Why leather is best motorcycle protection [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
What do you mean? The video is very convincing, I don't see a hole in the logic.
The obvious questions that come to mind are “does commonly available gear exceed the standards despite the minimums” and “is the test representative of real world impacts”.
Every basic motorcycle safety class will urge you to get good boots. I just wished I had heeded that advise in time instead of buying them after my first crash ;-/
1) racing, and normal motorcycle use -- like the kind of accidents you run into commonly differ hugely
2) you being able to afford a end of the line product or being very budged constrained
and this are two important aspects completely ignored in this discussion
I walked out of the hospital a couple of days later. I wouldn't have been walking then, nor today, if it wasn't for the protective shoulder pads and spine protection in my jacket. It took about 18 months of physiotherapy to stand and walk normally again, but still.
Edit: I realise this is a POV with n=1, but it convinced me.
One of my buddies also got hit by a car and had a similar story. Nowadays I ride with a jacket with integrated airbag. Fantastic stuff. Also, check out the new Diablo armor from D3O.
If you're looking at USA stats, you should know that there are many, many people in this country that will regularly get on their Harley, which they've never bothered improving technical handling skill on, after five or six beers, wearing a small plastic hat that resembles a WWI infantry helmet more than a proper ECE/DOT/Snell rated helmet, with jeans and a cutoff leather jacket, and wrap themselves around the nearest telephone pole trying to impress some chick.
If you ride with technical skill, good protective gear, and a respect for the machine and the unpredictability of drivers, you have much better prospects than the stats would suggest.
Oncoming unprotected lefts are the most dangerous feature of city streets, and good motorcyclists learn to be extremely wary of their users.
Re: stopping in front of you - this is one reason why lanesplitting can actually be safer. If a car in front of you does an emergency braking maneuver, you're not pointed at the back of them. Additionally, you're not in the way of the car behind you who was watching Harry Potter on his phone and hasn't yet noticed what's happened. We call the longitudinal gap between cars the "squish zone."
You can reduce the danger of rear impacts on the highway, again, by lane splitting at a bit over the prevailing speed of traffic. At stops, you shelter next to, and between, larger vehicles.
Here is a short from a doctor who rides, explaining his rationale https://youtube.com/shorts/r53eHYCF6Sc
And a video breaking down accident stats https://youtu.be/uZm8Kj0fC88
"And that doesn't even count the stiffy you'll get every time you change tires on two single-sided swing arms."
Some of my favorites, in case anyone's interested:
* Ryan's periodic "check out this weird bike from the past" clips are always great, but I really LOVE the one about the Honda Rune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjuWiKz9zno
* Their "trilogy" of sorts about Harley, and the hows and whys of their odd and honestly self-defeating decisions, are all great, but my favorite is the one that compares an Indian Scout to its then-corresponding Harley model; the Indian made 43% more power, and it's all down to Harley's genuflection at "tradition". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ooue7i73zo
The other two are "why millions ride HD" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeuXShFIgyc), which kinda lays the background for the tradition at work in the aforementioned video; and "How HD killed itself" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOwxxsPaogY), which is more about their demographic problem.
* They did a "how to deal with dealers" video that is really a thinly veiled tribute to a particularly excellent and longstanding dealership, which is just lovely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbr3JZAXDxA
* And my personal favorite is the FANTASTIC film homage built into Ryan's vid about the Ducati Desert X, which he ended up buying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcFqVIadWYo
Without offering any spoilers, I bought a couple new dirt bikes recently and went out of my way to find a "Kenco equivalent" in the Bay Area. Glad I did.
A lot of motoring YouTube seems to have fallen away, or become so big it feels unreal “let’s race these 2000hp lambos.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
From what I've been able to gather, it looks to be closer to 20-23x on a per kilometer basis.
In many countries it's illegal to ride without a helmet, where I am the cops would catch you in an instant.
It's just that most riders can't ride worth a damn, 95% of the riding information on the internet is dangerously wrong, and most of us also often ride recklessly because we're on a motorcycle to have fun in the first place.
