2 of wrecks are single vehicle wrecks and most of the other wrecks are cars turning in front of motorcycles or motorcycles getting rear-ended at lights.

American streets are designed poorly, see stroads and all that. If we want motorcycle fatalities to go down, we need to strive for all fatalities to go down.

Yes 5.5k riders died last year, but 42K car drivers died. Yet we're fine with that because "well per mile that isn't that bad" 42K isn't a good number and there needs to be greater discussion surrounding the poor driving conditions created by poor planning.

Not to mention that in a substantial portion of the world, motorcycles aren't practical for most of the year. Snow, ice and cold aren't great for two-wheeled vehicles.

You should check out the Not Just Bikes Youtube channel.

The channel is mostly on city planning that supports walking and biking (rather than motorcycles) but the Dutch bicycle in the snow because they have an infrastructure that supports it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU&list=RDCMUC0intL...

Of course they don't have mountains which is the issue where I live.

But we ARE talking about motorcycles here. And sliding out on ice on a bicycle is wayyyy different than a motorcycle. Most people can muscle a bicycle into submission but a light motorcycle starts at 300lbs/130kg. Good luck holding that upright if you and the bike disagree on where the tires should be going.

Australia here. When we're not on fire or under water (which is also where scooters perform rather badly), it often seems to be too hot to wear safety gear.

Add the sense of entitlement of large 4WDs to complete non-enforcement of road rules protecting riders of both motor- and acoustic bikes by the Police, and you've got a deadly mix going.

Yeah, I think the Giant Car problem is what will doom this system in the US. True scooters like these can use the bike lanes in most cities (ymmv) so they might have a chance but they'll be stuck behind regular bikes and e-bikes and so limited to those speeds.

> too hot to wear safety gear

There is mesh synthetic safety gear that's quite good these days (I'd imagine it'll eventually disintegrate on a long slide, but will at least help with impact. Also road rash typically isn't what will actually kill you). It also comes in colors that will reflect the sun a little more than black, which is still the most popular motorcycle clothing color by sales.

I used to ride a lot in Ocotillo Wells where it would hit 110F in full safety gear, so it is possible. Helps when you're going fast enough to get wind chill.

I saw many comments above included stories from Taiwan. If you are not aware, Taiwan has an incredible amount of rain, yet there are scooters everywhere. I never understand how scooters remain so popular!

People wear rain clothes on scooters. This is very dangerous. Your vision is very bad in the rain and your control of the scooter is also bad. I did this when I got no other choices.

Yeah and if you need to tow a trailer they don't work either, but those are not very good arguments why we don't try to accommodate them in the situations where they do work very well, i.e. city driving in regions where it doesn't snow very much. The same applies to bicycles and ebikes.

Bikes tow trailers all the time. Just not as big as the ones trucks tow.

Motorcycles can tow trailers. Sidecars are also a thing. In the 1950s there was a motorcycle dealership in Portland that had a motorcycle carrier sidecar. If your bike broke down they would ride out on their bike, roll yours onto the side car and give you both a lift back to the shop. No trucks needed.

There's even 3rd wheel trailers (I personally only discovered this very recently)

https://thirdwheeltrailers.com/

[citation needed]. Not because I doubt the number (it seems plausible), but because I'd like to see the data.

IMO once You factor for speed and environment (how much time will any of those electric city scooters ever ride on highway and/or above maybe 50-60kph?), You'll be left with two causes of accidents - rider who loses control (exponentially less deadly with reduced speed) and scooter vs car crash on intersections / in lanes. In this case, much as those crumple zones work well for whoever is inside the metal box, they also add extra mass / energy to the body that's being deformed on the outside...

Highways are actually some of the safest roadways for motorcycle riders, with the vast majority of motorcycle accidents happening at intersections. Scooters are not immune to this, and would in fact spend more time in these danger zones than motorcycles. I do believe that area also plays a large role in fatality rate as well as culture. Eliminating any alcohol consumption goes a long way in avoiding motorcycle accidents, but there's a huge cruiser culture that involves going to the bar as a ride destination. And localized driving culture also plays a big role. In many developing countries where more people are on bikes, speed limits tend to be lower to match road quality. As such, most motorcycles and scooters will be functionally equivalent, with most bikes being sold being less than 250cc. But also, all the traffic, including car traffic might be slower. Additionally, the increased prevalence of stick shift means less texting and driving. Whereas in the US, especially in big driving cities, you may have very aggressive driving culture. Like Chicago, where I actually felt safer on a full motorcycle than a bicycle and most definitely safer than on a scooter. In those places, being slow puts you at the mercy of the aggressive drivers coming from behind you. Classes I took there actually encouraged you to be a more aggressive rider, to ride slightly faster than traffic to find bubbles in the traffic and be certain that you weren't going to be rear ended by someone doing something stupid. Sorry I don't have any data, just around 100k miles of seat time over the course of about 5 or 6 years, most of it urban riding. Motorcycle's are very dangerous, and there are steps you can take to mitigate the danger, like choosing when and where to ride, but at the end of the day, you are always at the mercy of cars on the road, and drivers seem to be getting progressively worse as more people are on their phones.

