Bike Fever by Gutkind Lee;

Author:Gutkind, Lee; [Gutkind, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1806563
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Published: 2014-02-03T20:20:00+00:00

Eleven

FEW POLITICIANS OR SOLDIERS believe that the only way to end the war is to obliterate Vietnam. Few doctors agree to eliminating cancer by destroying all of its victims, or jailing them with lepers, somewhere in the deep South Seas. Politicians and soldiers want to stop war by winning or making a reasonable peace. Doctors want to muffle disease by curing. And yet, they seem to believe—doctors, politicians, and statisticians—that the only way to decrease death and destruction involved in motorcycling is either to abolish the machine or severely limit its use. This point of view has been proven invalid with alcohol and marijuana, and there is no reason why it should even be considered with respect to motorcycles. There is no reason, in fact, to accept the testimony of a few highly touted non-motorcycling experts before hearing a competent defense of two-wheeled machines.

Besides, does danger always justify retreat? We are not turtles and cannot live our lives in fear of statistics, avoiding all activities calculated as the easiest in which to die. If so, we could never go out of the house. But then, how many thousands of people die in fires in their homes each year? We could stay in bed; but if we accept on statistics alone the fact that motorcycles are dangerous, then we must conclude that lying in bed is the most dangerous activity of all, since the majority of Americans seem to die there.

Twenty million Americans are zipping and zooming across country and city, over mountain and meadow on motorcycles. Hundreds of thousands of parents start their children on motorized bikes at seven, eight, or nine years of age. Thousands of grandparents visit their families and travel from one end of the country to the other on two-wheeled machines. Motorcyclists come from many different states and cruise in many different directions. They are younger and older and darker and lighter than their contemporaries. They practice different religions and some practice none at all. They ride different kinds of motorcycles, and ride for different reasons. But to the man—or to the machine—on one point they all agree: with proper preparation, cooperation and care, the motorcycle is potentially the safest vehicle on the road.

PROBLEM: The number of people killed or injured on a motorcycle during the past decade has doubled…

But during the same period the number of motorcycles registered in the United States has increased from 600,000 to 3.5 million. There are six times as many motorcycles registered today as there were a decade ago and ten times as many riders. In California alone, the state with the largest cycling population, as well as the highest rate of fatalities, motorcycle registration increased 128 percent from 1964 to 1969, while the number of serious injuries and deaths went up only 48 percent. There were 496 motorcycle accidents per each 10,000 machines in 1964, according to California Highway Patrol Commissioner Harold W. Sullivan. There were 321 per 10,000 five years later. Nationally, registration went up 17 percent in 1971, while fatalities increased only 4 percent.

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