I rode for several years. Such a study needs to take into account the age, accident/ticket rate of the rider, and type of bike. While I was cautious, riding vs driving a car for economic reasons, there were plenty of testosterone-laiden youth who drove up my insurance rates.
Location/culture I think matter too. A lot of equatorial nations drive motorcycles & motorbikes as the default. Car drivers aren’t better drivers on the whole, but they are very aware of motorcycles at all times that I feel other places, car drivers disregard all non-car transportation—motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians.
I biked in Vietnam. It looks kind of mad but the speeds are actually quite low which is how they mostly survive. The locals don't go much about 20 mph on the scooters although they are capable of 60-70.
It turns out that actuaries are pretty decent at the math side of these things. It's just that being a motorcycle rider, regardless of how safe you personally are, is dramatically more of a risk to insurers than covering a cage driver. They know that because they have access to all the data behind the claims and payouts that normies like us don't have access to. Literally everyone believes that they are the exception to things like these. That's the difference between an anecdote and data however. Insurance companies rely on data and not your word that you're the exception to the picture that all their data paints.
The problem is what is a minor accident in a car is a serious accident on a motorcycle. I'm a very safe driver and I have been t-boned through no fault of my own. On a motorcycle is death
Anecdotally: Many years ago, I spent several months in the hospital and trauma rehabilitation due to a spinal cord injury. Roughly half of the SCI patients were from water-related accidents (ie: diving into shallow water). The other half were from motorcycle accidents. And about 50% of the amputations were from motorcycle accidents (the other half from diabetes).
Granted, I only interacted with a small sample of patients during my stay - only a few dozen. But the staff certainly gave the impression this was business as usual for them. I had no idea until I was face to face with it. There really is no substitute for being protected by a metal shell and protective airbags.
Depends on the e-bike. I ride a 15 mph e-bike and figure it's a lot safer than my former 60-85 mph motorbikes but it's mostly just a function of speed. The motorbikes were more stable at 15 mph than the e-bike, especially the enduro one which could go over kerbs, logs, ditches without blinking much.
They are not. The problem is that useful organs are exposed, so after a crash only thing which may be usable are eyes, brain and teeth thanks to helmet. Everything else is damaged.
I got tired of hearing the same spiel about how dangerous motorcycles are, so I used a stencil to airbrush “organ donor” on the side of my helmet along with my blood type.
my dad,97, retired forensic pathologists, banned me from having a motorcycle as a youth and talked of how in areas without helmet laws how common it was to have people end up dead, from a hit on the head, but not quite dead,yet,as they were young, strong, and healthy, and end up in hospital, so would be perfect candidates for organ doners.
hence donorcycles, childhood storys from the morge.
> A three-fold increase was found in the rate of organ donation for unhelmeted motorcyclists compared to helmeted motorcyclists (p = 0.006).
First the statistics but then the following op-ed...?
> From a public health perspective, helmets should be required for all motorcyclists...
Personally, I always wear and will always wear a helmet. Legally, however, requiring them is pure nanny state.
Consider: We would certainly save more lives by requiring all vehicle drivers to wear helmets, including cars/trucks/etc in addition to motorcycles. Like, wear a helmet inside your car. Professionals do. But we amateurs do not. I would be laughed for proposing a universal helmet law. So, clearly saving lives isn't the only valued metric
I think seatbelts or airbags are better analogies.
And both seatbelts and airbags are mandated in the US.
Of course saving lives isn't the ONLY metric (perhaps all personal vehicles would be banned if that were the case), but we make reasonable compromises all over the place in the direction of saving lives. I think the discussion is just over what people generally see as "reasonable". And public opinion can change drastically over time [0], due in part to the popularization of studies like this.
I rode for several years. Such a study needs to take into account the age, accident/ticket rate of the rider, and type of bike. While I was cautious, riding vs driving a car for economic reasons, there were plenty of testosterone-laiden youth who drove up my insurance rates.
Location/culture I think matter too. A lot of equatorial nations drive motorcycles & motorbikes as the default. Car drivers aren’t better drivers on the whole, but they are very aware of motorcycles at all times that I feel other places, car drivers disregard all non-car transportation—motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians.
