A must read in my opinion

[Mista Bob]

Reading CC Cowboys (and a couple other ones) posts in a crash thread made me think of this great post from a local forum I frequent.
Guy who wrote it is an extremely nice and helpful person.

I think this is some great advice here, from the topic "It wasn't my fault (rant warning)" on Ground Pilots.

Yep how many time are we going to hear this over the *next few months. *
The car cut me off, that gravel wasn't there yesterday, I didn't know the corner was decreasing radius, the deer jumped out, who expected water across the road, *my wheelie went over when I didn't expect it, buddy hit hit brakes too soon, my tires slipped... have I covered them?

Basically, all the statements above and there's many more to add to the list are just excuses for YOU not being in control of your motorcycle. * Ultimately, the grey matter keeping your ears apart is the last line of defense between you and the road. *If you do not use your brain to keep yourself alive, we'll end up talking about you in the past tense like others on this board. *(no disrespect to those is intended)

YOU and you alone are the one keeping your wheel on the ground and your body off the asphalt shredder. *Riding motorcycle is a dangerous thing to do. *Others that share the road don't see you, falling off causes pain and mistakes made by others can kill you. * YOU and you alone have to decide how much danger you are going to place yourself into and whether or not it's a survivable situation or not. *You have to decide how vulnerable you are going to let yourself be and how 'out there' you'll let things hang before reeling them in. *

It's no surprise that newer riders fall off more than experienced riders. They generally don't understand what exceeding the limits will do to you. *I also chock it up to having no concept of what long-term pain is. *However, it's not a given that if you're a new rider you're going to fall off. *Yes it is true that most riders will fall down somewhere along the line it doesn't mean that get-off is going to cause any long term damage. *You can reduce your potential damage by being aware of the situation around you. *

The bottom line is that YOU have to accept responsibilty for your actions. If YOU allow yourself to be put into a situation that has the potential for danger YOU and YOU alone can make that determination and act appropriately. * IF a car cuts you off, YOU have put yourself into a position wher you have allowed a car to cut you off. *If you find yourself in the middle of a 'commited' corner and suddenly there's gravel across the road. YOU put yourself into the position where unforseen gravel across the corner can upset your bike. *Hitting wildlife is no different.. sure they are extremely unpredictable, but riding at 8 or 9/10ths through deer country is not leaving much room for adjustment when bambi pops out of the bush. YOU have to decide whether the pace is acceptable and YOU have to scan the ditches for potential trouble. *If your riding bud had to hit the brakes and you rear-ended them, it's YOU that put YOURSELF into the position where your riding bud hitting the brakes can cause damage to YOU. * Decreasing radius corners, going past 12 o'clock on the wheelie, *stunting in traffic, they're all situations that YOU have to accept responsibilty for. *No one else is twisting the throttle. *No one else is putting your body at risk except YOU. *

So.. accept the responisbilty. *Quit blaming others or the environment for your lack of good judgement. * Ride defensivley and always leave yourself an 'out' if you think it's getting dangerous. *If you're going to ride over your head, accept the stats that you will hurt yourself somethere along the line. Worse yet, you could hurt someone else by denying your responsibily. *YOU have to decide how YOU will be able to react to emergency situations. * Good luck out there... be aware of your surroundings. *Ride appropriately.

KLRguy

I couldn't have ever said it better myself.

[kkim]

nah... it couldn't be my fault.

good post. thanks!

[CC Cowboy]

Originally Posted by Mista Bob

Reading CC cowboys

That's CC Cowboy. If you going to use my name you have to get it right. I'm very case sensitive.

[Mista Bob]

Fixed.

[TheGoodLyfe]

...but officer she popped out of nowhere while I was stunting through the neighborhood! It wasn't my fault...hahaha nice find Mista Bob. Own up yall

[DerTeufel]

Good find, and well put.

[Elfling]

Again: experience, care and attention all help. Nobody should *ever* feel like they are completely safe from unexpected incidents however. Many motorcycle accidents are the fault of the motorcyslist. Many other motorcycle accidents are *not* the fault of the motorcyclist. All you can do is be the best rider you can be, get your experience, use your common sense, and accept the risk that comes with riding. Or driving. Or running trail marathons. Or walking into a post office...etc etc.

