DangMan wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:08:


Ride to Die . com

[glow=red,2,300]WARNING!
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Don't look at this site if you can't stand VERY VERY graphic material. I found this site 2 weeks after I bought my Savage. I almost sold it the next day. Then I realized that I wasn't going to live by the mistakes of others. I have control over how I ride and as far as "the other guy", well even if I was in a semi I could possibly be killed by some nut in a cage.

Lots of crazy drivers out there. Maybe I'm getting old but I'm beginning to wonder how any rider can safely use 160+ horsepower on the street too. Anyway, I've been putting off my last piece of safety gear but I think I'll get it today. Looking for protective pants with armored knees & shins that won't feel like sandwich wrap in the summer. Any recommendations? Ride safe.

That site is 99.94% pure Bandini Mountain.  It blends out of context statistics with "well DUH" to build an extremely biased picture.

As to the statistics: http://www.dslretorts.com/Paladin/archives/000840.html

Per mile, on AVERAGE, a motorcycle is three and a quarter times more likely to be involved in an accident than a cage.  But those who ride are not the same people as the average cage driver.  They tend to be risk takers.  Plus, at an annual 1,854 miles, they are not getting in enough practice to be proficient riders.  Alcohol and excessive speed on the part of the motorcyclist is a factor in the vast majority of motorcycle accidents.

If you want to convince me that motorcycles are involved in an excessive number of crashes then show me the statistics for comparable cages -- high performance sport cars, Corvettes or such.

As for the DUH part -- IF you have an accident of course you are going to suffer greater injuries than in a cage.  This is why I tell people that if they have a record of crashing into things with a cage they might want to reconsider getting a motorcycle.

I have an extreme dislike for liars.  There are three types of lies -- lies, darned lies, and statistics.  This site is in the third class.  They cite:
"In Florida, for example, fatalities increased by 81% during a three-year period after the state repealed its law in 2000. "  Hey, guess what -- motorcycle ridership jumped by about 80%.  This is another "Well DUH!"  If ridership jumps 80% then of course fatalities will also jump 80%.

"An unhelmeted rider is far more likely to suffer a fatal head injury"   Well DUH!  What is the fatality rate, per mile, between helmeted and unhelmeted riders?  Hey, guess what -- they don't say!  Just more meaningless out-of-context statictics.

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Yes, you need to take care out there.  But you also need sites such as this one which warps statistics in an effort to show that motorcycles are far more dangerous than they actually are.  Yeah, a LOT of blood and gore.  But without knowing what the rider was doing to get into the accident it is meaningless.  If the rider was doing something I don't do then I do not carethat they got killed -- their death does not mean I am at any risk whatsoever.

Well, there is no way my wife or mother should look at that. Yes, I'll be 40 next year. No I'm not going through a mid-life crisis. I've seen my fair share of gore. I was in the fire service for 15 yrs.
The way this site portrays is that motorcycles are unsafe. Not true. Under-skilled reckless, innatentive or intoxicated riders, and the same kind of cagers are responsible for most accidents. As compared this way, there are very few " dumb luck " situations.
I'd like to see the statistics on that!
Maybe it will help some riders to realize the consequences of certain actions. But it would help to explain the details or what led up to these accidents instead of trying to use scare tactics.
I didn't feel this way when I was 16, but I believe riders and drivers should be better educated and tested before being turned loose to ruin some one's day. End of Speech!

steelwolf wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:08:


I drive semi to, but here we have a lot bigger problems with pedestriens "crawling" under the rig, resently the state required that a new mirror had to be installed so we now have 4 mirrors on the right side of the rig, but it havent helped, the only thing that will help is that ppl would realise that there are BIG blind angels on a rig and stay out of them ! And i totaly agree with you

more examples of why a leather jacket wont save your life

It is not so much the scraping of the skin as the embedding of dirt, gravel, etc. into your flesh that is so painful.

The Pyramid of death is built upon unsafe acts (numbers pure guess but you get the idea):


The leather is used at the next to bottom level -- the level that does not even get reported as an accident.  The leather is used 10 to 100 times as often as the helmet.