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Originally Posted by denverpete
I'd have to agree - but I would also add that the safest driver's I know also ride motorcylces. Not that there aren't crotch jockeys out there - but if you RIDE - you quickly learn to be safe.
You don't take road conditions for granted. You don't take a right just because the oncoming car is a lane over. You never assume anyone is stopping at a light, stop sign, or intersection. You are constantly aware of every car around you at all times. You always know where your "out" is for any given situation - and you never put yourself in a position where you don't have an "out". And, you always assume that the drivers around you are idiots who will act in an completely irrational and unpredictable manner.
It may not teach you to handle a car - but it will make you a safer driver.
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Hi,
I agree with your premise, and I'm sure many motorcycle Riders do develop good Situational Awareness. But, there are lots of Idiots riding Bikes out there - sometimes I wonder where they learned enough to balance themselves. Riding a Bike does not automatically make you a Good Driver - Perhaps it's that the Bad Riders just get weeded out...
I used to ride Bikes when I was in College, in fact my '68 Triumph Bonneville (not yet a Classic back then) was struck by an old Lady running a Stop Sign at a Blind Intersection with me on it (nowhere to go and I didn't want to lay it down under her Electra 225, so I rode it out) and I had my Graduation Ceremony in a Hospital Bed with both legs in casts (turned out OK, because the Bike was totalled and I got a Norton Commander as a replacement).
My Sister and her Husband are both Surgeons, one a Trauma Surgeon, and from the stories they've told through the years, they don't call 'em Donor Machines for nothing.
But, back on point, it's partly our system. We teach people how to operate a Car and Obey the Traffic Laws, not how to Drive. No parent should hand over the keys to several Hundred Horsepower and a couple tons of sheetmetal to their Kid without much more practice and training than most people currently receive. I'm not picking on young people, but that's where all the lousy Adult Drivers come from, it's not a skill where one generally digresses...
Happy Motoring!... Jim'99 (wishing he still had those Bikes of Yesteryear...
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