I'm not saying that i don't see the point of that article; a lot of people would rather blame their tools than themselves. However, I don't like the path we go down when we say that you and you alone are in control of your circumstances. Look at the driving distracted thread just a few below this one. Is that the fault of those motorcyclists?

[Sailariel]

Becca, I agree with you to a point. The distracted driver issue is a new thing since cell phones, GPS Navigators, CD players, computers, and all that stuff. You still need to be aware. I ride a full blown 30 speed racing bicycle 15 to 20+ miles a day five days a week. I do not have the agile handling, acceleration, and stopping power of a modern sportbike like the ninjette. On one of my rides, I looked in my mirror and saw wall to wall grille in the mirror. I was in the Bike/Repair lane. I immediately bailed out, leaving the repair lane and laying the boke down in the grass and brush. As I executed this manouver, I saw a young lady behind the wheel of a minivan, steering with her knees and furiously texting on her cell phone. Had I not seen her in my mirrors, I would have been killed. The point is that I did see her. The other point is that I took the necessary effort to find a set of mirrors suitable for a racing bike. This initiative saved my life. Now we take it to the Ninjette. We all know that the OEM mirrors on the ninjette are worthless--Unless YOU do something about it. You can spend $1.99 at Wal Mart and get some adjustable Blind Spot mirrors that fit on your existing mirrors with double sided tape. You could also scrap the stock mirrors and spend $60.00 on a pair of mirrors made for the Kawasaki Z6R (the option I chose in addition to the WM mirrors. I can now see behind me--so I have no excuse for having someone "sneak up" on me. True, we pay more insurance because we choose to ride a sport bike. I have been driving sports cars for 50 years accident free. I have been riding motorcycles just as long, also accident free. What insurance companies consider dangerous--I consider safer. This applies to sports cars as well. We can accelerate faster. We can manouver better. We can stop faster in less distance. If we stay alert and optimize these great assets a sport bike has--we are certainly safer from a technical standpoint than a cruiser. Our problem is that we get a bit overconfident because our bikes are technologically advanced. If we don`t let it go to our heads, we`ll be fine. Ride Safe.

[Elfling]

Nothing I said implied anything contrary to what you wrote, Sail In fact, that's exactly my point: that you do everything you can, to the best you can.

[OldGuy]

Good Article Bob - thanks for sharing.

[TrueFaith]

I think the reasoning in the OP is a little half-baked. Apparently by this reasoning, if a 747 falls out of the sky on top of you it's your fault because you should have expected it. You alone apparently have control over all things, including Acts of God like avalanches or trees falling in the road because you should be skilled enough to avoid anything. Then we're told that motorcycling is a dangerous activity. Well, which is it??!!
Motorcycling IS a dangerous activity. Why? Because people crash all the time doing it, that's why. How many times have you been told "Don't go faster than you'd like to crash" or "It's not if you crash, it's when."? Everyone, even most non-riders, know at least one person who has been hurt or killed on a motorcycle. I know at least a half dozen and I don't know that many people who ride. If motorcycling wasn't dangerous you wouldn't need to wear a helmet or CE-approved armor every time you got on one. It would be one thing if only noobs and inexperienced riders crashed, but a lot of very experienced riders crash too. I don't buy that "every crash is the rider's fault 100%" reasoning at all. Critical events like crashing are not usually caused by one thing alone that you can point to and say with 100% surety "that's why it happened." They are caused by several things going wrong in unison resulting in a crash. No matter how "in the zone" you are or how much skill and experience you have you still have to get every single thing right from beginning to end when confronted with a situation that can result in crashing. Some people get lucky and avoid a crash when they probably shouldn't and some people crash no matter what they do right to avoid it. Motorcycling is a dangerous activity. You either accept the risks or you don't. But don't try telling me that great skill and experience always win out against every unknown and unexpected hazard you may come across in the roadway, because nobody can expect every situation and be prepared to react perfectly every time. People are human, not robots. Elite skydivers with thousands of jumps die every year. People at the pinnicle of their sport with more training, skill and experience in their pastime than any mororcyclist will ever have. Why? Because it's a dangerous sport and accidents happen...just like they do in that other dangerous sport...motorcycling.