Agreed, they're 'god damn dangerous' but where does that '30 times' figure come from? Where I am the generally accepted figure is seven times (or it was when I heard the figure a while ago).
Edit: for years I've thought that if motorcycles were a new invention they'd never be licensed these days. That they still are is historical legacy upheld by riders and the industry that makes the machines.
Underestimating your abilities in any vehicle is a good way to stay safe. In my encounters with motorcycles in traffic, as pedestrian, cyclist, or driver, even in those short few seconds while our paths cross, the motorcyclists almost always put themselves in some dangerous situation (cyclists do it even more often I'd say, but at lower speeds).
Every time I talk about this to acquaintances who ride they explain that "I do this all the time but it's fine because I know what I'm doing". Everyone is an above average driver or rider but drivers have a metal box filled with airbags. Motorcycle riders often play Russian roulette with 5 bullets in. Blaming another for when your luck finally runs out in on par with the belief most hold that they are above average.
The behavior of cyclists where I am is a particular problem. Unlike motorcyclists, they're unlicensed and don't even have to know the rules of the road, and it shows.
Trouble is, during an incident between a cyclist and a car driver the sympathy vote is in the cyclist's favor. Especially so in recent times where cycling is seen as 'green' and environmentally friendly and with many cities making car drivers feel as if they're guilty pariahs.
To give you some idea how bad this problem has become where I am (Sydney, Australia) is to consider the street where I live.
It's a one-way street (as it's narrow) but recently the Council has made it two-way for cyclists and painted bicycles on the street to indicate thus—for motorists it's still one-way.
The lunacy of this decision is obvious even to those with a room-temperature IQ. For starters, drivers (usually visitors) often mistakenly drive the wrong way down this street and it's been the situation for years (from street arrangements and local geography it seems the logical way to go, and the sineage is poor and hard to see).
It gets worse, there's a sharp bend in the road so two vehicles approaching from either side cannot see each other and there's nowhere to pull off in an emergency!
Oh, I also must point out that when the Council painted bicycles on the street to indicate their right to two-way usage it also upgraded the far-from-obvious street sign indicating one-way by adding "bicycles excepted" but did nothing to make the sign more obvious. (Words fail me!)
Lunacy has no limits, now consider the same head-on situation between a cyclist and a vehicle, it's a miracle no one has been killed to date (but the change is recent—there's much time to go).
Right, the trendy and electorally savvy, many-term Council has the ear of cyclists and no doubt this dangerous change was the result of cyclists' lobbying.
Not if but when someone is killed then who's to blame? Even if a motorist is found not to be at fault (i.e. driving in the right direction) and is completely exonerated then he/she will have to live with the knowledge that he/she was the driver of a vehicle that killed a cyclist.
What amazes me is that cyclists want this dangerous situation to continue to exist, it seems that sheer convenience takes precedence over their safety in both their minds and that of the Council. More to the point, cyclists seem to have overwhelming confidence in their ability to avoid an accident.
Even more amazing is that this situation can exist in this overly safety conscious, horribly risk averse society.
From my perspective it's high time this nonsense stopped. The first thing would be license cyclists—if nothing else, they'd at least know the road rules.
I'm not aware of any country where that is true, unless you're being pedantic and making a distinction between having to know the rules vs having to follow them. Every road user in every country I know of has to follow the rules of the road, no matter if they're a cyclist or a pedestrian or anyone else.
> Trouble is, during an incident between a cyclist and a car driver the sympathy vote is in the cyclist's favor.
What do you mean by "trouble"? This is perfectly logical. The cyclist presents precisely zero danger to the car driver, but the car presents deadly danger to the cyclist.
> It's a one-way street (as it's narrow) but recently the Council has made it two-way for cyclists
Yeah, all one-way streets should be like that. Streets are designated to be one-way for a reason. Either they're too narrow for two vehicles to pass each other safely or making them two way would increase traffic too much. None of this applies to bicycles.
