From The Deadly Dozen:
12 Motorcycle Safety Myths and Misconceptions
Reprinted from:
MOTORCYCLE CRUISER
Get a group of
motorcyclists talking about crashes and safety, and you will almost
certainly hear some of them—popular misconceptions, incorrect
assumptions, urban legends, and intuitive explanations about
motorcycle safety that turn out to be wrong when you actually check
out the facts. The problem is that believing these misconceptions
can increase your chances of being involved in an accident or
getting hurt when you do crash.
Maybe you know BS when
you hear it, but maybe you have heard some myths repeated so often
or by people whose expertise you respect that you think they are
actually true. Unfortunately, there are a lot of motorcyclists who
do believe them. We thought that some of these fallacies should be
brought out into the light of day so that riders have the right
information upon which to make informed riding-safety decisions. We
also hope it will keep more motorcyclists from repeating such
misconceptions to riders who turn to them for advice.
These are the Deadly
Dozen, the motorcycle safety myths and urban legends ones that we
hear most frequently.
Myth 1: Other
Drivers Don't Care About Motorcyclists
It may seem hard to
believe at times, but other drivers almost never actually want to
hit you. Most of those near-misses come about because they don't
always know you are there, even when you are right in front of them,
seemingly in plain view. You can be obscured or completely hidden by
glare, by other things on or along the road, by the cars roof
pillars, the handicap hangtag, or by other traffic. Of course, not
all drivers "think motorcycles" and make the effort to look that
extra bit harder to see if there might be a motorcyclist hidden by
that obscuration or in their blind spot.
Instead of assuming
that they will ignore you even when they see you, you should help
make it easier for drivers to spot you, especially as the population
ages and more drivers have greater difficulty in picking you out. To
overcome the fact that you might be hard to see and harder to
notice, wear bright colors, especially on your helmet and jacket.
Run your high beam during the day. Think about things that can hide
you and your bike from other drivers, things that can be as common
as the sun behind you, the car ahead in the next lane, or a couple
of roadside poles that line up on the driver's line of sight toward
you. Make an effort to ride in or move to a location where drivers
with potentially conflicting courses can see you before they stray
your way.
Myth 2: Loud Pipes
Save Lives
Yeah, there are a few
situations—like where you are right next to a driver with his window
down who is about the to change lanes—where full-time noise-makers
might help a driver notice you, but all that noise directed rearward
doesn't do much in the most common and much more dangerous conflict
where a car turns in front of you. Maybe it's the fatigue caused by
the noise, maybe it's the attitudes of riders who insist on making
annoying noise, or perhaps loud bikes annoy enough drivers to make
them aggressive. Whatever the reason, the research shows that bikes
with modified exhaust systems crash more frequently than those with
stock pipes. If you really want to save lives, turn to a loud jacket
or a bright helmet color, which have been proven to do the job. Or
install a louder horn. Otherwise, just shut up.
Myth 3: Motorcycle
Helmets Break Necks
It seems logical—you
put more weight out there on the end of your neck and when you get
thrown off the bike, that extra weight will create more pendulum
force on your neck. Turns out, it doesn't work that way. In fact,
the energy-absorbing qualities of a DOT motorcycle helmet also
absorb the energy that breaks riders' necks in impacts. Studies show
that helmeted motorcyclists actually suffer fewer neck injuries when
they crash compared to riders who crash without helmets.
Myth 4: Helmets
Block Your Ability to See or Hear Danger
The thing you learn
when you dig into the research is that motorcycle riders who use
helmets crash less frequently than those who don't. Maybe that
happens because motorcyclists who decide to wear helmets have a
better or more realistic attitude about riding. Maybe it's because
putting on a helmet is a reminder that what you are about to do can
be dangerous and the act of accepting protection puts you in the
right mindset. Maybe it's because a helmet provides eye protection
and cuts down wind noise so you can actually see and hear better.
Maybe its because, by cutting wind pressure and noise, a helmet
reduces fatigue. Whatever the reasons, wearing a helmet clearly does
not increase a motorcyclist's risk of having an accident and wearing
one correlates to reduced likelihood of an accident.
Myth 5: A Helmet
Won't Help in Most Crashes
People look at the
seemingly low impact speeds used in motorcycle-helmet testing and
assume that if you are going faster than that, the helmet will no
longer be up to the job. That ignores a few critical facts:
Most accidents happen at relatively low speeds.
Most of the impact energy is usually vertical—the distance your head
falls until it hits.
Helmets (or at least helmets that meet DOT standards) perform
spectacular life-saving feats at impact speeds far above those used
in testing.
