The first video I saw from them was about the different motorcycle engine types: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOTz0Ol8fLA
One of their latest videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpVMsqSW6pk) contained a teaser about a documentary they're going to release in December: around the world in 17 days. Can't wait to see it.
I looked up an Arai Tour X5, thanks for the link. It gives four stars and some colours for different zones at set impact speeds in m/s in a lab. It tells me it meets standard UN ECE REG 22.06 with a double D ring retention system and composite fibre materials. Super objective and necessary.
But I've read a lot of similar information and, somehow, seeing the results of a person being dragged down the road, for some unknown amount of time, which is pretty super subjective, still feels (perhaps wrongly even) as though it gives me a better understanding than just reading numbers/letters/colours.
But obviously it comes with higher risk as you are more exposed and higher demands on your abilities. And good gear can help, but if it is not combined with training and of course a sound attitude, you may sooner or later find yourself in an undesirable situation.
Go to refresher courses. I do it every year to update myself and get an idea of my current limits. It really helps.
To see what I meant about attitude, just go on Instagram and check for motorcycle reels, you'll see soo many examples of how to not act in traffic or what to do on a motorcycle.
I just finished reading a travelogue about the dude who cycled around the world in 1800s. Sure, one could do it today but the roads he was riding on were almost empty, now you would have to be cautious every time, since 1 asshole and you're out.
Kind of feel like you're over-generalizing here. Where I live, there is almost more motorbikes than cars a lot of the time, which considering the rush hour traffic, kind of makes sense as most people don't wanna get stuck in those queues. Of course, there are accidents and near-misses (almost by definition, since those on motorbikes tend to go between car lanes), but it's not like there is a 99% chance of you dying every time you use a motorbike.
I think it depends a lot on how used to motorbikes the car drivers are. Since I live in a place where there is a bunch of them always (and cyclists!), I feel like most of us pay attention to where they could show up. Compare that to countries where motorbiking isn't as popular, I could understand how it's more risky to go with the motorbike as the car-ists aren't as used to them appearing wherever.
Consider that the fatality rate is roughly 30 times higher per mile for motorcycles vs cars.
I fully understand the freedom of the open road riding on a metal stallion - I’ve genuinely never felt anything else like it.
But it’s really god damn dangerous. Let’s not kid ourselves.
I guess it's worth asking, what country? In Spain, I think it's closer to ~10x, probably because we're very used to motorcycles driving all around us all the time. But still, riskier, no doubt.
I'm guessing that numbers come from the US in some way or similar? Watching dashcam footage sometimes, I keep seeing people riding motorbikes in the US without helmets, something I almost never seen in Spanish traffic, I can only recall seeing that once in my life, and it's really uncommon to ride a bike without a helmet here.
> But it’s really god damn dangerous. Let’s not kid ourselves.
Agree, I'm not trying to convince anyone of otherwise. But lets have nuance as well, riding a motorcycle isn't the same everywhere, especially where motorcycles are really, really commonplace in daily traffic.
It's just that most riders can't ride worth a damn, 95% of the riding information on the internet is dangerously wrong, and most of us also often ride recklessly because we're on a motorcycle to have fun in the first place.
Agreed, they're 'god damn dangerous' but where does that '30 times' figure come from? Where I am the generally accepted figure is seven times (or it was when I heard the figure a while ago).
Edit: for years I've thought that if motorcycles were a new invention they'd never be licensed these days. That they still are is historical legacy upheld by riders and the industry that makes the machines.
Underestimating your abilities in any vehicle is a good way to stay safe. In my encounters with motorcycles in traffic, as pedestrian, cyclist, or driver, even in those short few seconds while our paths cross, the motorcyclists almost always put themselves in some dangerous situation (cyclists do it even more often I'd say, but at lower speeds).
Every time I talk about this to acquaintances who ride they explain that "I do this all the time but it's fine because I know what I'm doing". Everyone is an above average driver or rider but drivers have a metal box filled with airbags. Motorcycle riders often play Russian roulette with 5 bullets in. Blaming another for when your luck finally runs out in on par with the belief most hold that they are above average.