Vietnam traffic was absolutely mind blowing to me.
Especially the awareness and care that cars, buses, etc, seemed to have.
That said the safety stats still aren't that great for scooter/motorcycle/bike riders there.
I biked in Vietnam. It looks kind of mad but the speeds are actually quite low which is how they mostly survive. The locals don't go much about 20 mph on the scooters although they are capable of 60-70.
It turns out that actuaries are pretty decent at the math side of these things. It's just that being a motorcycle rider, regardless of how safe you personally are, is dramatically more of a risk to insurers than covering a cage driver. They know that because they have access to all the data behind the claims and payouts that normies like us don't have access to. Literally everyone believes that they are the exception to things like these. That's the difference between an anecdote and data however. Insurance companies rely on data and not your word that you're the exception to the picture that all their data paints.
The problem is what is a minor accident in a car is a serious accident on a motorcycle. I'm a very safe driver and I have been t-boned through no fault of my own. On a motorcycle is death
Anecdotally: Many years ago, I spent several months in the hospital and trauma rehabilitation due to a spinal cord injury. Roughly half of the SCI patients were from water-related accidents (ie: diving into shallow water). The other half were from motorcycle accidents. And about 50% of the amputations were from motorcycle accidents (the other half from diabetes).
Granted, I only interacted with a small sample of patients during my stay - only a few dozen. But the staff certainly gave the impression this was business as usual for them. I had no idea until I was face to face with it. There really is no substitute for being protected by a metal shell and protective airbags.
Are e-bikes any safer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-DnpTjE0ck
Depends on the e-bike. I ride a 15 mph e-bike and figure it's a lot safer than my former 60-85 mph motorbikes but it's mostly just a function of speed. The motorbikes were more stable at 15 mph than the e-bike, especially the enduro one which could go over kerbs, logs, ditches without blinking much.
Maybe we could improve safety by requiring e-bikes to be built like enduros but with the 15 mph thing? (bike pic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enduro_motorcycle)
My friend Tom calls my moto a “murdercycle”. I’m not sure who’s doing the murdering, but I take his point.
They are not. The problem is that useful organs are exposed, so after a crash only thing which may be usable are eyes, brain and teeth thanks to helmet. Everything else is damaged.
Dunno - depends how you crash. I figure if you go into something head first most of the lower organs would be good.
I got tired of hearing the same spiel about how dangerous motorcycles are, so I used a stencil to airbrush “organ donor” on the side of my helmet along with my blood type.
In the UK, I believe the death rate per mile is approx 100x greater on a motorbike vs car. I would call this a significant difference.
my dad,97, retired forensic pathologists, banned me from having a motorcycle as a youth and talked of how in areas without helmet laws how common it was to have people end up dead, from a hit on the head, but not quite dead,yet,as they were young, strong, and healthy, and end up in hospital, so would be perfect candidates for organ doners. hence donorcycles, childhood storys from the morge.
They are also frequent and generous donors to LiveLeak and other gore sites.
> A three-fold increase was found in the rate of organ donation for unhelmeted motorcyclists compared to helmeted motorcyclists (p = 0.006).
First the statistics but then the following op-ed...?
> From a public health perspective, helmets should be required for all motorcyclists...
Personally, I always wear and will always wear a helmet. Legally, however, requiring them is pure nanny state.
Consider: We would certainly save more lives by requiring all vehicle drivers to wear helmets, including cars/trucks/etc in addition to motorcycles. Like, wear a helmet inside your car. Professionals do. But we amateurs do not. I would be laughed for proposing a universal helmet law. So, clearly saving lives isn't the only valued metric
I think seatbelts or airbags are better analogies.
And both seatbelts and airbags are mandated in the US.
Of course saving lives isn't the ONLY metric (perhaps all personal vehicles would be banned if that were the case), but we make reasonable compromises all over the place in the direction of saving lives. I think the discussion is just over what people generally see as "reasonable". And public opinion can change drastically over time [0], due in part to the popularization of studies like this.
[0] https://www.wpr.org/history/surprisingly-controversial-histo...