Quote:
Originally Posted by CC Cowboy
Just a quick thought for our members from far away (far away from me anyway). There are millions of motorcycles in the far east countries (due to the affordability of bikes over cars). Hardly ever do you see them with gear, once in a while a helmet of some kind. What is the accident ratio of riders to bikes owned?
I bet they don't crash very much. Since they use their bikes for transportation (not fun) I have a feeling they treasure having the mobility and don't take the chance of losing their ride.
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In Canada, I'm classed as a "Road Star", meaning, no accidents for at least 20 years (and I drive 20,000 miles every year), and in BC's socialist system I automatically get a 40% auto insurance discount. But in India, where I've been 3 times working as a Bengal tiger preservationist, let me tell you, I do not believe that I could ride or drive in New Delhi or Calcutta for 3 days without having an accident, and get beaten up by a mob for it. And if I were riding a scooter with 2 kids in front and one more behind, plus a side-saddling wife bringing up the rear, I have little doubt I would wipe out my whole family sooner than later. To call the traffic "chaotic" is to call a Rolling Stone concert "nice". That's urban. Highways are death-traps. You see overloaded trucks lying on their sides every few miles. There are speed bumps on high-speed highways without warning. I've seen a truck parked in the passing lane of a highway WITH ROCKS PLACED AROUND IT, and skid marks right before it overlaying one another. The conditions of the vehicles were atrocious. I was once given to drive a Gypsy (Indian made jeep with a 600cc motor) the steering wheel of which had over 1 FOOT of free-play. I've been picked up by cross country taxis with tires running on their BELTs, all rubber having worn off. I can't vouch for this, but an Indian colleague told me that India has 4-figure traffic fatalies every DAY, and I see no reason to doubt it. To ride a Ninja 250 in India anywhere is a suicide waiting to happen. The Indian drivers and riders (lots of "cool chicks" riding scooters), on the other hand, seem to have been acclimatized to the chaos, and have a stoic and fatalist attitude - the "karma" mentioned elsewhere in this thread - and I've never seen any rider in gears. If I don't see them again, either they got pissed off at me for some reason, or they got killed in traffic. You never know.