motorcycle vs car safety

depends what demographics you're matching. I'd suggest 99% of riders
take an active interest in their mode of transport, whereas pretty much
the inverse would be true of car drivers, so you get far more unknowing,
uncaring, incompetent stupidity. I'm sure you could also argue that a
bike forces you to take more interest, which 'may' be true, but only to
a certain degree.

Charlie

 

Not necessarily. The public never sees the aftermath of a prang, just the
scene after everyone's out and on their way to hospital. They don't see the
what happens in the time it takes to free someone from a wreck. Ever seen a
head go through a laminated windscreen? Know what happens next?... Cars are
good because you can carry heavy stuff. Like barbells with weights attached,
in the boot. Guess where they end up in a prang?...Car on fire? Door handles
aren't much good if the doors are jammed shut...

Essentially, in a car, you are riding in an easily shredded sheetmetal box
with glass, scalding oil and coolant flowing under the bonnet along with a
big lump of burning hot cast iron or aluminium, not to mention a battery
filled with acid, most likely conveniently placed so as to guarantee damage
in a crash, and a sheetmetal reservoir of flammable liquid under the back.
Frequently, the object that you hit will be another easily shredded
sheetmetal box...

I'm a firie, among other firies in this forum along with nurses and ambos
and coppers who all know the risks and who choose motorcycles.

In 20 years, I've never had to cut anyone out of a motorcycle. Pulled plenty
of bodies, some whole, some not so whole, some unburnt, some not so unburnt,
some alive when we started work, not so alive by the time we'd got them out.

Not saying it doesn't happen to motorcyclists. But at least the bloke who
lost his leg in a bike prang last week didn't have to wait for us to cut him
out...

Your life. Your choice.

Doug Cox.
Work to ride, Ride to work...

 

Anyone who comes on here saying a bike is a safe option is simply full of
shit, or just trolling for a stir. Motorcycles and cars are both
fundmentally dangerous. Any activity involving height or momentum is. Once
you accept that fact its all about risk management. You can minimise the
risks on a bike with good gear and good training, but if a rottweiler pops
out and you hit it at 60-70kph it you will be hurt or killed. Its that
simple.

I do agree with one of the points raised earlier. If for whatever reason you
need your parents permission then I suggest you listen to what they have to
say. When you get a wrist full of power it bypasses the big head and goes
straight to the small head (assuming you're male, if not you get the idea).
It doesn't hurt to have a voice of reason throttling you back.

In the end it is up to you. Your life your choice. Best of luck.

--
Cheers
Dave (Mojo67)
FZR600 Brisbane
http://users.bigpond.net.au/mojo67/mojo67.htm
I used to never be able to finish anything but now I

 

I try to avoid kids playgrounds because everything is so dangerous.

--
Conehead
"Besides, I have vehicle(s), which is/(are) not used me so much of the above
is something I need to abide to in order for things to get done."

Hammo, in aus.motorcycles

 

they're not so bad if you're off the bike.

Charlie

 

Took me two years to convince my parents that I was responsible/it was a
good idea for me to ride a motorcycle. They were the same as yours I'd
imagine, and both my uncles have had bad motorcycle accidents so Dad wasn't
too keen on the idea. They ended up paying half (matching what I saved up)
for my first bike and registering it under Dad's name to save me insurance
fees (not sure if this is legal, but he has a motorcycle license as well and
he was the owner/primary user while I was the secondary.. bending the truth
a bit)
Since then, they've seen me stay on the 250 for a year and a bit with only a
minor fall , upgrade to a 600, crash the 600 (few fairly major falls) and
get another 600. Last night I mentioned the idea of converting my old 600
into a track bike to Mum, which she took fairly well.
Don't go by statistics. Do you want to ride? How badly do you want to ride?
How much effort are you willing to put into getting a bike? how much waiting
can you do? How much sacrifices can you make to get a bike?
Drops and crashes are inevitabilities which you may or may not learn from in
the course of time. You'll find very few of old riders who've never crashed
in their lifetimes. thing is, you will have to tell your parents that you
crashed eventually and you will face the "we told you so/sell that bloody
thing" lecture. But if you're willing to either tough it out, or move out of
home to get a bike, given time, your folks will mellow a bit about your
riding..
Question is, do you want it..
Cheers

--
TB
'03 CBR600F4i
'99 GSXR600
'88 CBR250R
....now for a drinks break

 

You'll find they are less dangerous when you are clothed.

Aaron
ZX6R

 

"A motorcyclist is no more likely to be involved in a crash than is a
car driver. In 2000, the crash rate per 10,000 registered vehicles was
272.1 for motorcycles versus 272.9 for cars. However the consequences of
these crashes are far more serious, 90% of reported motorcycle crashes
involve injury, compared to only 40% of reported car crashes. "

From that, I'd summise that motorcycling is twice as dangerous as
driving a car. That ain't too bad.