> drivers (usually visitors) often mistakenly drive the wrong way down this street and it's been the situation for years (from street arrangements and local geography it seems the logical way to go, and the sineage is poor and hard to see)
Go ahead and complain about the poor signage then? What's this have to do with cyclists?
> From my perspective it's high time this nonsense stopped.
You haven't really provided any arguments here besides the rather incoherent example.
> The first thing would be license cyclists
Sigh. How many times are we going to have to listen to such poorly thought-out suggestions? Do you know just how many bicycles there are out there? Do you understand the risk a driver poses to others? Do you understand the risk a cyclist poses?
It's unresolvable because of political ideology, like the chasm between right-wing conservatives and liberals, views seem almost genetic and immutable (it's been so ever since bicycles took to the roads—even in the days of horse drawn vehicles).
"I'm not aware of any country where that is true, unless you're being pedantic"
Pedantic? Rubbish, unless cyclists are licensed by way of a thorough examination of the road rules, etc. then there's no way to know if a cyclist knows the rules or not. Going on the many violations I see cyclists commit every day it's clear many do not. Licensing cyclists would bring them into line with other road users, for starters, they'd also be vulnerable to losing their licenses for violations.
Fact is, as a motor vehicle driver I do not feel safe on the roads with unpredictable unlicensed cyclists about. If you do not believe cyclists are an undisciplined and unpredictable lot that worry the shit out of many licenced drivers because of the way they ride and regularly violate traffic rules (like jumping red lights at intersections) then you live in fantasyland.
For every violation I witness car drivers make I reckon I see about a dozen from cyclists. By your views you'd have to condone this alacrity or they'd be contradiction with each other. Alternatively, it's cognitive dissonance so you've not noticed the fact.
So this means that bike riders do not need to know exactly what all signs mean, what are the rules of giving way (or receiving it), etc.
So, that point is absolutely valid.
I have a friend who doesn't have a car licence and cannot distinguish many signs (for instance the circular one with red border and full white inside) or when to expect to have the priority.
Not supporting the rest of the comment, just that specific statement which is a valid one.
That unsupported statement is not helpful. Whether right or wrong I at least give reasons or background for my positions.
Once we have established the danger level of each vehicle then we can go into detail on how to decrease the fatalities of the most deadly one. I'm pretty sure, requiring a license for bicycles is not going to change a thing.
By simply doing that you'd just fuel the belief in the saying "there are damned lies and statistics". It does not make sense to compare the killing potential of a motor powered vehicle with one powered by a human.
The issue is simple and straightforward. As I've mentioned elsewhere, many cyclists have unpredictable riding habits and a high propensity to violate traffic law at the drop of a hat—which, on a per capita basis, is much more frequent than that of licenced drivers. There's no disputing the accuracy of that statement although there's argument over the actual numbers.
By their unpredictable riding habits and regular violations of the road rules, cyclists put motorists into invidious situations where they are more likely to have an accident with a cyclist (or pedestrian, or other vehicle or thing whilst desperately trying to avoid the cyclist).
Licensing cyclists won't solve everything but it'd sure improve their safety. If cyclists knew they could lose their license thus not be allowed to drive on public roads then their riding behavior would be more predictable and we would see many fewer traffic violations (such as running red lights which I see happen regularly). Moreover, motorists' behavior would be more predictable with licenced cyclists on the road because their behavior has become more predictable through them being licensed. All up, licensing cyclists would mean fewer accidents.
Not the commenter you were answering to, but this is exactly the kind of thinking I was highlighting earlier myself. People constantly put themselves in dangerous situations that they rationalize to be fine just because the law doesn't explicitly incriminate that behavior. So being the ones who planted the seeds of that dangerous situation just doesn't register. Not trying to generalize but there are many, many situations where disaster could have been avoided if either side bothered to do better.
