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[kojak]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25318150/
On Tuesday, I was in northern New England while Laconia BikeWeek was going on. I ran into 2 couple riding in from upstate New York at a gas station who were soaked wet from one of the frequent rain storms up there. None of them owned a rainsuit. I realized after chatting with them that they had just taken up riding. Then I read this article today. After 35+ years of riding I just take some things for granted but I try to take  time to help new riders wherever I meet them and maybe make their experince a little bit safer and more enjoyable. Hope you do the same.

[VaEagle]

That is a sad thing to see. I imagine things could get worse if more folks take up riding bikes to save gas and don't get proper training before they hit the road.
Many folks learn to ride informally as kids on minibikes and dirt bikes and that may get them the basics but not really prepare them well for the street. Then many men have an ego thing where they rode 20 years ago so they are fine to ride now and don't need a refresher course.
Thing is, like any stereotype the inexperienced or untrained rider will make us all look bad and could lead to laws against us. Accident reports need to include not just years driving in general but how many years licensed as a bike rider and wither any training was completed too to be more fair to all of us.

[iski]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25318150/
On Tuesday, I was in northern New England while Laconia BikeWeek was going on. I ran into 2 couple riding in from upstate New York at a gas station who were soaked wet from one of the frequent rain storms up there. None of them owned a rainsuit. I realized after chatting with them that they had just taken up riding. Then I read this article today. After 35+ years of riding I just take some things for granted but I try to take  time to help new riders wherever I meet them and maybe make their experince a little bit safer and more enjoyable. Hope you do the same.

They may or may not have received any advice on gear.  If they did they sure did not listen to it.  Anyway, I rode for MANY years with  trash bags as a rain suits, so who am I to judge?  When it's cold a rain suit is much better than any alternative and we decided GoreTex was worth the investment since sweating inside of vinyl when it rains when it's warm ain't any fun, either.  But tell a newbie rider "you need to go & spend $xxx on GoreTex (or equivalent) gear"; and they look at ya strange sometimes, unless they have been outdoors a lot. 

[MUFFMAN]

5 miles from where I live an 18 year old boy crashed his 900 Ninja into a hydro pole after failing to negotiate a curve this past weekend.Excessive speed and driver inexperience were listed as the causes. As he travelled this road every day on his way to school in his parents car I would have to agree. He had his motorcycle licence 2 weeks. It should be mandatory that new riders take a motorcycle safety course. 35 years ago when I got my bike licence these courses weren't available & I'm lucky to be here writing this. I know I won't allow my son to drive an MC until such time he takes & passes this course. THE MUFFMAN

[TN]

the motorcycle fatality rate is going up because of the number of riders increasing. it would be interesting to see some pie charts and such using all the info. just not fatality rates.

a msf course should be mandatory for new motorcycle license.


ride safe

TN

[roadrunner]

That is a sad thing to see. I imagine things could get worse if more folks take up riding bikes to save gas and don't get proper training before they hit the road.
Many folks learn to ride informally as kids on minibikes and dirt bikes and that may get them the basics but not really prepare them well for the street. Then many men have an ego thing where they rode 20 years ago so they are fine to ride now and don't need a refresher course.
Thing is, like any stereotype the inexperienced or untrained rider will make us all look bad and could lead to laws against us. Accident reports need to include not just years driving in general but how many years licensed as a bike rider and wither any training was completed too to be more fair to all of us.

I keep hearing in the news that motorcycle accidents have increased since XXXX date.  But what they fail to say is that the number of riders have increased as well.

My 2 cents!

[LRebel]

Back when I started riding on the street (legally) in 1974, here in Oklahoma there was not a license endorsement for motorcycles - all you had to have was a regular operators license.  Then anyone with a regular operators license could go buy a motorcycle and hit the road.  Oklahoma did not start requiring a motorcycle endorsement until some time in the late 80's.

There are more and more motorcycles on the street everyday.  Folks are looking for ways to save money since gasoline became so expensive.  Lots of inexperienced riders on the street now.  Just because they can go pass a written test and a very short riding test on a nice quiet street doesn't make them a safe rider.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but this will result, as someone else said, in new laws that effect motorcycle riders.

