That's the thing. On a bike you can do everything right and still lose.
California is one of the safer places to ride given how many bikes are here and I've still had too many near misses as a trained, experienced, and conservative rider.
Most people put 1-2k miles a year on their bikes, when I was riding often I put on 2-3k/ month.
Same with anything in life.
Same with a car, just less so. Of course you could also stay at home, wearing protective bumper suit 24/7 (and can still die from any number of things anyway).
At some point there's a tradeoff people make. Some people make it where the tradeoff slider says "motorcycle", rather than stop at "car". And I'm not talking a tiny niche, but about 1-1.2 billion people globally.
- Licensed motorcycle driver
That is to say, those comparing car v motorcycle are doing the wrong comparison here. You'd be evaluating (car + substitute activity of drugs/crime/etc) vs. motorcycle -- rather than merely car v motorcycles.
So not the same?
> Of course you could also stay at home, wearing protective bumper suit 24/7
Quite an extreme and useless comparison. There's a large spectrum of transportation and entertainment options between motorcycle riding and home bound bumper suit at all times.
Does it have to be the same?
Do you discourage people from riding bicycles too, lest they be hit?
If someone uses the word 'same' followed by a 'but' for a significantly different case then the word 'same' is losing its meaning.
> Do you discourage people from riding bicycles too, lest they be hit?
I don't, and my point is these things all have wildly different cost-benefit tradeoffs. So it's unproductive to jump to some extreme risk averse example that no one was suggesting or implying.
It's the same risk dynamic as driving a car to work, just more so. Of course you could also stay at home, wearing protective bumper suit 24/7 (and can still die from any number of things anyway).
Same with a car, or anything really.
The point of parent stands, globally there are billions of people going through their lives with motorcycles as their main vehicles, yet aren't involved in any life-changing accidents.
Some places are more dangerous than others, probably places that doesn't have this already motorcycle-heavy culture, like other countries in the world, has a higher incident rate and more severe accidents, as drivers aren't aware of how motorcycles usually operate.
I have seen what happens to motorcycle riders when there are accidents and I have seen what happens to car drivers when there are accidents. I won't get into the gory details but I avoid using bikes as much as possible.
Hard disagree.
Both pedestrians and motorcyclists are raw to the elements, entirely. At least when on roadways an automobile provides a chassis/rollcage.
In America it's the perfect crime.
"I'm so sorry officer I never saw them."
Case closed Lou.
Which is why yesterday, in my mid-sized Southern City: after a motorcyclist hit&ran off the Interstate (dead, into a guardrail; 35, helmet'd/licensed, obeying traffic laws), the local biker clubs put down their swords and rallied in the median well after the accident occurred (as my local newspaper noted).
With all these millions already-spent on Flock cameræ, and T-DOT having dozens more (of their own)... you'd think we'd'a'already caught these guys.!?
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It's so sad that lack of accountability results in fleeing manslaughterers... but here we are.
The "besides the point" is that the point I was raising was how common motorcycles are, globally. Is that what you're disagreeing with?
Quickly: we seem to agree that motorcycles are dangerous and worldwide their predominance is mostly correlated with poverty (unlike US outlaw/biker culture). I had associated your beside the point with a biker being more-safe than a pedestrian -- is that what you meant?
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I have done 120mph in both vehicles, car and motorcycle – and won't ever go over 55mph on a dirtbike (only, offroad); never again on-road riding.
Huh? No, it's mostly correlated with working class and below, hardly "correlated with poverty", at least the places I'm familiar with.
I do agree they're dangerous. I don't agree that everyone should always avoid everything dangerous simply because it's dangerous.
There's a reason the term accident is used (I know at least 10 countries where the meaning is the same).
Google crash not accident will give many resources.
https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/travel/safety/road-users/crash...
> there's a reason
Yes, the auto lobby.
Saying "accident" implies that the tens of thousands of road deaths every year are an unavoidable consequence of the convenience of driving.
That's just not true.
What? Where is that conclusion coming from? There can be thousands of "accidents" and they can all be preventable, calling it "crash" or "accident" doesn't imply if it's preventable or not.
Talk about arbitrary hill to die on, very inconsequential. Why is this somehow so important?
FWIW, countries like Sweden call them "accidents" yet treat them as preventable and something to aim to minimize, not sure why it'd matter so much if someone call it accident or not.
Promote language of responsibility and accountability.
Look into auto lobby and this "accident" term history.
Use the language of accountability.
I still think "accident" is more accurate, so I'll continue to use that. Thanks for explaining though!
Only by a very lose definition of "fault", chosen for moralistic purposes.
Of course people saying what you say, if it happens to them, they'll suddenly swear theirs was a real accident.