the accidents on bikes are more often than not the AUTOMOBILE drivers fault. like you mentioned in the beginnning of this post...teen girls. they have no clue what the vehicle they're driving is capable of, thanks in part to poor trianing, from the schools, and their parents.
That is the exact point I'm making.. You can be the most careful person on a bike and still get killed because of some other moron. I'm not telling you not to ride a bike I'm just telling you, that you are crazy to ride a bike these days, with so much traffic.
If you drive a car yes there is a general amount of risk involved, but the risk is much less. In most cases it really takes a pretty big or a freak crash to kill someone in a car, not just a every day fender bender. On a bike with out a helmet it doesn't take much to seriously injure or kill the rider.
The specific fact is, when you are riding a bike, you are putting your life in the hands of others. In a car you also put your life in the hands of others especially if someone else is driving, however you have a better level of protection. It would be like the difference in going to war in Iraq with body armor or with out it. Sure both are putting you in a dangerous environment, but one allows for a little bit of extra protection that may save your life.
The worst part is if you ever do get in a bad wreck on a bike, you might not die.. A guy I used to work with, drove one of those late model subaru 4 wheel drive station wagons.. (I'm not sure what the model was) He carried a big fiberglass ladder on the roof (28ft) for the job that we did.
On his way to work one morning, there was a dog in the road on US1 and traffic stopped, he was at a dead stop and some guy on a motorcycle ran into the back of his car. The guy wasn't wearing a helmet and he hit the ladder with his head. His forehead actually hit the ladder's metal feet not sure what they are called but the part the ladder stands on when it's upright.
It put a hole in the dudes head and there was blood, parts of skull and brains on his car when he made it into work.. Was pretty sick stuff but the worst part is the rider actually lived but was severely brain damaged. One moment of not being on top of his game ruined the rest of that guy's life because he was on a bike and wasn't paying attention at the one min that really mattered. Sure he could have been injured in a car and maybe even hurt someone else, but I bet it wouldn't have been as severe.
I'm a risk taker myself, granted not as much as I used to be.. but most people that are risk takers tend to like to be in control of their risk. Jumping out of a airplane maybe be risky, but you won't find many people whom do it, that don't pack their own chutes and go out of their way to be as safe as possible while doing it. Pilots typically go out of their way to check their aircraft and have spent countless hours training to be able to do everything they can to be in control.
The deal is most risk takers go out of their way to make them selves as safe as possible and do everything they can to have control of their own lives unless they are reckless risk takers. Most people who ride motorcycles have a false sense of security in the fact they think they are taking their life in their own hands. The deal is, they aren't. Their life is in the hands of every driver they come in contact with while riding.
Again, you are in the same position while driving a car but you have much more protection.. So would you rather go to war in Iraq with body armor or with out it? Would you just consider you self a risk taker going to war with out protection or would you consider your self dumb for not using all the protection you could get?