[sadunbar]

When I think of all the new riders in my area that I know, very few ride seriously - most of the newer riders are good for probably no more then a thousand or two miles per year.  They never really seem to progress with their riding skills and don't loose that tentative appearance.  I give them a wide berth when I see them and hope they are going to make it to their destination.  The rally's are even worse.  Oncoming traffic in the canyons in the Black Hills approach scary sometimes.  It seems like there are more and more yellow line or over the yellow line riders coming at you...  I suppose with the increased number of bikes on the road in the last few years that it stands to reason that the experience level plummeted when the numbers of riders increased.   

[HogBreath]

When I think of all the new riders in my area that I know, very few ride seriously - most of the newer riders are good for probably no more then a thousand or two miles per year.  They never really seem to progress with their riding skills and don't loose that tentative appearance.  I give them a wide berth when I see them and hope they are going to make it to their destination.  The rally's are even worse.  Oncoming traffic in the canyons in the Black Hills approach scary sometimes.  It seems like there are more and more yellow line or over the yellow line riders coming at you...  I suppose with the increased number of bikes on the road in the last few years that it stands to reason that the experience level plummeted when the numbers of riders increased.   

AND NEVER park beside one of those riders. They'll drop it on your's. I rode with a guy last year for the first time with a group of friends. I introduced myself to him and he introduced himself as DewDrop. Interesting name. Yea, I DEW DROP my bike a lot. And he did, in the parking lot before we left.

[kojak]

AND NEVER park beside one of those riders. They'll drop it on your's. I rode with a guy last year for the first time with a group of friends. I introduced myself to him and he introduced himself as DewDrop. Interesting name. Yea, I DEW DROP my bike a lot. And he did, in the parking lot before we left.

Havent we all at some point or another! I usually remind my new rider friends of the old biker saying "there are only two kinds of bikers, those who have dropped their bikes and those who will!"

[grc]

Not only has the raw number of fatalities increased, but the rate per 100,000 registrations and the rate per 100 million miles has also increased.  In other words, it can't be blown off by saying it went up just because there are more people riding.  Take a look at the attached file from the NHTSA with 1996 - 2006 data.

Jerry

[Ironhorse]

Don't forget about the machine. Sure there are a lot of new riders out there, but bikes today are a DAMN site faster than they were 10 years ago. So put an inexperienced rider on a FAST and POWERFUL bike, add a little youth based feeling of invincibility, and you have a recepie for trouble.

[grc]

Read the report, they break it out by state, by blood alcohol level, by age, etc.  Largest number of fatalities wasn't the twenty-somethings on crotch rockets, it was the forty plus group.  And the most telling and damning statistic is the one I've copied and pasted here:

"In fatal crashes in 2006 a higher percentage of motorcycle operators had blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) of .08 grams per deciliter (g/dL) or higher than any other type of motor vehicle driver. The percentages for vehicle operators involved in fatal crashes were 27 percent for motorcycles, 23 percent for passenger cars, 24 percent for light trucks, and 1 percent for large trucks.  In 2006, 27 percent of all fatally injured motorcycle operators had BAC levels of .08 g/dL or higher. An additional 7 percent had lower alcohol levels (BAC .01 to .07 g/dL).  The percentage with BAC .08 g/dL or above was highest for fatally injured motorcycle operators among two age groups, 35-39 (41%) and 40-44 (39%) followed by ages 45-49 (34%).  Forty-one percent of the 2,007 motorcycle operators who died in single-vehicle crashes in 2006 had BAC levels of .08 g/dL or higher. Fifty-nine percent of those killed in single-vehicle crashes on weekend nights had BACs of .08 g/dL or higher."

Jerry

[TN]

According to NHTSA’s 2007 recent trends in motorcycle crashes. “In 2005 motorcycles made up 2.5 percent of all registered vehicles in the USA and accounted for only 0.4 percent of all vehicle miles traveled. However in the same year, bikes accounted for 10.5 percent of total traffic fatalities. Per 100,000 registered vehicles the fatality rate for motorcycles (73.12) in 2005 was 5.4 times the fatality rate for passenger car occupants(13.64) per vehicle mile traveled in 2005, motorcycles (42.27) were about 37 times as likely as passenger car occupants (1.14) to die in motor vehicle traffic crashes.


ran across this in a rag i read. someone do a piechart for me?



TN

[Twolanerider]

Finally got the nerve to look inside this thread.  The title had totally freaked me out.  Kept thinking the Post was reporting on like levitating rapture inducing motorcyle deaths.  Was really worried there for a bit.