Motorcycles save gas, but are costing lives.

Sorry to say that, depending on weather conditions where you live, and the traffic he’d have to deal with, I would probably recommend strongly against this, particularly for a new rider.

If you live in a place that rarely gets wet or cold weather, AND if he’s not driving in heavy rush hour traffic, this might not be too bad an idea. But with either of these factors, the risks go way up, especially for an inexperienced rider.

After having ridden for more than a decade, I was in a situation where I briefly considered making my daily 30-mile commute from the suburbs into downtown Washington, DC, on my motorcycle. On the first or second day, I pulled over on the Balto-Wash Parkway to help some people pull a motorcycle out of the roadway. The rider had been injured in an accident and was lying there waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

Although I’m not superstitious, I took this as an omen, and bought a car that week.

The thing about commuting is that the pressure to get to work can warp your judgment and lead you to make bad choices. If your husband decides to get a bike, I would strongly recommend not riding it to work for the first several months at least. Get experience just riding around for pleasure, without the pressure of the time clock. And for the first year at least, avoid any combination of bad weather and heavy traffic. Either one is hard enough for a newbie, both together can be deadly.

ETA: And don’t, for a year or more, if ever, sell the car so that the bike is the only option! Recipe for disaster!

I commute on a motorcycle whenever weather permits. It’s a little under 50 miles round trip. A big stretch of it is expressway. Riding the bike saves enough on gas to more than make the payment on the bike. One can’t complain about that.
The only downside, if any, to motorcycle commuting is that I no longer have much of an urge to ride the motorcycle just for fun. Commuting actually decreased the miles I was putting on the bike.
WRT safety, I find that just presuming every driver in every vehicle on the road is a homicidal retard keeps me out of trouble.