Too many people live as if the epitaph "but I was technically correct" will keep someone warm. Let me put it another way, if one of these "above average" people chooses to always floor it on the Autobahn at 300+km/h because it's technically legal, when they eventually crash and die even because someone else made a mistake you know you'll think "well, he had it coming". Same if a cyclist crashes due to someone else's mistake while riding a barely road-worthy bike or because they banged their head and weren't wearing a helmet. Sure, it wasn't legally their fault but welcome to the statistic. It's like dying from the perfectly legal smoking.
Everybody should try to do their best in potentially dangerous situations. But too many people on the road expect only others have to do it because [insert rationalization here]. And people without an airbag filled metal cage around them are the ones least able to justify the relaxed "it's their responsibility" attitude. Nobody else on the road will care about your life more than you. If even you keep putting yourself in situations where any minor mistake from anyone has no chance to be corrected, you're writing your place in a statistic. But of course, if you know what you're doing that will never happen...
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is wrong. Use the whole lane to be in the best spot to see and be seen. Use lateral movement to increase your visibility in driver mirrors.
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.
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.
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.
FortNine on motorcycle airbags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2jZryt607U
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.)
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.
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.
The comment is written for other riders, I left out a lot of detail for it to be a general comment.
That's not really how statistics work. Since the reduction was probably calculated against the population average you need to know the relative size of the groups to calculate the risk increase for the inverse group. Additionaly, the group you specified is not the inverse group since you exclude those who have some, but not all, of the safety signals.
Your calculation would be accurate if almost nobody took all safety precautions (that would mean the average risk rate would be affected much by that group) and everbody else took no safety precautions.
What you have calculated is a rough lower bound for the risk increase given unknown population behavior ratios.
> nor does it actually tell you anything about the base rate safety
It doesn't by itself. What it tells you is given a base of rate of 3x more deadly per mile, those who follow all the rules are as likely to die as an average driver (which still isn't an fair comparison.) To be fair, you'd beed to compare agaisnt driver who have a license, registration, insurance and are wear a seatbelt. (Or maybe helmet..)
When presented with unsourced statistics on the web, probably best to assume the weakest interpretation.
The data says you are 25 times more likely to die per mile driven versus a car. If we were talking about personal experience, my motorcycle training instructor with 3 decades of experience was killed a few years ago by someone in an SUV making a left turn. It was broad daylight, they had all the gear, they were doing everything right, the person in the car was not paying attention and made a last second left with no time to react.
Even doing everything right you are still significantly more likely to die on a motorcycle in a car per mile driven. again, I ride motorcycles and I accept that risk.
* Have a license * Wear appropriate gear * Follow speed limits * Don't drink and ride * Aged somewhere 30-50 * Have more than a few months experience on your bike * etc.
You are statistically "one of the safer ones". Not safe, you are never truly safe when in traffic.
I do not believe I am "safe." If I wanted to be safe, I would spend my weekends sitting around the house instead of getting out and seeing some of the world in a way that I find interesting and fun to me.
Anecdotally, I've been to the funeral of a fighter jet pilot years ago who died on a motorcycle after a bus cut him off, in the city. This would be someone at the top 1% of skill, attitude and experience. The reality of riding a motorcycle is that you are completely exposed/unprotected (leather vs. a metal box) and there are many situations you can't predict/control.
I've had a few crashes myself, including a high speed one, possibly some I could have avoided but for whatever reason didn't. People make mistakes, have poor judgement, and can't always be 100%. My worst crash was when someone T-boned me in the city doing an illegal left turn across three lanes. If I had been paying more attention I could have predicted/avoided/seen it but I didn't. I even had my visor open and got the handlebar in my face. I walked/drove away from that one just like all my other crashes with some minor injuries.
I don't remember much about my statistics classes but even if you're a 99th percentile driver can't you still say there will be a large increase in your own personal probability of a fatality if you jump from the car curve to the motorcycle one?