---
Cheers

PeterC [aka MildThing]
'81 Suzuki GS450-s
'87 BMW K100RT

www.dmcsc.org.au

 

I think risk per km ridden is a poor method of comparison. It assumes that
the all other factors remain constant. It ignores the skills involved in
riding a motorcycle. It assumes that a rider who rides daily and travels
40,000km per year is 40 times more likely to die than a rider who takes their
bike out of the shed one weekend a month and rides 1,000km per year, when in
reality the opposite is most probably true.

Nev..
'03 ZX12R
'02 CBR1100XX

 

http://users.tpg.com.au/kkmiller/bike/hotgrips.htm

I'd been thinking about doing exactly this, and now I find that you've
done all of the tricky R&D for me! Thanks Kim! ;-)

(I was intending to use large diameter heatshrink rather than the
cricket bat handle cover, but we'll see).


BTH

 

How old are you? Do you have a car licence? My own personal
recommendation would be to drive a car for a year or two first to
learn a bit about traffic, road rules and roadcraft.

Try this experiment: Run as fast as you possibly can without slacking
your pace directly into a brick wall. Did you get hurt? You would
have been doing about 30kph.

Here's my prangs page (it's missing last year's "2 broken hands" one,
because I've become lazy):

http://www.geocities.com/za2bb/prangs/

As for my history, I bought my first road bike in 1995, when I was 22.
My parents were very unhappy with this development, and tried their
best to encourage me to get a trail or trials bike instead, anything
to keep me off the roads.

6 months or so later I had a rather impressive prang, broke some bones
and my bike, and met my wife-to-be. My parents were once more
dismayed at my "get back on the horse that threw you" attitude.

Time passed, my girlfriend decided that she wanted to try this
motorcycling thing, so I found her a bike and she did. A couple of
months later she decided that motorcycling wasn't for her, and
therefore it wasn't for me either. I persevered for a while, but
eventually made the wrong decision and sold my bikes and gear. After
a couple of years I almost managed to convince myself that I was
"over" motorcyling.

5 years later (in early 2001) my wife and I separated. A few months
after that I bought a Saturday paper and was rather surprised to find
myself heading across town with a trailer behind my car and $500 in my
pocket to buy a bike. Thankfully I didn't get that one (an FT500 with
gearbox trouble) but a month or so later I bought a GPX250.

This time around my parents have been much more supportive. I suspect
that they realised that if I didn't return to motorcycling I probably
would have ended up swinging by a rope from a rafter.


BTH

 

You'll also get experience in observing bikes from the car drivers point
of view and figure out ways to avoid the SMIDSY traps when you start riding.

Mate of mine was going to get a bike because I had one. Got his learners
and put his parents address on it to get the cheaper country rego. They
opened the VicRoads letter thinking he'd been busted speeding or something,
saw the learner permit and immediately threatened to cut him off financially if
he didn't cancel it. The guy was 20-something and living away from home
at the time. He cancelled it anyway. Shame. Parents with money behind them
can exert a lot of pressure that's hard to ignore.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that trail riding is actually more
dangerous than road riding and that more injuries occur.

 

Your point IMHO is valid. The fatality rate can be seen as an average risk,
so that some riders can do squillions of km without incident while others
just poke their nose out the door and get hit by two buses. Then again, I
used to cycle (pushie) about three or four hundred km a week through the
Adelaide Hills. In a three year period I was hit twice by a car through no
fault of my own. Less exposure to traffic (fewer kms ridden) would have
meant less exposure to traffic and perhaps no accidents. Skill level can
only take you so far.

There's no doubt that increased rider skill will reduce chances of death,
resulting in far less than average probability of a fatality per km ridden.
However there are plenty of "dickhead" riders around who make up for this by
having a *higher* than average risk on the road.

Summary statistics aren't really good for looking at individual differences,
just at overall effects. It doesn't seem to matter what figures you look at
though, motorcycling is far more dangerous than driving a car. I'm on my
"L"s still so if anything, I have a vested interest in making those figures
look better than they are ;-), but I guess it's a reminder to take due care
on the road and not throw caution to the wind.

Sorry if that was bit long-winded ...

Cheers,
Nicholas

 

Thought they were officially called "unriders"?
Anyway, it comes down to natural selection, n'est pas? The meek shall
inherit the roads?
- sanbar

 

"Charlie" wrote

That can't be right. More than 2% ride red CT110's for the Post Office. Hard
to believe they take an active interest in their ride.

Theo

 

"FuTAnT" wrote

Errr, most collisions happen within two kms of your place of abode at under
60 km/h. On the other hand most people do most of their riding/driving
within two kms of their home.

Theo

 

because if we say 95% instead, that totally ruins my point

Charlie

 

X-No-archive: yes
Theo Bekkers wrote;

My worst ever crash happened about 2km from my house.
(Mind you; I didn't buy that house until 12 years later......)
Clem
[My 2nd worst crash was about 2kkm away]

 

Are you ignoring me?

Knobbo, can't find your email address... did you sort out the gNatbike?

Gary

--
Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice

The Seven Deadly Sins of M.K. Gandhi

 

That's one reason I don't mind too much the "random" license checks.