NY Times Health:
A New Risk of Middle-Age: Dying on a Motorcycle. I took a course before riding, and I’m very glad I did. Still remember SIPDE today. Scan Identify Predict Decide Execute. They drill it into you until it’s like ... breathing. And never look at the obstacle you want to avoid ... you’ll steer into it. Look where you want to go when avoiding.
Riding a motorcycle is not a passive activity, as when driving a car. Other cars simply don’t see you. You have to behave accordingly, with full concentration on the task at hand - which, most often, is keeping yourself in one piece due to poor road conditions. Defensive driving is the only way to survive. I would never think of having even one beer and riding, nor would I ever ride with an iPod in my ears. You need all your senses. When you zone out, that’s most often when you need those sharp reflexes to avoid a sudden edge trap, an animal, a stupid driver, a bicyclist weaving into the road, windblown debris. Helmet? I always wear one. Get hit with insects and gravel in the face at highway speeds, you’ll understand why. Full-face and leathers for me.
Most of the deaths here in SF are youngsters doing idiotic things like standing on the seats of their Ninja-style bikes on Cerrillos. Or doing wheelies for long distances. They cull their own herds in spectacularly bloody and lethal fashion.
Comments:
Yep, paramedics of my acquaintance call ‘em “donorcycles.” I pause before starting mine, and recognize the fact that each ride could be my last. I haven’t ridden much in NM, because of the awful drivers around here. Gas prices will drive me to use mine more often.
There is a frighting self-selection on the Las Vegas streets. Young and dumb, and often on the first bike they have owned. I have not ridden since I married, by request. Still, this riding environment rewards only the most cautious and paranoid.Not the ones on their newly minted H-D Soft-Tails.
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
I just think of the young reckless riders as organ donors in waiting.