For What It’s Worth: Motorcycle Myths: You Decide
(For What It’s Worth Articles are Opinion articles meant to explore subjects and allow individuals to make decisions, Fact or Fiction, for themselves. There is no intent to mislead readers. I will borrow some comments from a websites, draw from my experience, and what facts I have gathered.)
As reported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 2003 motorcycle fatalities rose 11 percent over the previous year, marking the sixth consecutive year of increases, a disturbing contrast compared to the years of steady improvement that preceded this more recent trend. Could these trends be due primarily to our motorcycling paradigm, that is, society’s emphasis on this lifestyle choice? Could they be largely affected by the slew of motorcycle misconceptions we are exposed to by other riders and institutions whose most clear objective is to make money on the sport?
Here are some frequently heard myths you decide.
“All you have to do is choose to make your dream a reality”,
“Anyone can ride a motorcycle,” and “Everyone should at least try to ride”.
As a motorcycle skills instructor, my experience is that some people should not continue to try to learn how to motorcycle, they simply should not motorcycle. If you cannot balance the bicycle for example you may want to reconsider riding a motorcycle. If you have mental, physical, emotional, or cognitive disorders you should probably not ride. Your limits may be different than the average persons and you should operate within them. Motorcycling is a sport like many others and athletes typically make better riders.
Simply put if you are an inappropriate student, whether you know it or not, no amount of quality training, preparation, or practice is going to make you appropriate. Some riders get hurt in training and in some cases severely, and still continue becuase they get encouragement from family, friends, and advertising.
So why does most riders say anyone can do it? Because they can. Why do organizations, which claim to be interested in your safety, in fact encourage you to ride? The more riders there are the more bikes their sponsors sell. If you were not a smoker, would you believe that the Cigarette Safety Council has your best interests at heart? Or that the Tobacco Growers Union cares about how safely you smoke? If there is a direct link to sales you have to question the integrity of organization pushing a product in this case motorcycling.
How rational is it to think we can increase the number of riders while decreasing the number of fatalities?
©2004 Mark C. Carroll
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