" Donorcyclist" article

3454 Views 17 Replies 7 Participants Last post by JK_DILLA, Feb 25, 2006

fastbaill2004

Discussion Starter · Jan 23, 2006

This article was given to me by my first sergant. It is part of a base wide awareness program. The USAF is losing too many airmen to motorcycle accidents. Just wanted to post it, to see what everyone things.

Meet: Two-lane rural road

Death toll: 1,366 motorcyclists

If Death went retail, he'd open a motorcycle dealership. With sales figures doubling since 1998, bikes are booming—as are visits to the E.R., where staff call the brain-dead Easy Riders "donorcyclists." Fatalities among motorcycle riders and passengers spiked 12 percent in 2003, continuing an upward trend that began eight years ago. In fact, based on miles ridden, a motorcyclist is 21 times more likely to die in a crash than a guy driving a ho-hum Elantra.

Survive it: You're tooling down the road on your motorcycle when an onrushing car turns left in your path. "A lot of guys panic. They lock up the brakes and lay the bike down rather than T-bone the car," says Pat Hahn, a spokesman for the Minnesota Motorcycle Safety Center and the author of Ride Hard, Ride Smart: Ultimate Street Strategies for Advanced Motorcyclists. Bad move. Chrome and flesh slide faster than rubber, so save your skin, literally and figuratively, by staying upright. "It's almost impossible to flip a bike," says Hahn, recommending that you squeeze the front brake lever "like you're squeezing juice out of an orange." Begin soft, then squeeze progressively harder while steering in a straight line. "Your goal," he says, "is to get the speed down to buy yourself one or two seconds for the car to turn."

Provided by Men's Health

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ebbs15

· #10 · Feb 1, 2006

DLITALIEN said:
It's kinda hard to practice instincts. You can say that you're gonna do something but your instincts just take over. Hopefully you have good ones. When i went down i tried to ride my bike off road. No dice. I was going slow enough so I jumped off. i never fell to the ground. I was proud of my instincts that day.

True... but all instincts are are reactions that your brain has been taught to do... practice and they will become second nature... or Instinct.

:jacked: for example... I got up here last January... and always though I was pretty good at driving in the snow... never went into a ditch... but after riding with some of my friends they I realized that all I knew was about normal driving not if I was sliding or what not... I had just been lucky that I'd never experience it... I found a wide open snow dump site. basicly a big open dirt field leveld where they put the snow piles in the winter, it had about a foot of snow on the ground and that's it... it was about a 1/4mile square. and I drove arround forcing myself to skid, slide, spin out... and tried everything to recover... some times I could... but mostly... I just slid untill I the tires grabbed out of no influence of mine... took me about 4 weeks of doing this almost every night... (I'm not gonna lie it was a freak'n blast!) untill I seriously could pull my self out of just about anything... but I still hadn't had an acutal instance where I had to react and do it though... untill two weeks ago... I had a car jump the median on the free-way and slide sidways twords me ... my first reaction was to throw it back into 2WD to kick the tail end out... then back in 4wd and point straight for the side of the road... the truck did exactly what I wanted... and I missed the car... however... the truck behind me slammed on it's brakes the same time I did all this and ended up skidding into the car that jumped the median... everyone was ok... but had I hit that car it would have been much worse...

anyways... just a (long winded) example... practice helps...( :jacked: over)

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ebbs15

· #13 · Feb 2, 2006

Gas Man said:
:iagree: but what are we goig to do to change mainstream mind setting??

unfortuantly I don't think there's much you can do to CHANGE it... when ther's A** holes out there doing this type of stuff... all we can do is NOT ADD to it... :2cents:

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ebbs15

· #15 · Feb 2, 2006

JK_DILLA said:
but the ignorant mindset had to start somewhere, so its possible for an informed mindset to start too. I would like to know what the Drivers ED includes. When i got my lisence, the book didnt even acknowledge the possibility of a motorcycle sharing the highways.

True... but IMHO in todays society is faster to jump on the negitive parts of a subject rather than the positive part... it's alot like your credit... one little mistake will take a alot of good actions to be erased... and with these guys continuing to add to the "little mistakes" daily... I'm not sure our credit with the rest of america is going anywhere but :flush: again my :2cents:

and now that you mention it... i dont' remember anything about motorcycles in my DL test or Drivers Ed... though they did mention giving extra room to Semi's... why not say the same for motorcycles?:scratch:

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ebbs15

· #17 · Feb 2, 2006

JK_DILLA said:
any change will be years away, even a small one, because people think that changing their minds or perception is a sign of weakness. In a small way, it begins with us, and our parents who rode. Just like you dont realise how many bikes are around till you are interested in one. Then you see them everywhere, the more its brought up the more its recognised unconciously.

EXACTLY... rest assured... when my kids turn 16... they'll be taking the MSF THEN Drivers Safty... even though I don't think I'd let them ride till they were 18 anyways...

JK_DILLA said:
thats what i was thinking. They teach to make concessions to things bigger than you, not smaller with equal right. I'd like to talk to someone about this.

Personally I think it's something a group like the AMA should be looking into... I don't think there would be too much of a fight to get that added in...

personally I think that everyone should have to take the MSF when they do Drivers ED... but then again... drivers ed isn't requied either... :wbs: :wbs:

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