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Needs to be said... sell the DAMN motorcycle.

MJ DeMarco

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Ugh, another day another story of someone's life getting totally f*cked up all because they needed to ride a motorcycle.

It seems like every week I hear a story from someone a degree or two away from my life gets into a horrific motorcycle accident. A few weeks ago the story was death. This week's story is someone whose looking at never walking again, brain damage, and all kinds of crap.

The worst of it? He wore a helmet and like many motorcycle accidents, it was NOT his fault.

Want to screw up your life permanently or worse, even die? Buy a motorcycle and ride it. And then be stubborn about it.

Now before you curse me a heathen, I've owned a motorcycle. And I loved it.

However I didn't love the fact that someone else's mistake would kill me, or permanently disfigure me.

I soon realized that owning one was a deathwish, and when some 92 year old grandma runs me over paralyzing me, I didn't want to regret the next 40 years of my life.

To this day, I DO NOT regret selling my motorcycle. I now look at riding a bike like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Yea, no way.

What I did was find an alternative to get the same rush, the same feeling, the same windy freedom.

At first it was a convertible car.

Now it's a street legal side by side UTV.

Now I can get the same enjoyment of riding a motorcycle without the stress AND I can ride in the hills.

28004

Sell the damn bike.

Now go think. You will thank me later. (Inside joke some folks here might recognize, LOL).
 
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Jon L

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I rode a motorcycle back and forth to work for years. Eventually sold it. What made me sell? Same reason as you.

I had talked to a coworker of mine who also used to ride. He witnessed a rider die right in front of him on the freeway. The guy was coming down a long hill. His front wheel started to oscillate, eventually making him lose control of the bike. He ended up skidding across the freeway into a bunch of boulders. His body contorted in a way that could mean nothing other than instant death.

Didn't take much 'thinking time' to process that one. I'll never have another bike.
 

MitchM

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I'm cringing right now thinking about how I rode around in Chiang Mai with no helmet and sandals. That was only two years ago.
 
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James Fake

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This is the exact reasons why I've never got one in the first place. Because I realized early on that its a false sense of "driver seat" control.

Sooner or later, I would have laid one down, and good chance I would not be here today. Actually, I'm almost for certain..
 

Andy Black

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I know my avatar is of a bike trip. It’s not because we were riding bikes, but because of the trip. I’ve been meaning to write a thread about (business) learnings riding motorbikes.

I rode for over a decade. It was an instant decision to stop riding when our then two year old wouldn’t stop hugging me when I put him to bed. I had to get in with him till he fell asleep. I’d been away for two days for the first time in his life and that was the effect it had on him.

I went from die-hard biker riding through Irish winters to getting rid of it immediately. I’ve never ridden since and have no intention of doing so.
 

Xavier X

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I'm cringing right now thinking about how I rode around in Chiang Mai with no helmet and sandals. That was only two years ago.

I'm in Chiang Mai right now. I've been traveling in Asia for 10 months, and the recurring advice I get from other foreigners at each place I visit is - "get a motorbike, man."
Nope! Grab and Uber works great for me.
A lot of them can barely even ride the scooters and have all kinds of scars and scratches to prove it.

I'm all set with all of that.
 
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Andy Bell

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My Vespa with max speed of 80km/h is as far as ill go...still dangerous but it caps me at a speed where i cant go on a highway and im limited to intercity beach boardwalks hehe. Also i never ride it on weekends or at night...too many drunk drivers in my city...nights are for the convertible :cool:
 

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Since I grew up with a lot of people in the insurance business, I knew the danger from a young age. Otherwise, I probably would have been interested in them. The big picture is horrifying, and I would not even consider using them on public roads.

0.7% of vehicle miles driven accounting for as much as 40% of road fatalities? In other words, far fewer motorcycles are on the roads (in the US), but the chance of a fatal accident is much higher.

Thank you for bringing it to people's attention.
 

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I think some doctors and EMTs call them "donor cycles." I read somewhere that riders account for a shockingly high amount of organ donations. Takes about 2 seconds to go from "healthy 25 year old in perfect health" to organ donor.
 
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Andy Black

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I’ve been off bikes for 5 years now. In that time I’ve seen the effect losing my brother had on my parents, and me.

I used to have the gung-ho attitude that if I’m dead I won’t know.

Jesus. What a selfish prick I was.
 

Strategery

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The horsepower of our choices...