A major factor that I see surprisingly few people advocate for even in an educational setting is helmet color and high-visibility clothing. If I remember correctly just wearing a white helmet alone is associated with a 25% lower risk of being in a fatal accident. A white helmet + high vis gets you closer to 40% or 50% reduction.

There were rumblings in Australia about making high-viz clothing a requirement but I'm not sure if that actually got passed or not. From the data I've seen it makes nearly as much of a difference as wearing a helmet vs not.

It's surprising how much motorcycle armor is out there touting their super-advanced kevlar buffer pad race construction yet are colored darker than night.

> super-advanced kevlar buffer pad race construction

Why do you need that on your 25cc scooter? Caus it looks cool. What colour would you like that in? Light absorbing Batsuit black please.

I ride motorcycles. I am never more scared than when I am stopped at a traffic light, especially if there is a car in front of me. I have seen (and in my car been) rear ended. It's not fun. On a bike that is almost certain death. Even at 25-30mph. With the number of drivers on cell phones this is a real risk.

Personally I mitigate this by stopping at the edge of the lane and keeping an eye on my mirrors. If I am going to get hit I can at least escape between the lanes.

In civilized countries filtering between lanes of stopped cars is the norm. This gets the vulnerable two-wheeled vehicles out of the danger zone. In the US that is illegal almost everywhere. Even if it was legal drivers would have to be educated to not use their vehicles as weapons, something that is surprisingly common.

> In the US that is illegal almost everywhere

But, for anyone else reading, one of the few places filtering and lane splitting in general is legal (up to ~10mph speed difference) is in California.

There was extensive discussion on a recent episode of "Highside Lowside" (Revzilla's Podcast) about whether lane splitting at speed increases or decreases safety, complete with stats and personal experiences. (In their opinion it comes down to the skill of the rider.) Filtering when cars are fully stopped is likely safe and less contentious.

I'm mostly basing my comments off of info pulled from this site https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-motorcyc...

Yes, motocycle is evidently more dangerous than car. But, some people don't have a choice. In some country, car is still a luxury. For example, in my country, a used car can cost at least 3 times a brand new motocycle.

Import duty + Excise + VAT with some ridiculous calculation, 3,000 cc import to Thailand is about 328% (data from 2019, i think the formula is still the same today). It really feels stupid (despite of no choices) to buy 300% price of original price.

You are talking about the stats from an American perspective. Such a car-centric view. Not everyone lives in America.

Hundreds of cities and countries have infrastructure suitable for two wheelers. Especially when you are within the city limits. Cities in India it is extremely common to ride two-wheelers and it is generally safer to ride scooters. Most delivery drivers use motorcycles - millions of them in fact.

Motorcycles and bicycles are indeed more dangerous, but exactly because of cars.

If more car owners would at least sometimes switch to the smaller option, it would make life easier and safer for 2 wheel drivers.

This is not likely though, so I hope for ebikes and more cycle lanes and car free zones in cities, to make it more attractive.

they sound like a great option for major cities where there are already tons of speed limiting because of the population density.

I think it's safe to use insurance rates as a proxy for the likelihood you'll get into a crash. Rates are almost invariably higher for every type of coverage if you live in a more densely populated area.

Is that for third party only though? Perhaps also confounded by higher-prices of cars in cities vs rural areas when you do crash into something = higher costs.

From what I've seen, collision coverage tends to be used for cases where you made a mistake and need to get your own vehicle fixed. Generally all the coverage sections will get more expensive when you move to a more densely-populated area but the from the cases I've seen, collision coverage will tend to be significantly more expensive in Chicago than southern Illinois.

You're talking about fatalities though. There are 1000x more rear ends in the city but I have yet to see a car flipped over in the city like on the highway

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