cars

if he succeeded in convincing you that would have done more for your long term health and risk of death than literally any other intervention so I don't blame him for trying

I know a lot of medical providers and they see a lot of mangled bodies from motorcycle accidents.

If you eliminate people riding without proper gear, people riding without motorcycle licenses, and people riding inebriated, the death statistics for motorcycles get cut by more than half.

Learning this fact was a huge reason I finally sent it on my dream of owning a bike. And holy shit am I glad I did, I haven't had this much fun in years.

I hate talking about motorcycles with people because they think I’m strange when I tell them I don’t want to ride one or be a passenger unless everyone has helmets, protective gloves, airbag vests, etc. It seems excessive, and I’m sure some of it may be snake oil, but some people really do think they’re epic stunt actors who just need a pair of shades and black jacket to be safe.

Everyone also thinks I’m overreacting when I tell them to wear a seatbelt in the back of the car. If you don’t value your life, fine, but I rather not have you break my spine and kill or paralyze me because you think physics make an exception for you just because you sit in the back. Fucking HATE passengers. Fucking HATE drivers of any vehicle. I want to drive a large one seat vehicle so people can’t bother me. A tank, i guess.

If you join an outlaw biker gang you can engage in both activities at the same time!

this friend has less regard for your continued survival than a hitman on a fat contract to shoot you in the head

If you haven't done it, I spent the money and took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic course. I just started riding 3 months ago and that class taught me a lot of things.

It's a very different mindset from driving a car and demands a lot of attention.

I don't care if it's 100°F out - I'm wearing all my protective gear.

Saw a dude riding a dual sport wearing sandals, cargo shorts, and a tank top. That's it. All I could do was hope that he would end up laying down in a low speed turn and learn a lesson before he gets plowed into by a pavement princess.

Cars are so closely related to the idea of freedom in Amerikkka that doing this would trigger some sort of revolution.

yes, it is more dangerous than cycling.

In places like southeast asia where the mopeds take over the road in swarms and there are only a couple cars that are not the dominant vehicular life form it is much different.

Honestly as a cyclist in an area with poor cycling infrastructure, I would feel a lot more comfortable riding a motorcycle than I do on my ebike, highways excluded. Riding in traffic is much safer than riding alongside traffic, you are far more visible and that's the single most important aspect of road safety.

Bicycle deaths per mile: ~10 per 100M miles Motorcycle deaths per mile: ~20 per 100M miles

IMO this shows that they're more dangerous, but primarily because you can go a lot further on a motorcycle. Basically 100% of the danger from riding a bicycle comes from cars. In contrast, it's quite practical to kill yourself on a motorcycle without external intervention. So, if you have already chosen a mode of transportation, behavioral choices on a motorcycle offer much more control over where you fall within that mode's risk spectrum. Wearing a helmet and taking a class make way more difference on a motorcycle, and that's borne out by the contributing factors to fatal accidents /u/nat_turner_overdrive has posted elsewhere in the thread. Seems quite possible that the per-mile risk of a motorcycle rider doing everything right is comparable to that of the average bicyclist. Biking in cities is stupid dangerous of course, every cyclist I know has been hit, but that's a problem with cars not an intrinsic thing.

A majority of motorcycle fatalities have one or as much as all of the following factors: No motorcycle license, no safety gear, and drunk.

a new biker war?

Fuck motorcycles purely from the standpoint that motorcycle culture is a hodgepodge of reactionary and antisocial behavior. Fuck motorcycles in that we place pedestrians on top of the transportation hierarchy, I guess wheelchair users and babies in strollers get preference over people walking, and trains I guess get preference over people, but I’m not here to argue about the specifics of the hierarchy. I’m here to say that motorcycles are motor vehicles and should be regulated out of existence like cars should be. Nobody should be going so fast on a bike that crashing means death. We should regulate regular bikes like do cars, cars like we do planes, planes like space craft, space craft double what we currently do now. We need to bump the seriousness we take of all transport up by one, except maybe trains and that’s only because whatever harm expanding train infrastructure as fast as possible which will lead to negating safety measures is better off for society in the long run. IDK the only bikers I like wear spandex.