[CC Cowboy]

Are you talking from experience?

[TrueFaith]

Originally Posted by CC Cowboy

Are you talking from experience?

A friend of mine and I went up to Orange Parachute Center (now called Jumptown) many years ago for a couple of "hop & pops". As we were chuting up on the ready line a collective gasp went up and everyone looked skyward. A group of 10 jumpers had just completed a snowflake and had tracked off to open. One guy opened and got a streamer. As he got closer to the ground we could see him pulling his shroud lines trying to clear the malfunction, but not paying attention to his remaining time and altitude. He finally cut away his malfunctioning main canopy and pulled his reserve chute, but we all knew it was too late. It was still coming around his body trying to inflate when he impacted the ground 50' in front of us at close to 100mph. He died instantly.
Later that day we found out he was a very experienced jumper with over 2000 jumps and was the most experienced jumper on the flight. He had even logged time as a Jumpmaster at the center, training other skydivers. In the years since there have been many rediculously experienced jumpers who have died, notably Carl Boenish who died base jumping and was the best skydiving cinematographer in the world at the time. Even the most experienced jumper in the world, the Frenchman responsible for inventing sky surfing, died a few years later from a malfunction. These guys were absolute aces in their sport, yet when the time came all the experience and training they had didn't help them.
The attitude that all crashes can be avoided if you're skillful enough used to bother me before I crashed last year. Now that I have crashed it bothers me even more. Most of the time this attitude is held by experienced riders who have never crashed. The longer they go without crashing the more they think they are skilled enough to handle any situation and the more surprised they are when it finally happens to them. Motorcycling is an inherently dangerous pastime. Just read the warning labels on your gear. There are too many variables you are confronted with when you ride to make sweeping statements like "experience and skill will let you avoid any crash." The world just isn't like that. Life throws unexpected obstacles at you all the time and some of those are going to get you no matter how much skill and experience you have. How many people drive automobiles all their life without a single accident? Is every one of those accidents caused by lack of skill in driving? Of course not. So why do some motorcyclists, who are faced with the same causes of car accidents, think accidents on bikes should never happen if you have enough skill and experience? Thinking that training and experience will trump anything that gets thrown at you in this life is just dumb thinking in the face of reality and it seems more common among motorcyclists than any other sport I've been involved with.

[Sailariel]

Wayne, You make a good point---accidents will happen no matter what your experience level is. I don`t buy the notion that motorcycling is an inherently dangerous sport. It is no more dangerous than riding a bicycle on the road, driving a cage, skydiving, or SCUBA diving. All these activities require a high degree of vigilance and split second decision making. Before I execute any move, I remind myself of the acronym TOTC (Think Of The Consequences), and what was drilled into my head in Ranger School, "Always expect the unexpected." When one is constantly told that a behaviour is dangerous, it almost becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I am definitely not advocating that we should ignore the fact that in a crash we would in all probability be hurt, and therefore sally forth with reckless abandon. Sure, we all know an unfortunate chap who crashed on his/her motorcycle, but we also know many people who crash in cages. There is no way that we can cover all contingencies--accidents happen. I often think of my friend, Robbie, who did four tours in Vietnam as a Ranger. He went home on leave, stepped off the curb, and was run over by a bus and killed instantly. --sort of makes you wonder.

[cifex]

Originally Posted by Sailariel

We all know that the OEM mirrors on the ninjette are worthless--Unless YOU do something about it. You can spend $1.99 at Wal Mart and get some adjustable Blind Spot mirrors that fit on your existing mirrors with double sided tape. You could also scrap the stock mirrors and spend $60.00 on a pair of mirrors made for the Kawasaki Z6R (the option I chose in addition to the WM mirrors. I can now see behind me--so I have no excuse for having someone "sneak up" on me.

Thanks for that. I knew there had to be a better solution than those crap mirrors.