Joe Gives It Up

Right wing blogger, Joe Soucheray, has decided to join the ranks of the four-wheeled and disabled. He was the epitome of the late-life-biker when he bought his first motorcycle and has been some sort of totem for that crowd ever since. As he said, "I didn't have anything in my experience that would have protected me from that. I didn't have anything in my bag of tricks that could have saved me from an oncoming vehicle not seeing me and making a left turn in front of me." Obviously, there are lots of things every experienced rider uses for evaluating and planning for those regular occurances. Joe just didn't have either the experience, judgement, or skills to be a regular motorcyclist and, finally, he realized that being an occasional, recreational garage-candy owner is fuckin' dangerous.

For Joe, motorcycling was always about propping up his aging self-image. A motorcycle was a tool to make himself feel cool. He could wallow in "the potato-potato-potato thwap of a Harley, or the silky smooth revs of a Japanese bike, or the Spitfire flying across the English Channel vibe of a British ride. I rode to ride, not to get anywhere quickly. I didn't need the bike for my daily commute and never used a bike to commute." If we kept statistics on that kind of rider, I'm certain they would be grossly overrepresented in crash data.

Good move, Joe. Now, keep your cell phone in your pocket and try to concentrate on driving your car without killing the rest of us.