When a helmeted rider suffers a fatal head injury, it frequently
doesn't matter, because, to hit hard enough to sustain that fatal
injury, he sustained multiple additional fatal injuries to other
parts of his body. In other words, the fact that the helmet didn't
prevent the head injury was of no consequence.
The numbers clearly say that riders using DOT helmets simply survive
crashes more successfully than those without them.
Myth 6: A Helmet
Will Leave You Brain Damaged in an Crash When You Would Have Simply
Died
Of course that's
possible—your helmet attenuates the impact energy enough to keep the
injury from being fatal but not enough to keep all of your eggs from
getting scrambled. However, that's rare, and if you hit that hard,
you are likely to get killed by some other injury. It's actually the
un-helmeted rider who is likely to cross from animal to vegetable
kingdom, and often from a relatively minor impact that would have
damaged nothing but his ego if he'd been wearing a DOT helmet.
Myth 7: A Skilled
Rider Should Be Able to Handle Almost Any Situation
The sharpest, most
skilled motorcyclist in the world isn't going to be up to the task
when a car turns or pulls out in front of him a short distance ahead
and stops directly in his path broadside. Believing that your
superior skills will keep you of trouble is a pipe dream, even if
they are as good as you think. No matter how skilled you are, it's
better to ride to avoid situations that can turn ugly. Slow down,
scan farther ahead, and think strategically. And dress for the
crash.
Myth 8: If You Are
Going to Crash, Lay It Down
I suspect this line
was developed by riders to explain why they ended up flat-side-down
while trying to avoid a crash. They over-braked or otherwise lost
control, then tried to explain the crash away as intentional and
tried to make it sound like it wasn't a crash at all. Maybe
motorcycle brakes once were so bad that you could stop better off
your bike while sliding or tumbling. If so, that hasn't been true
for decades. You can scrub off much more speed before and there be
going slower at impact with effective braking than you will sliding
down the road on your butt. And if you are still on the bike, you
might get thrown over the car you collide with, avoiding an impact
with your body. If you slide into a car while you are on the ground,
you either have a hard stop against it or end up wedged under it.
Remember that the phrase "I laid 'er down to avoid a crash" is an
oxymoron, often repeated by some other kind of moron. The only
events where being on the ground might leave you better off are: 1)
on an elevated roadway where going over the guardrail will cause you
to fall a long way, or 2) in that situation you see occasionally in
movies, where the motorcyclist slides under a semi trailer without
touching it. That's a good trick if the truck is moving.
Myth 9: One Beer
Won't Hurt
Maybe not while you
are drinking it, but if you get on your motorcycle after that, the
effects of a single beer can get you hurt for life. No matter how
unaffected you are sure you are, all the studies say differently.
You increase your risk to yourself and to others when you drink and
hit the road. Also, as you age, your metabolism slows down, and
those "couple a drinks" you had last night may still be affecting
you when you hit the road the next morning.
Myth 10: It's
Better to Stay in Your Lane than Split Lanes
In most parts of the
world, motorcycles split lanes all the time, everywhere traffic is
heavy. Here in the U.S., people often act as if lane-splitting is
insane. But when someone actually studied it in the only place in
the U.S. where it's legal (California), they discovered it's
actually slightly safer than staying in the lane in heavy,
slow-moving traffic. Still many motorcyclists berate others who do
it, when they should in fact be endorsing it.
Myth 11: I'm Safer
on the Street than on an Interstate
The thinking here must
be that slower is safer, but that's only really true after the
accident begins. Controlled-access roadways are inherently safer
because all the traffic is going the same way, and there are no side
streets from which someone can pop into your path, no pedestrians,
and, often, less roadside "furniture" to hit if you depart the
roadway. Running down the road at 70 mph side-by-sidewall with the
whirling wheels of a semi may feel hairy, but you are actually safer
than at half that speed on a city street or even a country road.
Myth 12: A Skilled
Rider Can Stop Better with Conventional Brakes than with Anti-Lock
Brakes
Extensive testing done
recently disproves this popular notion. Even on clean, dry, flat
pavement, skilled, experienced riders (who did hundreds of panic
stops for the testing on outrigger-equipped motorcycles) stopped in
less distance with anti-lock brakes (ABS) than with conventional or
linked braking systems. Though the tests didn't include samples on
surfaces with slick, dirty or wet spots, ABS certainly would have
performed even better under those conditions while eliminating much
of the risk of crashing.
The other cool thing
about ABS on a motorcycle is that allows you to safely practice
panic stops without risking a crash caused by lock-up.
Anyway, the next time
tells you that he had to "lay it down" or that green bikes crash
more than purple ones, you can nod and snicker internally or
challenge them. Just don't base your own riding choices on what
other people assume unless their is some solid science to back it
up. |