I used to own one, and God was it fun to act like a jackass on. I was lucky that I was a sidewalking dipshit back then and didn't make the payments.. It got repoed lol

I want to have enough money to take a bike to track days
 

Andy Black

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I disagree that most motorcycle accidents are caused by someone else. I think most are caused by stupid decisions by the pilot. I don’t have data and I’m not going to look for it. I’m basing it on observing myself and groups of other riders.

When a group of lads get together you can bet your bottom dollar that ego rears its head.

On a motorbike you’re always an inch from death. That inch is a twist of your right wrist, doing something stupid at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.

I’ve been in groups going faster than anyone would normally - because the guy in front is worrying about the guys behind, and because the guys behind are trying to keep up with the guy in front.

Competitiveness is almost a given when lads get together, but running round a track too fast for the rep is one thing, blasting down country roads (or slicing through traffic) is quite another.

A rocket and an ego is a deadly cocktail.

Maybe I will create that thread after all...
 
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Tourmaline

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Only place I'd ever ride a bike is the track.

The allure of bikes never ends. But yes, it's like smoking cigs. Not worth the risk.
 

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When I lived in NYC, there was a group of riders who would just fly down the westside highway. It was a beautiful drive going south, but I'd hear the whine of their bikes behind me and tense up, make sure I didn't swithc lanes, and make sure I had enough room between me and all the cars around me. Those guys were probably riding at 100mph+ and were weaving through cars going 65 with inches to spare.

I'm sure the thrill was amazing.

But to ride like they did, they must have valued their lives at about 25 cents.
 
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Red

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I sold my baby earlier this year.... used to be that the enjoyment far outweighed the anxiety... Fountain Hills (and the last 5 years worth of distracted drivers on their goddamned phones) finally flipped the equation for me.
28007
 

MitchM

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I'm in Chiang Mai right now. I've been traveling in Asia for 10 months, and the recurring advice I get from other foreigners at each place I visit is - "get a motorbike, man."
Nope! Grab and Uber works great for me.
A lot of them can barely even ride the scooters and have all kinds of scars and scratches to prove it.

I'm all set with all of that.
I gotta admit, I had a blast... definitely won’t be doing it again though.

didn’t see anybody die but I saw countless wrecks while I was in ChiangmaI. It was worse in pai then anywhere else though -I’m assuming because everyone is so f*cked up there haha
 
D

DeletedUser0287

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Ugh, another day another story of someone's life getting totally f*cked up all because they needed to ride a motorcycle.

It seems like every week I hear a story from someone a degree or two away from my life gets into a horrific motorcycle accident. A few weeks ago the story was death. This week's story is someone whose looking at never walking again, brain damage, and all kinds of crap.

The worst of it? He wore a helmet and like many motorcycle accidents, it was NOT his fault.

Want to screw up your life permanently or worse, even die? Buy a motorcycle and ride it. And then be stubborn about it.

Now before you curse me a heathen, I've owned a motorcycle. And I loved it.

However I didn't love the fact that someone else's mistake would kill me, or permanently disfigure me.

I soon realized that owning one was a deathwish, and when some 92 year old grandma runs me over paralyzing me, I didn't want to regret the next 40 years of my life.

To this day, I DO NOT regret selling my motorcycle. I now look at riding a bike like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Yea, no way.

What I did was find an alternative to get the same rush, the same feeling, the same windy freedom.

At first it was a convertible car.

Now it's a street legal side by side UTV.

Now I can get the same enjoyment of riding a motorcycle without the stress AND I can ride in the hills.

View attachment 28004

Sell the damn bike.

Now go think. You will thank me later. (Inside joke some folks here might recognize, LOL).

Yup, have friends that are nurses and see this stuff all the time. It’s a shame motorcycles save so much gas and are so cool. But obviously death is not worth it.
 
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Jon L

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I disagree that most motorcycle accidents are caused by someone else. I think most are caused by stupid decisions by the pilot. I don’t have data and I’m not going to look for it. I’m basing it on observing myself and groups of other riders.

When a group of lads get together you can bet your bottom dollar that ego rears its head.

On a motorbike you’re always an inch from death. That inch is a twist of your right wrist, doing something stupid at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.

I’ve been in groups going faster than anyone would normally - because the guy in front is worrying about the guys behind him, and because the guys behind are trying to keep up with the guy in front.

Competitiveness is almost a given when lads get together, but running round a track too fast for the rep is one thing, blasting down country roads (or slicing through traffic) is quite another.

A rocket and an ego is a deadly cocktail.

Maybe I will create that thread after all...
yeah...I agree with you. Most motorcycle accidents are avoidable, even ones where the motorcyclist isn't 'at fault.'

