I spent my whole life dedicated to the principle that the three things I’d never travel on would be a motorcycle, a horse, or skis. Then, at the age of 77 I spent ten days in Sri Lanka, and had no other way to get around than as a passenger on my host’s motorbike. After a couple of turns, I got used to the feel of it, and thought it was OK. I trusted my driver, and after a few unpredictable u-turns in chaotic traffic, and after-dark rides on unlighted streets, I started to really enjoy it. It was actually exhilarating, and I looked forward to it. Colombo traffic could not throw anything at me that scared me. You-tube videos of third world traffic are a lot more comfortable from within, when you realize that all the drivers are moving parts in the same organism, and each driver knows intuitively how the whole system interacts.
Thirty years ago, my eight year old daughter and I left Southern Utah to see Mickey Mouse on-board my 700 CC motorcycle.
I had taken the MSF course. And a believer in All the Gear ALL the time.
We camped in the desert, and on the beach in Southern California. A wonderful adventure.
The only scary incident was after we were leaving Disneyland. My daughter insisted we stay for the electric parade. We were heading back to our camping place. Some asshole on an overpass threw a large bottle at us. In these days the overpasses were not enclosed with chain link fences. The bottle landed in front and a little to our left. Scared the poop out of me! I have always questioned his action. He didn’t even know us. Why was he trying to kill us?
Coming back to Utah, we camped in the desert. No campground. Just us, and the stars. After we broke camp, we had breakfast at a cafe. The waitress asked if we felt the earthquake last night. We didn’t feel a thing in our tent.
It was an amazing adventure.
As to the OP. I would never let my off springs on a motorcycle unless the operator had lots of experience, a MSF graduate, including all the gear, and was not impaired with booze or drugs. Just too many unknowns out there. And too precious of cargo.
Count Blutcher in my case it was my grandfather and I was too young to be responsible for what happened. I think it was just the fact that there was a bunch of family around, lots of people talking, lots of distractions it was a family get together on his farm, he was riding the kids around, giving them turns and I think he just slipped up and forgot to warn me. I guess he was responsible for what happened but I don’t have a grudge or anything and I love the guy.
I just remember screaming so hard and passing out from the pain I guess on the way to the hospital, he felt really bad about what happened. I also remember for a long while afterwards my Mom would have to remove the dead skin from the burn every so often. The amazing thing is because I was so young I guess there is literally no scar or anything, there is no evidence that anything ever even happened.
Its not the rider I would be concerned about, after all if I was even considering letting someone carry my child it would be someone I knew and trusted, its other people doing something stupid either accidently, or as in your story, deliberately that would worry me more.
And of course with the best will in the world from all parties concerned accidents sometimes happen. Its just personally a risk too far for me.
Oh, and I would certainly insist that they were more visible than the dark clothing on a dark motorbike I observed yesterday.
Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for children… well let’s just look at 5-9 for now, it’s 3x higher than the number of kids who drown, and I’m already skittish when the kids are in the pool. There’s a lot of dumb stuff people freak out about: stranger danger, school shootings, getting too close to that railing over there… if we’re going to worry about anything it might as well be motor vehicle accidents. And motorcycles are 27x more dangerous per mile driven that cars.
I mean, statistically I can’t think of any “routine” sort of activity more dangerous than putting a kid on the back of a motorcycle. I don’t say that to judge or to be a dick, but it’s true – if there’s one thing we can do to have an impact on our kids safety, keeping them off motorcycles would have to be it.
Well, here’s the weird thing. I used to love bicycles and biking. I could lean in on turns with the best of them at very high speeds and there were at least 2 times in my life when I seriously considered learning and having a MC.
But… I was Really good driving cars too… I had no contacts who rode MCs when I had the disposable income to splurge… and some of the people who I eventually tangentially knew who did ride often ended up being real “show-boat assholes”…
the kind that would try to do a wheelie in traffic or have riders do performance art dance moves on the back while they were pole-positioning between cars.
It just really drove home a prejudice that others had expressed around me growing up about irresponsible MC riders… even if that was not accurate.
There is only one person who has an MC on my block today. He’s an over-bearing obnoxious asshole who likes to start his bike in his driveway before 7AM on Sundays… Just To Be A Dick.
Now, to be fair, he is a Dick in Everything He Does In This Life, which isn’t exactly a fair representation of cyclists… but still, every time I wake up on a Sunday (on a day when I don’t have to set my alarm) to that asshole’s “Kawasaki Cruiser” revving in his driveway,
I’m strongly temped to price-out 100 feet of piano wire…
I used to ride bikes…poorly. So I didn’t last long. I came off several times riding off road with no serious injuries. I dropped the bike once, through no fault of my own but that of another vehicle, again with no serious injury but I only avoided death by luck. That was the end of my riding career. So colored by those experiences I would have allowed my kids on bikes off road but not in traffic. As it happened it never came up during their childhoods.