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by obstinate 3397 days ago
There are other factors too. The less powerful your bike, the safer you are. That one is actually a pretty significant factor.

I was interested in riding a motorcycle once, but I found that even if I assumed I was at the safest end of the spectrum, my risk was still many times that of driving. And the comparison is not apt because many of the risk factors I mitigate on a motorcycle I also mitigate in a car, for e.g., by being a careful driver, minimizing the amount of driving I do, driving slowly, and never driving drunk. So it's not like the motorcycle has become safer relative to the car. It's just that both skew less risky for me.

So I decided I would not do it. Maybe when I'm older and other risk factors are more pressing.

2 comments

I probably put in about 100k miles on motorcycles over the years and never had an accident/incident. I do not agree that a less powerful bike makes you safer (I only rode sports bikes btw). The slower bikes (250cc or so) generally had much worse brakes and couldn't accelerate if needed. I found 600cc bikes were the easiest to control and "safest." That of course is only true if you are going the same speed as the counterpart (which is difficult especially if you're riding a 1000cc).
> I probably put in about 100k miles on motorcycles over the years and never had an accident/incident.

Cool!

> I do not agree that a less powerful bike makes you safer (I only rode sports bikes btw).

You don't need to agree. It's a statistical fact that power and danger are associated. May not be causal. Probably isn't, in fact.

I had a similar experience. The impetus for me was always building bikes rather than actually riding them though, so the compromise was getting a project car instead! I haven't calculated the micromorts of circuit racing mind you..
Probably depends way too much on personal factors like experience, speed, which course, what type of vehicle . . .
Exactly, it would be nearly impossible to figure out. Unless you were in a particular long running event with hisotorical data.