If you drive like everything can kill you (because it can), you'll greatly reduce your chance of an accident.
  • That car about to turn right, into your lane? Assume that it won't see you and that it will cut you off. Slow down and move over.
  • Can't see around the car in front of you? Back off until you can.
  • Pissed off driver behind you, riding your bumper? Pull to the side and let him go past
  • Can't see over the top of a hill? Go slowly enough so that you can stop for the car parked in the middle of the road just past your sight distance.
Even still, the chance of dying in a motorcycle accident is 17x higher than if you were in a car. Those odds suck.
 

James Klymus

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I had my first bike I was 18 years old. I went to the motorcycle safety class and got my license a little while after I turned 18, then I bought a bike a month or so after the class.

It was a 1988 Honda CBR1000F "Hurricane" and it was a bad a$$ bike, But WAY WAY too much bike for me at that beginner level, as my first bike. You should never buy a liter bike or even a 600cc bike as a first bike. But I didnt listen and I bought it.

IMG_1116.jpg

That thing weighed 7-800 pounds and I dropped it like 6 times the first day I got it. I could hardly get that thing back off the ground (I was like 115 lbs and super skinny). I even broke the clutch cover and probably 3 quarts of oil poured over the garage floor of my parents house lmao.

I had bought the bike in July and on Sep. 23rd, just a few months later I crashed it. I know I took pictures of the bike after it was wrecked but I cant find them.

I was sitting in a left turn lane in rush hour traffic, and anyone who's ridden before knows that your motorcycle wont always trigger the sensor for the left arrow. The light turned green and for whatever reason in my head I went, thinking I had the green arrow but i didnt.

Thank god it was a very low speed accident. I turned left right into a poor old lady's drivers door and basically T Boned her.

My bike was totaled and the poor woman couldnt get out of her drivers door, because I had smashed it shut. Luckily there were people that stopped and emergency services helped her get out. She wasnt injured just shaken up cause she thought she had killed me.

As for me, I was wearing a helmet and a jacket with armor plates, so other than a scuff on my knee I was totally fine.

While that bike was the fastest thing I had driven so far, And I felt cool driving it around and telling everyone I rode a motorcycle, I ultimately was scared of that bike. I knew it was a mistake to have bought it and that it was wayy too much for me.

The day I crashed was the day after my 19th birthday, and I thought to my self "I'm only 19 and I just wrecked my motorcycle. If I ride the rest of my life, I'm almost 100% going to have another crash, and next time I may not come away from it just shaken up and with a scuffed up knee. I may die a violent, unnecessary and early death. Or be permanently disabled."

I took that crash as a favor from god, or the universe. I was very lucky. I got the money I paid for it back from my insurance, and I walked away from it a little scratched and shaken up, but ultimately OK and with an important, tough lesson.

I recently got the itch for another bike, but that accident is still fresh on my mind. I think I'll pass.

I don't think I'll ever buy another bike again. I'll stick with fast cars.
 

Ernman

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I almost bought a motorcycle twice. The first time I was a young ensign in the Navy stationed in San Diego. Fresh out of the Naval Academy and full of testosterone. Test drove the bike in the morning. At noon I got a call from the CA Highway Patrol. A Sailor was dead, one of my Sailors, and they found a piece of paper with my name and number on it. After I ID'd the body, I took him home to his family for the funeral. The guy with the bike called me after I got back to see if I was going to buy the bike.

It took me @ 15 years to squirrel up the courage again. This time in HI. Guess what happened? The husband of one of my Sailors was run off the road on his motorcycle. Almost lost his leg. They were a young couple, he was a Marine, but not for much longer. Their entire lives changed in an instant because someone in a car wasn't paying attention.

So both times I was about ready to buy a bike, something very bad happened to someone near my orbit. I decided "someone" was sending me a message.

A couple years ago a good friend of mine was run off the road on his bike. It almost killed him. Took months of surgeries and rehab. This guy survived a heart attack but almost died because he insisted on riding is motorcycle. Harley riders die just as easily as crotch rocket riders.
 
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Kshatriya

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Because motorbikes and unregulated traffic are very common in India, so is death in motorbike accidents. While going through the post, I could immediately think of 3 motorbike deaths of people I personally knew. While one was around 35 years and had a year-old child, the other two were just 20 and 22.

Another guy, who lives just about 2 kms from my place, has been injured so badly in another accident, that he can’t eat anymore. He’s been fitted with a tube going into his nostrils, through which he is fed with only liquid food and medicines. Old memories were lost. His old-age father runs a tiny haircut shop earning a very little income.