Yes! Cars and motorcycles share the same roads but in North America at least, nearly everyone is a car driver and most people drive at _roughly_ the same skill level because we all drive for mostly the same reasons and have all had lots of time behind the wheel. (Of course there are outliers for all of these.) The vast majority of us wear our seatbelts, buy cars with good safety systems, and drive safely because even though it happens occasionally, none of us want to die at all, let alone due to something as mundane as a traffic accident.
But motorcycles are entirely recreational. People buy bikes for different reasons but the most popular ones are seeking thrills, looking cool, and trying to fit into a certain peer group. Safety is not a top concern for most motorcyclists, and is often something that even scoffed at. I personally know guys who refuse to wear a helmet because (to paraphrase their words), "I'd rather die as I am than end up half-alive as a paraplegic or vegetable." Nevermind that wearing a helmet makes the latter MORE likely, not less, but saying so would not have changed their minds anyway.
Those of us who DO take safety seriously are out there, wearing full-face helmets, armored jackets, pants, and boots. We practice our low-speed maneuvers and focus on situational awareness. We NEVER ride drunk or tired. We know we are not invincible. We acknowledge the risks but we try to push the odds more in our favor as much as we can. But we are a small minority and are severely underrepresented in injury statistics that non-riders like to tout on the Internet.
Take the low motorcycling population and the extreme self selection bias and you end up with an average that paints a very misleading picture.
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.
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.
You are obviously a motorcyclist.
And so it's OK for motorcyclists to disobey road rules on a public street and be inconsiderate to others? Why would a car driver expect to find a motorcycle illegally parked between two legally parked cars with only several inches between the car and the motorcycle?
If you drive a car, I'll bet London to a brick you don't get out and back into your vehicle just the moment before you drive off. Show me someone who does and I'll retort "by golly you've found the mystical unicorn".
BTW, being in a safely parked car with the ignition switched off and doing something doesn't count or constitute as being inattentive as it would after the ignition is switched on and the motor running. Despite what you say I'm particularly attentive at what's at my rear (even after checking it's why I always back up at a snail's pace). The street in question is very noisy and pedestrians regularly flit between parked cars—it's all the more reason. Motorcycles can't be heard above the street noise, and when riders park tightly between two cars they'll wheel them in with motor off (but you'd already know that).
It's your comment that's ironic. I'd also maintain that road statistics support the notion that such attitudes have to change before they'll improve for the better.
And so it's OK for motorcyclists to disobey road rules on a public street and be inconsiderate to others?
How about you answer the question that I asked instead of whatever this nonsense is?
being in a safely parked car with the ignition switched off and doing something doesn't count or constitute as being inattentive
You ran into a motorcycle because you weren't paying attention. You're in control of your vehicle and you're responsible for being aware of your surroundings. I use many types of vehicles and I have never, ever run into one.
It's your comment that's ironic
Nope, you're just so unaware that it doesn't even occur to you that you're failing in your responsibility as the operator of a vehicle. Also, you still haven't explained what a "wrong side" is.
Come on, I'm not that stupid as to be baited further.
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.
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.
Both were completely safe. On both occasions I slid along the tarmac for about 10-15 meters, I was travelling at around 30-40 mph. I still wear the same leather jacket 30 years later (not for riding) but the synthetic jacket was a right-off.
On both occasions I really smacked my head: don't mess about with sub-standard crash helmets.
So even though leather is better, we're not racing the TT, we're just going from A-B and if you want to wear synthetic you'll be fine at normal speeds. So if you can't wear leather, for whatever reason, don't let that stop you.
I'd add 1 point for the pads, shoulder elbow and back for impact. Mine happen to be `D3o` and are comfortable
But my synthetic jacket has armor as well, and while thankfully I have never tested it, it should provide pretty good protection even if the nylon burns through.
The first video I saw from them was about the different motorcycle engine types: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOTz0Ol8fLA
One of their latest videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpVMsqSW6pk) contained a teaser about a documentary they're going to release in December: around the world in 17 days. Can't wait to see it.
