So riding skill is connected to (not) having an electric starter on your bike?
Wouldn’t you say that a possible reason for the lack of skill of the American biker (IF this is the case, I have too little experience to tell) is more related to the rather scary requirements (or lack thereof) for riding a bike?
I mean, check out this guy over in MPSIMS. Nothing personal against him, but he’s able to just buy a V-Rod (hardly a machine for a novice, you’ll agree), and ride around with it without doing as much as a course. Not very surprisingly, he’s already dropped it once.
THAT’s scary to me. Kickstarters, I could care less about. Whether I ride a kickstarted cruiser or my own electrically started Yamaha, I know it took me 25 hours of expensive lessons and a thorough examination (both theory and practice) to get my bike license. It’s by no means a guarantee that you’ll never crash, but it’s a solid start, at least.
I started riding on mini-bikes when I was six. A Taco 44 with a Briggs & Stratton 4 hp engine. I learned to ride my dad’s well-used 1964 Yamaha 80 when I was ten – my first real motorcycle, as opposed to a motor-driven cycle. I got my own bike, a Yamaha 100 Enduro, when I was 12. I also rode dad’s second-hand Honda CB100 and CB750. My next bike was a Yamaha 250 Enduro, four years later. I eventually bought a 1979 Honda CX500 from a co-worker for a dollar. Then I got my 1994 Yamaha XJ600 Seca II, new. I’ve dropped bikes numerous times (having done my fair share of off-highway riding) and have been hit twice on the freeway (although I kept it under control and didn’t fall – you should have seen the truck!). I was nearly creamed today.
I wear a helmet. I wore it before it was required.
On the other hand, I have enough experience to decide whether to wear a helmet. I am able to assess whether a situation requires a helmet. (I mentioned a couple of circumstances earlier where I believe a helmet was not necessary.) Given my knowledge and experience, I feel I am fully capable of making my own decision. I don’t think it is the government’s place to tell me I have to. I’d wear it anyway. But I have being told to wear it.
The helmet law here in FL seems to be an effective compromise…if you want to ride without a helmet, you must be over 21, and you must carry at least $10,000 in personal medical insurance, and you must carry proof of that insurance when you ride.
Jax, $10k won’t buy squat in the way of medical care if you’re seriously injured. I was uninsured when I broke my leg in FL over 6 years ago; a 10-minute ambulance ride, having the leg set in the E.R., and one night in the hospital cost $4500. I never lost consciousness, and injured nothing except my leg. And we’re not even talking about being hooked up to an I.V., let alone any fancy machinery. The only drugs I received were a couple shots of Demerol when they set the leg, and some painkillers overnight which didn’t really do squat.
So if you have a head injury of any severity at all, you could run through $10k in care mighty fast. And if that’s your only health insurance, the public will likely be paying for your care for a long time to come, unless you have some serious cash that you can lay out. (It took me a long time, but I did eventually pay off my hospital bill.)
BING! (And those are ten year old numbers, medical inflation has been steep; malpractice premiums have greatly driven up the costs for high risk endevours like emergency medicine … we need tort reform!)
$10K is chicken feed for medical costs.
Johnny and Broomstick, I understand that you do not like the government telling you what to do. Even if it is something that you agreed makes sense for you to do. I understand that even that is a limitation on your personal freedom. Personal freedoms should be limited only with very good cause. Nevertheless in our society we often give some of our freedoms for the greater good; such is the basis for society: we pay taxes even though we resent it; we don’t hit someone who makes us angry; we even occasionally follow traffic laws! When society’s vested interest is great, and the imposition small, such an imposition is justified. There is reasonable debate about where such a line should be drawn.
Now read-neck, who had called my figures bullshit, meekly responds to my sources with a cite that has the main point that motorcycles are dwarfed as a cause of head injuries by such things as car accidents. Which is true enough. But per mile driven, and per registered vehicle, cars are a much safer way to go … not as safe as flying but that is another discussion! More to the point, with cars our society has accepted that if used they must be used reasonably safely, mandatory seatbelts, etc. We balance the safety versus the costs of imposition: some safety additions have not been required because they would drive up expenses too much; eliminating cars would clearly be too great of an imposition on personal freedoms; so on. Even for this number one cause of head injury and of death under 18 years of age.
In California alone the helmet law saved about 200 lives in the first year of implementation. Let’s put this perspective: about the same number of SARS deaths in all of China (population 1.2 billion plus) has set off a world wide panic with travel restrictions and more. 200 lives saved per year in one state alone. And the impositions are that some people want to show off their hair and be free to take risks if they want to?
Ride your bike with skill. Enjoy it. And wear your dang helmet.
DSeid --------- I see by your post that you agree that if mandatory helmet laws are good for motorcycles they would be even more beneficial when applied to all motor vehicles. No? Why not? Didn’t get to the bottom of the link didya’.
Coldfire,That link was exactly what I was talking about. If said novice would have had to kick that beast maybe he would have started lower down the ladder. It’s just a quirk of mine. Of the twenty odd bikes I’ve owned,one had an electric starter. In the 6 months I owned it,it put me afoot three times and one of those was very embarassing. (In front of a certain young ladies house just about daybreak). Be that as it may,the scenario of a forty yr old adolescent that pays 20 grand plus for a new HD so he can live his “Easyrider” fantasy only to end up as a hood ornament within six months happens all too often.
Johnny L A , Twenty five years riding in California. My hat’s off to you. That’s like playing Russian Roullette with all six chambers loaded and getting away with it.
