[shaggles]

I live in Seattle and twice this week I’ve heard about motorcycle accidents during the morning rush hour. I’m not sure if they’re on the rise or if I’m just noticing more because I ride now. At first I thought it might be because more people have taken up riding due to high gas prices but maybe it’s just because it’s riding season. Now I’m not even sure of the point of this post. I guess just to say be careful out there.

[six-shooter]

I read an article that mentioned that the number of motorcycle accidents were rising because of the growing number of riders, but I’m not sure that statistically it’s increasing at the same rate (as far as accidents per motorcycle). But that being said, I’ve found that since I’ve started riding, I now notice every motorcycle accident reported, whereas before, I probably wouldn’t have paid attention. So to answer your question, it’s probably a little bit of both.

[Amoryl]

and really, how many car accidents are really put in the news? I’ve never personally seen a motorcycle accident, let alone a serious one, I’ve seen DOZENS if not more car accidents, including ones that resulted in fatalities. there are far more cars than motorcycles, true, but there’s also far more accidents.

that being said, some idiot today on his sportsbike cut me off on the highway, and almost caused me to hit his rear tire. probably would have had I not heard the high pitched whine coming up my side, and eased off the gas. anyone know how difficult it is to go from 60-45 in moments in a cargo van? I’ve gotta wonder, if you take the Squids out of the equation when figuring out how many serious accidents happen on mortorcycles, how much safer would it look?

[megaspaz]

I really would love the DOT or some uni to do another statistical analysis/study on motorcycle accidents. The Hurt report’s about 30 years old now. While I agree, that the dangers aren’t much different for motorcyclists, times have still changed and I’d prefer to rely on facts and numbers instead intuition. While the dangers haven’t changed, I bet the probabilities of accidents have increased with more autos than road capacities, more squids (stunters on public roads), more distractions driving cars (cell phone use), less road maintanence, etc. When I was growing up in the bay area, stop and go traffic on the highways only occured when accidents happened. Now it’s because of too many cars and not enough lanes. And the roads were in much better condition. Compare a current study on motorcycles with a study on cars and it would be a very interesting comparison. We don’t have that ability though because the only current and recognized motorcycle study is the ~30 year old Hurt report.

—
If there’s anything more important than my ego
around, I want it caught and shot now…

[Author]

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