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It may seem hard to believe at times, but other
drivers almost never actually want to hit you. Most
of those near-misses come about because they don't
always know you are there, even when you are right
in front of them, seemingly in plain view. You can
be obscured or completely hidden by glare, by other
things on or along the road, by the cars roof
pillars, the handicap hangtag, or by other traffic.
Of course, not all drivers "think motorcycles" and
make the effort to look that extra bit harder to see
if there might be a motorcyclist hidden by that
obscuration or in their blind spot. Instead of
assuming that they will ignore you even when they
see you, you should help make it easier for drivers
to spot you, especially as the population ages and
more drivers have greater difficulty in picking you
out. To overcome the fact that you might be hard to
see and harder to notice, wear bright colors,
especially on your helmet and jacket. Run your high
beam during the day. Think about things that can
hide you and your bike from other drivers, things
that can be as common as the sun behind you, the car
ahead in the next lane, or a couple of roadside
poles that line up on the driver's line of sight
toward you. Make an effort to ride in or move to a
location where drivers with potentially conflicting
courses can see you before they stray your way.
Myth 2:
Loud Pipes Save Lives
Yeah, there are a few situations
like where you are right next to a driver with his
window down who is about the to change lanes where
full-time noise-makers might help a driver notice
you, but all that noise directed rearward doesn't do
much in the most common and much more dangerous
conflict where a car turns in front of you. Maybe
it's the fatigue caused by the noise, maybe it's the
attitudes of riders who insist on making annoying
noise, or perhaps loud bikes annoy enough drivers to
make them aggressive. Whatever the reason, the
research shows that bikes with modified exhaust
systems crash more frequently than those with stock
pipes. If you really want to save lives, turn to a
loud jacket or a bright helmet cololour, which have
been proven to do the job. Or install a louder horn.
Otherwise, just shut up.
Myth 3:
Motorcycle Helmets Break Necks
It seems logical if you put more
weight out there on the end of your neck and when
you get thrown off the bike, that extra weight will
create more pendulum force on your neck. Turns out,
it doesn't work that way. In fact, the
energy-absorbing qualities of a DOT motorcycle
helmet also absorb the energy that breaks riders'
necks in impacts. Studies show that helmeted
motorcyclists actually suffer fewer neck injuries
when they crash compared to riders who crash without
helmets.
Myth 4:
Helmets Block Your Ability to See or Hear Danger
The thing you learn when you dig
into the research is that motorcycle riders who use
helmets crash less frequently than those who don't.
Maybe that happens because motorcyclists who decide
to wear helmets have a better or more realistic
attitude about riding. Maybe it's because putting on
a helmet is a reminder that what you are about to do
can be dangerous and the act of accepting protection
puts you in the right mindset. Maybe it's because a
helmet provides eye protection and cuts down wind
noise so you can actually see and hear better. Maybe
its because, by cutting wind pressure and noise, a
helmet reduces fatigue. Whatever the reasons,
wearing a helmet clearly does not increase a
motorcyclist's risk of having an accident and
wearing one correlates to reduced likelihood of an
accident.
Myth 5:
A Helmet Won't Help in Most Crashes
People look at the seemingly low
impact speeds used in motorcycle-helmet testing and
assume that if you are going faster than that, the
helmet will no longer be up to the job. That ignores
a few critical facts:
- Most accidents happen at
relatively low speeds.
- Most of the impact energy is
usually vertical - the distance your head falls
until it hits.
- Helmets (or at least helmets
that meet DOT standards) perform spectacular
life-saving feats at impact speeds far above
those used in testing.
- When a helmeted rider suffers
a fatal head injury, it frequently doesn't
matter, because, to hit hard enough to sustain
that fatal injury, he sustained multiple
additional fatal injuries to other parts of his
body. In other words, the fact that the helmet
didn't prevent the head injury was of no
consequence.
- The numbers clearly say that
riders using DOT helmets simply survive crashes
more successfully than those without them.
