On Sat, 12 Jul 2014 10:01:30 -0400, Wayne.B wrote:
On Sat, 12 Jul 2014 09:50:40 -0400, Poquito Loco
wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2014 21:13:10 -0400, Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2014 19:46:00 -0400, wrote:
You can make a far worse case against swimming pools.
===
That's an interesting point. We must lose at least a dozen or more
kids to swimming pools every year just in Lee County alone. And what
about the motorcycle toll? That's probably more like two dozen a
year.
Yeah, but that's only true if folks ride their motorcycles. If you don't ride them, they're damn
safe!
But I'll bet that more than 90% of those injured on motorcycles were riding them when injured.
===
South Western Florida has a particularly deadly mix of older drivers,
both cars and motorcycles, combined with very little helmet usage. The
most common accident that I see is a car making a left turn in front
of a bike that they didn't see for one reason or another. We also
have a fair assortment of younger bikers who like to race their crotch
rockets at 150+ in the middle of the night.
That crotch rocket racing is a topic in this month's AMotorcycleA magazine. Up here they've started
using the beltway, 52 miles long, as a race track. I've seen up to ten of them racing at a time.
They start at one exit and see who can get back the quickest. So far none have been killed, but it's
just a matter of time. They're giving bikers a hell of a bad name.
The left turn in front of the motorcycle is the most common of the car/motorcycle collisions. The
excuse is always, "I didn't see it coming." I can somewhat sympathize with the auto drivers. The
other day I almost did the same thing. The bike was black, the rider in black, and the background
was dark. Plus he was going very fast. It used to be that a headlight provided some warning, but
now almost every vehicle has headlights, so they're no help to motorcycles. Luckily I saw the guy
and hit my brakes at the last second. That incident kind of changed my attitude about the excuse
most used by auto drivers. I can understand it much better.