We're there 1/5 the number of roads back then? Number of people might not be the best measure of density. Number of people in a specific walkable/short horse rideable location, such as a city would.
I think the bigger thing is that trains were the main mode of distance travel on land and very few people traveled more than 50 miles from home in their life.
Probably more like 1/2 or 3/4 depending on how you want to count dead end office park and residential subdivision roads of which there are many.
Pretty much every road in the US and Europe that isn't in the above category or a purpose built highway existed in 1900, and likely 1850 if you're looking at europe or the american northeast.
Obviously size and quality was lesser, many times they weren't even paved. But they existed because they were the roads between towns and points of interest.
I think the way the flood of Side by Sides onto the market gave enough of the public an interest in off road motoring to overwhelm the "hikers only" advocates decades old tactic of variously allying with different groups to get the others kicked out is highly illustrative here.
When motorcycles are commonly electric and require basically no maintenance and can simply be turned on in the spring year after year the barrier to entry is gonna drop even further and you're really gonna be up shit creek.
Always stay in the middle of the lane (unless you need to avoid a pothole), never overtake unless a car would have space to overtake, never enter an intersection alongside a car in the same lane.
On a bike, you also have the option of behaving like a pedestrian (cycle on the sidewalk slowly) occasionally.
If you don't do this, it's only a matter of time before a car hits you because it didn't expect a vehicle or pedestrian doing what you are doing.
Usually the middle is more slick from oil drips and contains more debris. That's why most people ride in one of the tire tracks from the cars.
I just quit about 15 years ago.
Now I'm a petrolhead at heart so I still enjoy scenic roads but with a car. It's much safer.
FortNine on motorcycle airbags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2jZryt607U
I ride motorcycles, so this is not a argument against it, but even with all the best safety gear and perfect habits you’re still significantly more likely to die in an accident compared to a motorcycle per mile driven.
The video that has always stuck with me is when he explained the science behind how motorcycles are hard to gauge their speed and distance and related it to how pigeons see. It showed me that a lot of why drivers have a tendency to pull out and cut off riders is more to do with not being aware that it can be very difficult to calculate the distance and speed of a motorcycle the same as we do with a car. With that knowledge as a rider I have actually changed my driving and really make sure I fully check both directions before pulling out. I also, as a rider, pay attention to side roads and driveways and always assume the car is going to pull out. I have never almost pulled in front of a rider but I can say I have many times avoided cars by riding defensively.
“There are many things you can point to as proof that the human is not smart. But my personal favorite would have to be that we needed to invent the helmet. What was happening, apparently, was that we were involved in a lot of activities that were cracking our heads. We chose not to avoid doing those activities but, instead, to come up with some sort of device to help us enjoy our head-cracking lifestyles. And even that didn’t work because not enough people were wearing them so we had to come up with the helmet law. Which is even stupider, the idea behind the helmet law being to preserve a brain whose judgment is so poor, it does not even try to avoid the cracking of the head it’s in.”
Both were completely safe. On both occasions I slid along the tarmac for about 10-15 meters, I was travelling at around 30-40 mph. I still wear the same leather jacket 30 years later (not for riding) but the synthetic jacket was a right-off.
On both occasions I really smacked my head: don't mess about with sub-standard crash helmets.
So even though leather is better, we're not racing the TT, we're just going from A-B and if you want to wear synthetic you'll be fine at normal speeds. So if you can't wear leather, for whatever reason, don't let that stop you.
I've been thinking about getting a nice, full face helmet (helmets marketed for mountain biking seem like a good fit), but they seem like a pain to deal with at my destination. A lot of times I'll just loop my current helmet on my scooter completely unlocked, because it's cheap enough that I'm not really worried about it being stolen. The full face helmets I have been looking at are an order of magnitude more expensive though, and I wouldn't really feel comfortable just leaving it unlocked by my scooter. Does anyone have any recommendations on this? Or recommendations on other appropriate safety gear for my kind of riding?
adzm•4h ago
Also this is a truly well done video. Entertaining, week executed, witty dialogue.
rjsw•4h ago
lm28469•4h ago
diggan•2h ago
frereubu•3h ago
diggan•3h ago
I'm not sure how true that is, even when the cause is distracted/aggressive drivers, unless the drivers actually hunted them and collided with them on purpose. Defensive driving is a thing for motorcycle drivers too, and if you take care you'll avoid even distracted/aggressive drivers too.
