I love the idea but our roads almost worldwide are cursed with ever-present cars which do not cars about anything else. I've heard lots of and lots of near-misses, accidents and bullshit interactions between bikes/motorbikes and cars.

I just finished reading a travelogue about the dude who cycled around the world in 1800s. Sure, one could do it today but the roads he was riding on were almost empty, now you would have to be cautious every time, since 1 asshole and you're out.

▲

diggan 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> our roads almost worldwide are cursed with ever-present cars which do not cars about anything else

Kind of feel like you're over-generalizing here. Where I live, there is almost more motorbikes than cars a lot of the time, which considering the rush hour traffic, kind of makes sense as most people don't wanna get stuck in those queues. Of course, there are accidents and near-misses (almost by definition, since those on motorbikes tend to go between car lanes), but it's not like there is a 99% chance of you dying every time you use a motorbike.

I think it depends a lot on how used to motorbikes the car drivers are. Since I live in a place where there is a bunch of them always (and cyclists!), I feel like most of us pay attention to where they could show up. Compare that to countries where motorbiking isn't as popular, I could understand how it's more risky to go with the motorbike as the car-ists aren't as used to them appearing wherever.

▲

plemer 5 hours ago | parent [-]

My doctor buddy told of a room in the hospital called the Cabbage Patch, full of braindead people who absolutely will die but can’t be let to die yet. Who is that room full of?

Consider that the fatality rate is roughly 30 times higher per mile for motorcycles vs cars.

I fully understand the freedom of the open road riding on a metal stallion - I’ve genuinely never felt anything else like it.

But it’s really god damn dangerous. Let’s not kid ourselves.

▲

hilbert42 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I love motorcycles and it's years since I've been on one. Despite their convience and other virtues I won't own one as I reckon I'm not competent enough to drive one safety—despite having an excellent safety record with four-wheeled vehicles.

Agreed, they're 'god damn dangerous' but where does that '30 times' figure come from? Where I am the generally accepted figure is seven times (or it was when I heard the figure a while ago).

Edit: for years I've thought that if motorcycles were a new invention they'd never be licensed these days. That they still are is historical legacy upheld by riders and the industry that makes the machines.

▲

buran77 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> I'm not competent enough to drive one safety

Underestimating your abilities in any vehicle is a good way to stay safe. In my encounters with motorcycles in traffic, as pedestrian, cyclist, or driver, even in those short few seconds while our paths cross, the motorcyclists almost always put themselves in some dangerous situation (cyclists do it even more often I'd say, but at lower speeds).

Every time I talk about this to acquaintances who ride they explain that "I do this all the time but it's fine because I know what I'm doing". Everyone is an above average driver or rider but drivers have a metal box filled with airbags. Motorcycle riders often play Russian roulette with 5 bullets in. Blaming another for when your luck finally runs out in on par with the belief most hold that they are above average.

	▲	hilbert42 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		"(cyclists do it even more often I'd say, but at lower speeds)." The behavior of cyclists where I am is a particular problem. Unlike motorcyclists, they're unlicensed and don't even have to know the rules of the road, and it shows. Trouble is, during an incident between a cyclist and a car driver the sympathy vote is in the cyclist's favor. Especially so in recent times where cycling is seen as 'green' and environmentally friendly and with many cities making car drivers feel as if they're guilty pariahs. To give you some idea how bad this problem has become where I live (Sydney, Australia) is to consider the street where I live. It's a one-way street (as it's narrow) but recently the Council has made it two-way for cyclists and painted bicycles on the street to indicate thus—for motorists it's still one-way. The lunacy of this decision is obvious even to those with a room-temperature IQ. For starters, drivers (usually visitors) often mistakenly drive the wrong way down this street and it's been the situation for years (from street arrangements and local geography it seems the logical way to go, and the sineage is poor and hard to see). It gets worse, there's a sharp bend in the road so two vehicle approaching from either side cannot see each other and there's nowhere to pull off in an emergency! Oh, I also must point out that when the Council painted bicycles on the street to indicate their right to two-way usage it also upgraded the far-from-obvious street sign indicating one-way by adding "bicycles excepted" but did nothing to make the sign more obvious. (Words fail me!) Lunacy has no limits, now consider the same head-on situation between a cyclist and a vehicle, it's a miracle no one has been killed to date (but the change is recent—there's much time to go). Right, the trendy and electorally savvy, many-term Council has the ear of cyclists and no doubt this dangerous change was the result of cyclists' lobbying. Not if but when someone is killed then who's to blame? Even if a motorist is found not to be at fault (i.e. driving in the right direction) and is completely exonerated then he/she will have to live with the knowledge that he/she was the driver of a vehicle that killed a cyclist. What amazes me is that cyclists want this dangerous situation to continue to exist, it seems that sheer convenience takes precedence over their safety in both their minds and that of the Council. More to the point, cyclists seem to have overwhelming confidence in their ability to avoid an accident. Even more amazing is that this situation can exist in this overly safety conscious, horribly risk averse society. From my perspective it's high time this nonsense stopped. The first thing would be license cyclists—if nothing else, they'd at least know the road rules.

▲

diggan 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Consider that the fatality rate is roughly 30 times higher per mile for motorcycles vs cars.

I guess it's worth asking, what country? In Spain, I think it's closer to ~10x, probably because we're very used to motorcycles driving all around us all the time. But still, riskier, no doubt.

I'm guessing that numbers come from the US in some way or similar? Watching dashcam footage sometimes, I keep seeing people riding motorbikes in the US without helmets, something I almost never seen in Spanish traffic, I can only recall seeing that once in my life, and it's really uncommon to ride a bike without a helmet here.

> But it’s really god damn dangerous. Let’s not kid ourselves.

Agree, I'm not trying to convince anyone of otherwise. But lets have nuance as well, riding a motorcycle isn't the same everywhere, especially where motorcycles are really, really commonplace in daily traffic.

	▲	theshackleford 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I guess it's worth asking, what country? In Spain, I think it's closer to ~10x From what I've been able to gather, it looks to be closer to 20-23x on a per kilometer basis.

▲

literalAardvark 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you factor in rider error and rider behaviour the rates are much closer.

It's just that most riders can't ride worth a damn, 95% of the riding information on the internet is dangerously wrong, and most of us also often ride recklessly because we're on a motorcycle to have fun in the first place.

▲

carlosjobim an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

And how old are those motorcycle riders who suffer serious accidents? There's your answer.

▲

potato3732842 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There was literally 1/5th as many people on earth in 1900 as there were today. Of course the roads were empty. Even if you compare to 75yr ago there's been a doubling of population in many countries.

▲

giantg2 3 hours ago | parent [-]

"There was literally 1/5th as many people on earth in 1900 as there were today. Of course the roads were empty."

We're there 1/5 the number of roads back then? Number of people might not be the best measure of density. Number of people in a specific walkable/short horse rideable location, such as a city would.

I think the bigger thing is that trains were the main mode of distance travel on land and very few people traveled more than 50 miles from home in their life.

	▲	potato3732842 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>We're there 1/5 the number of roads back then? Probably more like 1/2 or 3/4 depending on how you want to count dead end office park and residential subdivision roads of which there are many. Pretty much every road in the US and Europe that isn't in the above category or a purpose built highway existed in 1900, and likely 1850 if you're looking at europe or the american northeast. Obviously size and quality was lesser, many times they weren't even paved. But they existed because they were the roads between towns and points of interest.