Few years ago, in another instance of a motorbike accident, a young man was run over by a lorry. He was reported to had been conscious for about 20 minutes after his legs were cut off from his upper body. Just imagine the decisions he would be regretting at that moment—dream of owning the motorbike, buying the motorbike, struggles he went through to buy that machine—which ultimately landed him in the middle of the road as two pieces.
(He bravely donated the organ before his last breath)
View: https://youtu.be/Z8aI9uyKLnc
(non-English audio)
 
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MattR82

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I'm in Chiang Mai right now. I've been traveling in Asia for 10 months, and the recurring advice I get from other foreigners at each place I visit is - "get a motorbike, man."
Nope! Grab and Uber works great for me.
A lot of them can barely even ride the scooters and have all kinds of scars and scratches to prove it.

I'm all set with all of that.
Well... I found that it's safer on a little scooter in some of those places because they are so used to bikes and look out for them. Plus the speed is rarely over 40 or 50kph.

I still only ever used my own helmet designed to european safety standards which travelled with me everywhere.

I have no big issue trundling around on a slow scooter in chiang mai, Bali or thailand with proper protection. But no god damn way would I ever get on a road bike in Australia sharing the highway with old nan that can't see doing 100kph and doesn't know to look for bikes. That's so much scarier to me. Couldn't pay me enough.
 

Strategery

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Harley riders die just as easily as crotch rocket riders.
Not that it's tremendously safer, but the crotch rocket riders are more likely to wear a full face shield helmets and leathers... Harley riders always have seemed too cool to wear stuff like that to me.
 
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MattR82

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Not that it's tremendously safer, but the crotch rocket riders are more likely to wear a full face shield helmets and leathers... Harley riders always have seemed too cool to wear stuff like that to me.
I always found that so weird. It's like you're not allowed a full face helmet on a Harley lol.
 

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Yeah, my ex-wife of 29 years, had a son after we split and the son had a motorcycle wreck in Destin a while back. We are all still close, even me and her son and her ex's mom. lol He is just now getting up and about. It was a miracle that he wasn't hurt way worse than he was. He is a daredevil anyway and we all told him he was going to kill himself. I hope he doesn't get another one.
 

Entre Eyes

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I was reading where a Celeb Gifted a New Bike to her Brother and he had Fatal accident on it...but I hope she focused on that day he was all smiles when she gave it to him I know that is a heavy load for her.

These days people go extreme to get to an early grave.

Have you seen the videos on Ytube of people climbing buildings or hopping over barriers for Selfies and dying and unedited.

People swallowing DETERGENT that looks like candy as a CHALLENGE.

Road Rage.

Vaping.

We are all headed to a grave why speed the process.

And lets not pretend Lambos/fast cars are not in the same category. :)
 
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Xavier X

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Well... I found that it's safer on a little scooter in some of those places because they are so used to bikes and look out for them. Plus the speed is rarely over 40 or 50kph.

I still only ever used my own helmet designed to european safety standards which travelled with me everywhere.

I have no big issue trundling around on a slow scooter in chiang mai, Bali or thailand with proper protection. But no god damn way would I ever get on a road bike in Australia sharing the highway with old nan that can't see doing 100kph and doesn't know to look for bikes. That's so much scarier to me. Couldn't pay me enough.

Yeah, scooters are generally safer than power bikes. Still, the risk is significant.
My girlfriend rode on the back of her friend's scooter while we were in Bali some months ago.
Boom-crash-fall! Left her knees and elbows scraped up. And that was best case scenario.
 

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My Dad rode Harley’s as a youngster, his ex wife before my Mum gave him an ultimatum, her or the bikes. He always regretted his choice, gave them up then 12 months later got rid of her too :rofl:

He always told me that most accidents were the fault of the rider, through in attention, bravado, or not staying in safe spots on the road in comparison to other vehicles, and taught me to always assume a vehicle on the road doesn’t know you’re there. Although I’ve always wanted a Harley, I’ve never ridden road bikes, only dirt bikes on farms.

It has been a goal of mine to buy one, I told myself years ago I would never finance one, only buy one when my finances would allow me to pay cash for it.

A friend from school crashed his and died instantly a few years ago, leaving behind a wife and 2 kids, I still see her tag him in posts on Facebook from time to time and it’s heart breaking for them to go through that.

I still want one, for what it represents to me, but I won’t be too keen on taking it out much, if at all. Some classic bikes are becoming rare and collectors items so that might be why I buy it when the time comes, an investment of sorts rather than something to use everyday.

I like the idea of MJ’s UTV!!
 

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