With that said, it of course isn't risk free, I think in my country (Spain, lots of motorcycles in/around the cities/towns), just about 60% of those who drive motorcycles have never been in any accident ever[0], and that's including very dumb ("average") people so if you're more careful than the average driver, I'm sure you could get those odds to stack in your favor.
- [0] https://www.dgt.es/export/sites/web-DGT/.galleries/downloads... Table 59. "ACCIDENTALIDAD"
lloeki•2h ago
Very.
It's possible to make no mistake and still lose.
My wife got hit-and-run when bicycling to work and she's exceeding careful and defensive in her riding.
Her carefulness is probably what allowed her to catch a glimpse of the car in the corner of her eye and swerve at the last minute to not be caught head-on by the car and sent flying hundreds of meters away.
She's "lucky" to even have made it, suffering debilitating neck pain every day and night, abated only by roughly a half through invasive surgery, a pain she will have to endure for the rest of her life which at the current rate of life expectancy is the next fifty years.
Meanwhile the distracted and hurried driver who didn't bother to check around their A pillar blind spot drove away scot-free.
That's one example. I have many such stories of cyclist and biker friends alike, many of which don't ever ride between lanes.
diggan•2h ago
Sure, no doubt about that. But again, if people (60% of the riders in my case) manage to never be in an accident, and that's including a wide range of people, then surely the odds are greater of never being in an accident if you're careful.
Still, sucks she had that experience. But it's important to realize that for every accident, there are thousands of people riding every day without a single accident in their life. But of course it's harder to think about that when you had someone in a accident and that person is close to you, I understand that.
lloeki•1h ago
Instead what I wanted to call out is that even if infinitely careful and drive defensively without fail you can still get into an accident, and you don't need to be hunted down or intentionally collided into+.
Ultimately at a large enough scale it's all about odds, and it takes but one occurrence to go from "I've been fine so far" to "my life is upended".
And like all statistical things, with a low enough sample size you're going to get an unbalanced result one way or the other.
+ On that note I wish drivers were made aware of CBDR
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant_bearing,_decreasing...
diggan•1h ago
And again, seems to be massively different depending on the country. Locally, ~60% of motorcycle drivers claim to never have been in any accident, and that's including even careless people, so surely the claims of "even careful motorbike drivers will be in a accident" are over-exaggerated.
9991•54s ago
Sorry to be callous about it. You're understandably angry. It's one thing to say you accept the risks of a risky behavior, and yet another to declare nothing could have been done.
jdietrich•1h ago
At least as importantly, the consequences of accidents are vastly magnified for motorcyclists. I know of people who have died in relatively low-speed crashes because they were unlucky enough to slide straight into a piece of road furniture or land head-first on a kerb. If you look at the accident statistics, a large proportion of fatalities and serious injuries involve low-powered motorcycles travelling at ordinary speeds on ordinary urban roads.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...
sfn42•1h ago
You can significantly reduce that risk by simply staying away from others and avoiding situations with a large speed differential. If the lane next to you is going 20mph, don't go 40+ next to them.
There are a lot of these things you can do, that most people don't because "it's not their responsibility".
frereubu•1h ago
And to flip the presentation of your stat around, that means 40% of motorbike riders have been in an accident. That sounds really high to me given the potential consequences!
diggan•1h ago
It sounds scary because it involves every type of accident, even minor ones. Useful to think about how many cars have ever been in accidents too, which should be around the same. The problem with motorcycle accidents is the fatality rates, just as you say, not the percentage of minor+major accidents.
xlii•2h ago
E.g. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/01/19/s...