The video that has always stuck with me is when he explained the science behind how motorcycles are hard to gauge their speed and distance and related it to how pigeons see. It showed me that a lot of why drivers have a tendency to pull out and cut off riders is more to do with not being aware that it can be very difficult to calculate the distance and speed of a motorcycle the same as we do with a car. With that knowledge as a rider I have actually changed my driving and really make sure I fully check both directions before pulling out. I also, as a rider, pay attention to side roads and driveways and always assume the car is going to pull out. I have never almost pulled in front of a rider but I can say I have many times avoided cars by riding defensively.
> hidden gem
F9 could get 2M subscribers by just doing product reviews because they're an ecommerce website in Canada like Revzilla is in the US, and that Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/RevZilla) has 1.5m subscribers.
F9 has a few product reviews, but they have a ton of just top quality content that shines for not just the motorcycle content, but how its presented, the attention to filming and editing, etc.
Oh and if you're interested, they even have a video about cheese (it was an april fool's prank, but still informative about cheese).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1T7NzCtWHo
Also this is a truly well done video. Entertaining, week executed, witty dialogue.
I'm not sure how true that is, even when the cause is distracted/aggressive drivers, unless the drivers actually hunted them and collided with them on purpose. Defensive driving is a thing for motorcycle drivers too, and if you take care you'll avoid even distracted/aggressive drivers too.
With that said, it of course isn't risk free, I think in my country (Spain, lots of motorcycles in/around the cities/towns), just about 60% of those who drive motorcycles have never been in any accident ever[0], and that's including very dumb ("average") people so if you're more careful than the average driver, I'm sure you could get those odds to stack in your favor.
- [0] https://www.dgt.es/export/sites/web-DGT/.galleries/downloads... Table 59. "ACCIDENTALIDAD"
Very.
It's possible to make no mistake and still lose.
My wife got hit-and-run when bicycling to work and she's exceeding careful and defensive in her riding.
Her carefulness is probably what allowed her to catch a glimpse of the car in the corner of her eye and swerve at the last minute to not be caught head-on by the car and sent flying hundreds of meters away.
She's "lucky" to even have made it, suffering debilitating neck pain every day and night, abated only by roughly a half through invasive surgery, a pain she will have to endure for the rest of her life which at the current rate of life expectancy is the next fifty years.
Meanwhile the distracted and hurried driver who didn't bother to check around their A pillar blind spot drove away scot-free.
That's one example. I have many such stories of cyclist and biker friends alike, many of which don't ever ride between lanes.
Sure, no doubt about that. But again, if people (60% of the riders in my case) manage to never be in an accident, and that's including a wide range of people, then surely the odds are greater of never being in an accident if you're careful.
Still, sucks she had that experience. But it's important to realize that for every accident, there are thousands of people riding every day without a single accident in their life. But of course it's harder to think about that when you had someone in a accident and that person is close to you, I understand that.
Instead what I wanted to call out is that even if infinitely careful and drive defensively without fail you can still get into an accident, and you don't need to be hunted down or intentionally collided into+.
Ultimately at a large enough scale it's all about odds, and it takes but one occurrence to go from "I've been fine so far" to "my life is upended".
And like all statistical things, with a low enough sample size you're going to get an unbalanced result one way or the other.
+ On that note I wish drivers were made aware of CBDR
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant_bearing,_decreasing...
And again, seems to be massively different depending on the country. Locally, ~60% of motorcycle drivers claim to never have been in any accident, and that's including even careless people, so surely the claims of "even careful motorbike drivers will be in a accident" are over-exaggerated.
60% of the riders still alive?
Sorry to be callous about it. You're understandably angry. It's one thing to say you accept the risks of a risky behavior, and yet another to declare nothing could have been done.
I’m coming from a part of the world that doesn’t needlessly look down on cycling (its common for nearly everyone to cycle in Copenhagen/Malmö) and the idea that people should become drivers because its safer is a total tragedy of the commons and would not hold much weight here - the cities would be crushed under the necessary weight of roads and cars.
