[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by nicholasn

That all sounds like you're searching everywhere for reasons to not ride. I'll grant the weather being a deal breaker half the year but idiot drivers are everywhere and aren't stopping other bike owners on this thread from riding. Too many toys means they don't get played with often enough, and bikes in particular need to be ridden regularly unless you are extremely diligent about putting them away for the season. It's not good for riders to take long breaks either as you have to rebuild your fringe maneuverability skills every time. Also nobody was born with a "crew" to ride with but it's not hard to find some people and form one...

I know you wrote this several weeks ago, but I wanted to comment that this is an excellent post, which captures the difference between riding a motorcycle vs. being a motorcyclist.

This past Sunday in on the rural roads near my home, a husband and wife lost their lives due to a motorcycle accident. The accident was very gruesome and my neighbor witnessed the aftermath before EMT could arrive to offer assistance; he is experiencing some PTSD after witnessing the scene. It was a head-on collision between a large touring bike and a BMW car or SUV (the news article was not clear on that point). A third motorcycle rider was also involved, he was the trailing rider of the two-bike group, who was struck by flying debris from the initial crash and caused him to leave the roadway as well. His injuries are considered critical but not life threatening. The accident was 100% preventable and seems to be the fault of the motorcycle rider, who crossed the double solid line on a slight curve and crossed into the path of the BMW. Both vehicles caught fire; I saw the burned roadway the following day but had no knowledge of the event that caused the torched tarmac until later this week.

That accident event stirred my response below.

The key errant point in the post from ksa you responded to is "the riding season is full of messed up drivers that do not know how to behave around a motorcycle". This is ABSOLUTELY the wrong attitude to have when riding a motorcycle. Motorcyclists fully understand that automobile drivers "do not know how to behave around a motorcycle" and NEVER expect automobile drivers to "behave" when we are riding. The art of riding a motorcycle in traffic is to expect automobile drivers to never have enough situational awareness or care to make your ride safer, in fact it is completely the opposite. A motorcyclist never relies on other drivers and other road users to take responsibility for his safe riding environment, never. A motorcyclist learns to prejudge each and every vehicle that is near him based on prejudice and assess the risk that vehicle poses to create a collision. The prejudging is based on numerous factors that must be innately processed in microseconds; the motorcyclist has the sole responsibility to make his driving environment as safe as possible for himself.