Myth 6:
A Helmet Will Leave You Brain Damaged in an Crash
When You Would Have Simply Died
Of course that's possible if your
helmet attenuates the impact energy enough to keep
the injury from being fatal but not enough to keep
all of your eggs from getting scrambled. However,
that's rare, and if you hit that hard, you are
likely to get killed by some other injury. It's
actually the un-helmeted rider who is likely to
cross from animal to vegetable kingdom, and often
from a relatively minor impact that would have
damaged nothing but his ego if he'd been wearing a
DOT helmet.
Myth 7:
A Skilled Rider Should Be Able to Handle Almost Any
Situation
The sharpest, most skilled
motorcyclist in the world isn't going to be up to
the task when a car turns or pulls out in front of
him a short distance ahead and stops directly in his
path broadside. Believing that your superior skills
will keep you of trouble is a pipe dream, even if
they are as good as you think. No matter how skilled
you are, it's better to ride to avoid situations
that can turn ugly. Slow down, scan farther ahead,
and think strategically. And dress for the crash.
Myth 8:
If You Are Going to Crash, Lay It Down
I suspect this line was developed
by riders to explain why they ended up
flat-side-down while trying to avoid a crash. They
over-braked or otherwise lost control, then tried to
explain the crash away as intentional and tried to
make it sound like it wasn't a crash at all. Maybe
motorcycle brakes once were so bad that you could
stop better off your bike while sliding or tumbling.
If so, that hasn't been true for decades. You can
scrub off much more speed before and there be going
slower at impact with effective braking than you
will sliding down the road on your butt. And if you
are still on the bike, you might get thrown over the
car you collide with, avoiding an impact with your
body. If you slide into a car while you are on the
ground, you either have a hard stop against it or
end up wedged under it. Remember that the phrase "I
laid 'er down to avoid a crash" is an oxymoron,
often repeated by some other kind of moron.
Myth 9:
One Beer Won't Hurt
Maybe not while you are drinking
it, but if you get on your motorcycle after that,
the effects of a single beer can get you hurt for
life. No matter how unaffected you are sure you are,
all the studies say differently. You increase your
risk to yourself and to others when you drink and
hit the road. Also, as you age, your metabolism
slows down, and those "coupla drinks" you had last
night may still be affecting you when you hit the
road the next morning.
Myth 10:
It's Better to Stay in Your Lane than Split Lanes
In most parts of the world,
motorcycles split lanes all the time, everywhere
traffic is heavy. In the U.S., people often act as
if lane-splitting is insane. But when someone
actually studied it in the only place in the U.S.
where it's legal (California), they discovered it's
actually slightly safer than staying in the lane in
heavy, slow-moving traffic. Still many motorcyclists
berate others who do it, when they should in fact be
endorsing it.
Myth 11:
I'm Safer on the Street than on a Highway
The thinking here must be that
slower is safer, but that's only really true after
the accident begins. Controlled-access roadways are
inherently safer because all the traffic is going
the same way, and there are no side streets from
which someone can pop into your path, no
pedestrians, and, often, less roadside "furniture"
to hit if you depart the roadway. Running down the
road at 70 mph side-by-sidewall with the whirling
wheels of a semi may feel hairy, but you are
actually safer than at half that speed on a city
street or even a country road.
Myth 12:
A Skilled Rider Can Stop Better with Conventional
Brakes than with Anti-Lock Brakes
Extensive testing done recently
disproves this popular notion. Even on clean, dry,
flat pavement, skilled, experienced riders (who did
hundreds of panic stops for the testing on
outrigger-equipped motorcycles) stopped in less
distance with anti-lock brakes (ABS) than with
conventional or linked braking systems. Though the
tests didn't include samples on surfaces with slick,
dirty or wet spots, ABS certainly would have
performed even better under those conditions while
eliminating much of the risk of crashing. The other
cool thing about ABS on a motorcycle is that allows
you to safely practice panic stops without risking a
crash caused by lock-up. |
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