Other parts of the world need to get some more cars off the road by making safer infrastructure, it’s ridiculous.
By that metric you end up doing exactly nothing (UK data):
- riding a bike for 20 mi / 32 km: 1 micromort
- walking for 17 mi / 27 km: 1 micromort
- riding a motorbike for 6 mi / 10k: 1 micromort
- taking a sit on a chair: 1.3 micromort
- taking a bath: 0.3 micromort
- night in hospital: 75 micromort
Yes, walking is actually worse per unit of distance. I hope you don't sit on chairs too much, nor routinely enjoy taking baths.
> If your kid's life is on the line
Oh but would you even take the risk of having one?
- Giving birth (micromort): Sweden 50 , UK 80, USA 170
There's a reason that we have safety classes, and it's that being safe is emphatically not intuitive.
You're much, much safer on the center wheel track.
I don't mean to be rude or accuse anyone, it's just that this kind of blind confidence gives everyone the wrong ideas.
I won't spend time detailing the whole situation but you could not be further from what happened.
The situation is extremely clear cut: someone speeding around a turn and running over another who had both the green light and right of way, impacting in a way that cannot possibly be ignored, then crossing two red lights is 100% responsible.
It's precisely good safety practices that _saved_ her life.
At least as importantly, the consequences of accidents are vastly magnified for motorcyclists. I know of people who have died in relatively low-speed crashes because they were unlucky enough to slide straight into a piece of road furniture or land head-first on a kerb. If you look at the accident statistics, a large proportion of fatalities and serious injuries involve low-powered motorcycles travelling at ordinary speeds on ordinary urban roads.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...
You can significantly reduce that risk by simply staying away from others and avoiding situations with a large speed differential. If the lane next to you is going 20mph, don't go 40+ next to them.
There are a lot of these things you can do, that most people don't because "it's not their responsibility".
There's a surprising amount of agency involved in crashes. Learn blind spots and stay out of them, don't ride on the side of the road, only do things cars can't do when you're 200% sure the car you're passing won't swerve/turn/overtake. This includes accelerating like a hypercar, which many motorcycles can do.
And to flip the presentation of your stat around, that means 40% of motorbike riders have been in an accident. That sounds really high to me given the potential consequences!
It sounds scary because it involves every type of accident, even minor ones. Useful to think about how many cars have ever been in accidents too, which should be around the same. The problem with motorcycle accidents is the fatality rates, just as you say, not the percentage of minor+major accidents.
Consider that: most motorcyclists are there to have fun, so might have high risk behaviours, most motorcyclists are extraordinarily poorly trained, and it's a very high skill cap vehicle that requires ample training even for braking and evasive actions.
Also consider that it's a very small vehicle and those evasive actions have a high likelihood of squeezing through and avoiding almost any crash, and that the rider is often not even part of the crash they just slide to a stop.
E.g. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/01/19/s...
Wear a helmet.
I looked up an Arai Tour X5, thanks for the link. It gives four stars and some colours for different zones at set impact speeds in m/s in a lab. It tells me it meets standard UN ECE REG 22.06 with a double D ring retention system and composite fibre materials. Super objective and necessary.
But I've read a lot of similar information and, somehow, seeing the results of a person being dragged down the road, for some unknown amount of time, which is pretty super subjective, still feels (perhaps wrongly even) as though it gives me a better understanding than just reading numbers/letters/colours.
I've been thinking about getting a nice, full face helmet (helmets marketed for mountain biking seem like a good fit), but they seem like a pain to deal with at my destination. A lot of times I'll just loop my current helmet on my scooter completely unlocked, because it's cheap enough that I'm not really worried about it being stolen. The full face helmets I have been looking at are an order of magnitude more expensive though, and I wouldn't really feel comfortable just leaving it unlocked by my scooter. Does anyone have any recommendations on this? Or recommendations on other appropriate safety gear for my kind of riding?
The full-face mountain bike helmets sound exactly the ticket, and would protect your face from abrasion if you have an unexpected rapid dismount.
