LITMIR.BIZ

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in 2004 was 4.8 times the rate for passenger car occupants per registered vehicle. In 2005, motorcycles accounted for only 2.4 percent of registered vehicles but accounted for 10.5 percent of total traffic fatalities.

      The moral should be clear: If you want to survive those entertaining canyon roads—or city streets—you need to not only control your own machine but also control the situation, which includes other drivers and yes, other motorcyclists.

       The Long Road Ahead

      Let’s set out on that long road toward managing the risks of riding, starting with a little deeper look into the statistics and your own riding tactics. Then, let’s move on through the topics that seem to be related directly to motorcycle crashes, including motorcycle steering and braking dynamics, cornering tactics, and surviving urban traffic. I’ll continue the journey with some advice about road hazards I call booby traps, special situations such as riding at night, and sharing the ride with others. You’ll notice that this book focuses on riding public roads, so you’ll see lots of photos of corners, surface hazards, and traffic, rather than glamour shots of motorcycles leaned over into racetrack corners.

How Far Are You Hanging It Out?

      I don’t know how you learned to ride a motorcycle, but I taught myself. Back in the mid-sixties, my old buddy Ricochet Red had started commuting to work on a Honda 90 and quickly graduated to a big Honda 160. I tried Red’s 160 and immediately saw the potential for beating automobile traffic on and off the Seattle ferry. Within a week, I found a clean used Suzuki 150 twin for $300.

      Of course there weren’t many training courses around in the sixties. Red coached me through a half hour of practice on his Honda behind the grade school one Saturday afternoon. Monday morning, I climbed on the Suzuki and zipped off into rush-hour traffic. It rained that very first day, and I remember squish-squishing around the office as I mulled over the implications of motorcycles and weather. That was the start of my motorcycling education.

      Of course, there were people around the office who clucked their tongues at my foolishness. Everyone knew motorcycles were dangerous, and riding a motorcycle to work in heavy traffic had to be high-risk foolishness. There were snide remarks and stupid jokes. One co-worker even approached me, gripped my shoulder with fatherly sincerity, and offered the opinion, “I sure wouldn’t want my son to ride one of those things.” A few days later, when I arrived at the ophthalmologist carrying my helmet, the doctor gave me a twenty-minute lecture on the hazards of riding motorcycles and a five-minute eye exam.

      I wouldn’t admit it to anyone at the time, but that barrage of antimotorcycle flak caused me to have some serious doubts about motorcycling. I had a wife, two young children, and a mortgage. And I sure didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I recall one day toward the end of the second week when I nearly gave it up. After work, I’d strapped my lunchbox to the back of the bike, put on my helmet, and started the engine, but I was a little reluctant to get rolling. Factory traffic is notoriously aggressive at shift change. I sat on the bike for a long time in the corner of the parking lot, watching cars wedge into the stream and trying to control my rising panic. Eventually, I forced myself to get on the bike and ride home. And I’m still riding. Over the next forty-plus years, I gradually learned some important lessons about motorcycling. The first lesson was that my co-workers and my ophthalmologist didn’t know diddly about motorcycling or motorcycle safety.

      Looking back, I have to agree that the basic concern of my colleagues was probably realistic. A lot of people have gotten messed up in motorcycle crashes, and new riders are particularly vulnerable. But what neither my associates nor I understood at the time is that the risks of motorcycling vary significantly from individual to individual. One rider may have a serious crash soon after taking up motorcycling. Another rider may survive years and years without having a single incident.

      Is it just a matter of chance that one rider suffers a crash while another rider avoids crashing? Is swinging a leg over a motorcycle just a two-wheeled form of Russian roulette? I don’t think so. During the years I’ve been riding, writing, and teaching, quite a pile of statistics have been collected. We don’t have nearly as much specific data available as we’d like, but we have a much better idea of the risks now than anyone had back in the sixties.

       Is motorcycling a two-wheeled version of Russian Roulette, or can we really manage the risks?

      Let’s take a short, fast ride through risk territory. We’ll give you a little quiz at the end to help you see how you’re doing.

       Uh-Oh . . . Statistics

      I am frequently asked for “the truth” about motorcycle crashes, as if someone were trying to hide the evidence. The basic problem with statistics is figuring out how to collect and sort the data. It might seem that it would be a simple task to collect motorcycle fatality statistics from all the states, but the real-world situation is extremely complex. To get the big picture, all the states send in their own results to the feds. But different states have different rules for reporting crashes and fatalities. For instance, California reports motorcycle crashes that occur only on public streets and highways, including mopeds and motorized bicycles. By comparison, Missouri reports motorcycle crashes on public streets and highways plus nonpublic property, including off-highway motorcycles, mopeds, motorized bicycles, and three- or four-wheeled ATVs. Each state has different rules, so we have to temper the national results with a bit of common sense. (Source: MSF Motorcycle Crash Statistics, 2001.)

      We do have statistics about motorcyclist fatalities that I believe are reliable. Back in the 1970s, there was a surge in motorcycle fatalities. Then, from 1980 until 1997, the motorcycle fatality totals gradually dropped, just as all other forms of transportation were getting safer. But around 1997, the trend reversed. Motorcycle sales began to increase, and the fatality numbers started climbing again. It may be helpful to look at the fatality rate as well as the total number of fatalities per year. The rate takes into account the relative number of motorcycles on the road. The most desirable way to calculate the fatality rate would be comparing fatalities with miles traveled, but I’m suspicious of any “miles traveled” number because that has to be a guess. The other way to calculate the rate is by comparing fatalities with motorcycle registrations. I believe registrations are more reliable, so that’s the rate I use for calculating.

      In my opinion, if you ride primarily in city traffic, your specific risks are defined fairly well by the Motorcycle Accident Factors Study conducted by the Traffic Safety Center of the University of Southern California, in the late 1970s. The study has become known as simply the Hurt Report, after lead investigator Dr. Hugh “Harry” Hurt. The USC team investigated 1,100 motorcycle accidents that occurred in the greater Los Angeles area over a two-year period and analyzed 900 of those accidents for the report. I had an opportunity to interview Harry several years ago, and I asked specifically if he felt the report was still valid for this generation’s motorcyclists. Harry suggested that motorcyclists were having the same sort of crashes as in the 1970s but at higher speeds, and on more expensive bikes. So it’s still worthwhile to look to the Hurt Report for clues about today’s motorcycle crashes.

      Let’s also note that the definitions have changed. Back in the days of the Hurt Report, unfortunate events were called accidents—as if no one could predict what was happening or do anything about it. But today unfortunate events are called crashes. We’re getting away from the concept of a motorcyclist being an accident victim because in most situations the people involved can observe what’s happening and take evasive action.

      The majority of motorcycle crashes in the 1970s were collisions with other vehicles, mostly automobiles.

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