motorbike brrrmmmmmm

aja · 2010-03-23T20:16:13+00:00

After three car accidents, all caused by other drivers skipping red robots etc, I am sick of cars. They always break, cost too much and use too much petrol (well, the ones I like anyway) Okay I will always love cars, but I want a bike/scooter thing too. Now, I commute like 3km (one way) to university, 20km to fiance and about 15km to my new (vacation) workplace. I want to get a bike for the shorter trips and a car for the longer, open road trips. Enter parents - AKA the thick wall of death and eternal no's. If you ride a bike and are a young guy/girl, how did you convince your folks?? My parents tell me it is a death trap and so on... But traveling through Melville and Emmarentia is hardly an extreme sport, people are pretty chilled unless it is traffic time. HELP ??? On a side note, what are some good "first" bikes? A friend (rider) says anything under 250cc is dangerous and anything over 400cc is pushing it for a first bike. I like the Suzuki Hayabusa, but not as much as I like the ability to use my legs for the next 60 years or so.

[deleted]

Hahahaha, now that (Mansfield) is a big plus point for bikes!

[deleted]

I save on average 90 minutes a day commuting by motorcycle

I guess that's something I've never had to think about. I walk to work.

DonovanB

I know a guy who recently wiped off his bike. He was alone on a road, rounding a corner and hit an oil patch or a pothole.
He came of and went down a bank on the deserted road.
Somehow me managed to crawl back to the road with 2 broken arms and a broken leg. His helmet had come off but luckily he had no head injuries.

He was screaming for help and nobody came, he passed out in pain and woke up to paramedics, then passed out and woke up in the ambulance and again passed out and woke up in hospital.

He has no idea where his bike is and is still recovering months later.

I've heard horror stories about cars too but as it has been said, you are much safer in a car, I'll take 90 minutes a day and live to see my son for many years than take a bike and chance it.

singemonkey

DonovanB wrote I've heard horror stories about cars too but as it has been said, you are much safer in a car, I'll take 90 minutes a day and live to see my son for many years than take a bike and chance it.

Well said.

IceCreamMan

DonovanB wrote I know a guy who recently wiped off his bike. He was alone on a road, rounding a corner and hit an oil patch or a pothole.
He came of and went down a bank on the deserted road.
Somehow me managed to crawl back to the road with 2 broken arms and a broken leg. His helmet had come off but luckily he had no head injuries.

He was screaming for help and nobody came, he passed out in pain and woke up to paramedics, then passed out and woke up in the ambulance and again passed out and woke up in hospital.

He has no idea where his bike is and is still recovering months later.

I've heard horror stories about cars too but as it has been said, you are much safer in a car, I'll take 90 minutes a day and live to see my son for many years than take a bike and chance it.

The reality is that its a chance (just less so) even in a car...

more ppl die in car accidents than bike accidents in ZA ? (yeah i know , am a stats major)

riding a bike dont mean its going to end in death just as driving a car ...or flying a plane , or eating food , or coughing to rigoursly etc etc

commuting in a car would kill me i reckon

[deleted]

IceCreamMan wrote
more ppl die in car accidents than bike accidents in ZA ? (yeah i know , am a stats major)

There are many more car drivers than bike riders. What would be more enlightening is a comparison of percentages of each who come to serious harm...

DonovanB

I don't think death is your worst option, if a car t-bones you, even at slow speed on a bike your chances of losing your leg are huge.

Riding a bike doesn't mean you're going to prang, but the chance is there just as much as in a car or truck. The fact remains that the only protection you have is your helmet and your clothes. (and your Donald Duck boxers) I'll take side impact bars for 4 please.

aja has had 3 accidents already in a car and he is clearly alive to tell the tale and I assume not eating out of a tube.

I, personally, won't ride a bike on the road, especially not as my main mode of transport. I'm not saying others should not ride either, just be careful. None of us like to hear about anyone we know or have been in contact with being in hospital with everything broken...

Aja, I think that is where your parents are coming from, not that they want to see you unhappy. But I'm guessing from your track record and being "sporty but anything" is not a good combo for a bike. I'm fairly sure they don't wanna see you in hospital or have to make you pap and wors in a tube.

vic

IceCreamMan wrote

The reality is that its a chance (just less so) even in a car...

more ppl die in car accidents than bike accidents in ZA ? (yeah i know , am a stats major)

riding a bike dont mean its going to end in death just as driving a car ...or flying a plane , or eating food , or coughing to rigoursly etc etc

commuting in a car would kill me i reckon[/quote]

It's HOW you interpret stats...for example...40% of all road accidents are caused by people who are under the influence of alcohol...assumption...60% of all road accidents are caused by sober people...? Conclusion...more drunks should be on the roads to bring the accident tally down...?
OR...95% of people die in a bed.....that makes a bed a very unsafe place to be.....more unsafe than on a bike...? ?

DonovanB

vic, more people die playing lawn bowls than any other sport...

vic

DonovanB wrote vic, more people die playing lawn bowls than any other sport...

well Don.... according to stats it's just as risky to take up croquet.... :?

Recently saw this one..."I do a lot of travel..... there was an article in the newpaper that the chances of having a passenger on a plane with a bomb was one in a thousand. That seemed too high for comfort when you fly around a lot. Then I did a quick calculation and discovered that the probability of having two of them on one plane is one in a million. So I went out and got me a bomb." ?

Bob-Dubery

IceCreamMan wrote
more ppl die in car accidents than bike accidents in ZA ? (yeah i know , am a stats major)

Then you'll know about the three kinds of lies ?

The numbers are loaded here because there are far more cars than motorbikes on the road. And "cars" may well include public transport.

Are you taking into account the numbers of cars and bikes on the road. If you are then you give a probility of an individual having an accident whilst riding a bike as against the probability of that same individual having an accident whilst in a car. You could break it down further without too much difficulty into subsets like a car where the individual is driving, the individual being a passenger in a township taxi and so on.

It would also be helpful to look at the ratios of fatal to non-fatal accidents. You're far more exposed on a bike, don't have airbags and so on. OTOH you can be thrown free of a bike where you can't be thrown free of a car. Etc etc.

IceCreamMan

was being facetious , of course your chances are much higher to die on a bike per million km's travelled and other variables. Also motorcycle accidents are more often fatal than cage accidents ,less protection and the like.

BUT

There is somehting beautiful and ethereal (hopefully not litrally) about riding motorbikes, the freedom and the being part of the scenery... only parralel i cna draw to illustrate is pulling a riff off after a lot of practice or the high of performing for other ppl...the intrinsic kick you get. Riding on wide open tar at 300 km/s hour and you gotta remind yourself to breathe cos your entire being is concentrating on the road.

unfortunately they dangerous

CDee

79% of all statistics are wrong... ?

clinton

people who quote a '79% of all statistics are wrong' figure are usually right only 68% of the time ?

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