I used to use a small wire cord and padlock that you can store wrapped up tightly onboard. You're never going stop someone determined to get your old lid you just want to prevent opportunists and not be too cumbersome about it otherwise you won't actually do it.
I will say I have heard enough stories about 5k+ electric bikes getting scooped that I'd only ever store one behind locked doors rather than buying a huge bike lock setup.
I'm actually not too worried about the scooter itself being stolen - I have two kryptonite locks, one of which includes an insurance policy covering the vehicle from theft if it is taken by cutting the lock. Also for long term storage (like in the bike room at my apt) I remove the battery, which I believe is another layer of theft deterrence.
At those speeds, I wouldn't worry about a full-face helmet. Those are completely ordinary cycling speeds for a road cycling enthusiast. Your primary risk is probably rear and side impacts. Your body is really good at instinctively protecting the head, so you should worry more about surprise impacts, like t-bones and rear-ending.
I don't know what your helmet looks like, but modern cycling helmets have migrated toward a longer back side for better rear impact protection.
For what it's worth, one of the reasons that my motorcycle has a big top box and aluminum panniers is simply to store my gear when I get to my destination. Thieves suck and if something can be stolen, someone will steal it.
Another instance that a full face helmet seems appealing is in in getting doored. I often don't have a choice but to ride near a bunch of cars parked on the street.
Road cycling enthusiasts are a good reference point, but the differences I see are in that I am not as focused on being aerodynamic and lightweight, since I have an electric throttle doing 100% of the work for me. In the tradeoff between efficiency and safety, I have the luxury of leaning much more into safety before negatively impacting the ride itself very much. Most of the negative impacts of additional safety gear are on either end of the ride (gearing up and down)
Like I said, the body is really good about protecting the head. You need to focus on the initial impact. The back of your skull slamming into a windshield or truck hood is a far bigger concern than falling on your face, when you have arms and neck muscles to protect you.
It turns out, moving closer to the center of the lane reduces the chances of the most likely directions of impact - namely turning traffic. Either turning left as an oncoming vehicle, turning out from a side road or driveway, of someone that is overtaking you and then turns right.
I've found low speed crashes really want a helmet. Things like you roll sideways off the bike. You are not moving fast but are rotating quickly. (So back hits ground followed by back of head)
FWIW, I just noticed the common irrational rational fear of being run over from behind. It is a common mistake. Riding to the extreme right can make it worse, it is an invitation to pass when instead the cyclist is just afraid. Taking a little more room on a road (situationally) can make a person a lot safer.
My understanding is they are not quite there yet, but coming along and looking promising.
(but it seems leather is not a very interesting target for substitution as there's no market for it? https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-08-18/america-is... though this is from 2019)
I am not familiar with textiles in this area, but they don't make bullet proof vests out of leather last I checked... I presume there are good synthetics (better than leather?) out there?
PS: if you crash, for the love of anything holy, do not slide but roll(ie. be active during the event, not passive). it is better to get bruises rather than getting your skin peeled off.
Leather may still be usable. Also, one of the primary failure points is the stitching, which is synthetic. It can especially be a problem if the gear is older and dust has abraded the stitching for years, particularly if leather conditioner was used that is oily and attracts dust.
Synthetic can be repaired, which is why it's often worth it to go with a more expensive brand. I've had my Aerostich Roadcrafter for 25 years and it's served me well, though it aged out of their servicing policy a decade ago.
“There are many things you can point to as proof that the human is not smart. But my personal favorite would have to be that we needed to invent the helmet. What was happening, apparently, was that we were involved in a lot of activities that were cracking our heads. We chose not to avoid doing those activities but, instead, to come up with some sort of device to help us enjoy our head-cracking lifestyles. And even that didn’t work because not enough people were wearing them so we had to come up with the helmet law. Which is even stupider, the idea behind the helmet law being to preserve a brain whose judgment is so poor, it does not even try to avoid the cracking of the head it’s in.”