Motorcycles are deadly!

I've sometimes wondered if everyone rode bikes instead of driving cars - if roads might not be safer.

Pretty hard to put on your makeup or talk on the phone when riding a bike and with your body "out there" and clearly at risk you might look twice before entering a busy street or making a quick turn.

kay

[QUOTE=Michael Motley;2260255]Thats an old picture/story it has been circulating the Internet for a while. Motorcycles aren't deadly, morons on motorcycle and in cars are deadly. I'll lay money that he was riding at highway speeds inside of the trucks draft 'bubble'. I've done it before myself when I was young and stupid.

Absolutely Michael, I was young and had these urges sometimes to open the throttle.. whereas my brother was a sensible biker in comparison. I was a bit risky looking back.

When I had dirtbikes i used to put them down all the time..thats sorta the point of a dirt bike.

Probably my 'best' wreck was a dirtbike on my gramp's farm. I had a little oval track kinda set up that ran the length of the field and at one end had some handmade berms on the corner. This end was also defined by a triple barbed wire/electrical fence setup.

Being the budding motocross star that i thought myself to be, I was really laying hard into the corners and riding the berm around. One time my enthusiasm overshot my skill and I dove into the corner a little too hot, lowsided over the berm and skidded into the fence. It wasnt to stop there either.
When i first started clipping fence posts with the bottom of the bike I was probably in the 45-50mph range. Its surprising how much momentum a 300lb bike/rider combo has at that low speed. I clipped the first fence pole then the next, trapping my newly formed pole collection under the bike as I was plowing up dirt. As per murphy's law, these two poles quickly turned into an ad-hoc pole vault which got me and bike flipping and rolling along the barbed wire fence, rolling me up into a nice big yamaha/barbed wire burrito. By the time it was all said and done i had clipped 4 posts and was pretty much lashed to a red hot motorcycle by barbed wire. Luckily the electric fence has been broken and wasnt still carrying juice or i'd have been wired to the bike and getting zapped by a fence hard enough to bring down a large bull

My 60ish year old grandpa was sitting on the porch watching this comedy unfold with binoculars. Now where i slid to a dirt spitting stop was probably 300 yards away from the house and gramps. My gramps was an old farmer..he was NEVER in a hurry, and because he had already told me about being careful on the bike and i didnt look dead or dying through the binoculars, he was in no hurry this time either. I had to wait for him to walk all the way down there to where i was unable to move, look at me to see if anything was sticking out. Once he see's im going to live, he starts grinning at me and says 'I havent ridden a motorcycle in a while...but I believe you're doing it wrong.' Thats the smartass farmer's version of 'I told ya so'. Then had to wait for him to walk back to the barn all the they way back up by the house to get a pair of wire cutters and cut me out off the bike.

Exactly Mike.
The only reason I see more idiots in cars is simply because I see more cars on the road then bikes.
I will say the number of idiots around here on bikes seems to be dropping.
They may be idiots, but they are very effective at killing themselves off.

One big problem i feel is the influence racing has on the young biker.
I was 16 when I experienced the Isle of man TT races.
A 37 mile circuit twisting around the isle through villages and country roads, ever so dangerous.
Then there is `mad Sunday ` the roads are closed for the spectator bikers to try the circuit.
spill after spill i witnessed crazy is not the word for it..every biker imagines he racing as a pro.
some of them are more sensible, they just want to see and feel the circuit and just immagine the very high speeds of these professional racers speeding down parts such as Bray hill at 160 mph. ( a very twisty road village section.)