All Rights Reserved © 2017 Thomas W. Day
On the way back home through South Dakota on a smoking July afternoon a few years ago, I decided
to count the number of times someone said, "It's awful hot to be wearing all
that gear" or something equally clever and observant. By the time I made it home, it
happened seven times.
My favorite incident was in Platte, South Dakota at a bar where I ate my last meal of the day, after finding a motel and shedding my bike luggage. As I'd come into
town, I spotted a huge (tall and wide) woman on a big cruiser wobbling away from
the curb into traffic, looking as uncomfortable and incompetent as anyone
I've ever seen on a motorcycle. She had both feet on the ground, paddling along
into moving traffic, hoping
the universe was looking out for her. She was barely able to turn her head far enough to
see her own hands on her ape-hangers, let alone the on-coming traffic. That same woman was sitting at one of the
outside tables with six other women as I left the bar after dinner.
One of her friends remarked, "That's a lot of gear to be wearing
on a hot day."
I repeated the response I have memorized for this silly
statement, "It's not nearly enough when you're sliding down the road on your
ass."
Another woman said, "He got you there."
The big cruiser rider said, "I ride too good for that to
happen to me."
The Dunning-Kruger Effect explains how "persons of low
ability suffer from illusory superiority when they mistakenly assess their
cognitive ability as greater than it is." This lady was a classic example of
that human delusion and she had no idea how ridiculous her statement would sound
to anyone who had seen her ride. I have to feel a little sorry for her, though.
The motorcycle she rode was way more machine than she could ever handle. She was
so overweight that any sane society would classify her as "handicapped" and so
unskilled that same culture would refuse to issue her a license for anything
more powerful than a 25cc moped. The Harley marketing machine had convinced
her that she was a badass biker, but bad was all she could manage. If all she
does with her motorcycle is wobble from her house to the bar in that tiny village, she
might survive to tell stories about her "biker phase" when she's in the old
folks home. If she ever puts that thing on an open road, the chances are good
that she'll make a contribution to the single-vehicle crash and fatality
statistics.
In my last basic motorcycle course of the 2017 season, we had
one exceptionally marginal student, who was taking the class for the second time
in a last gasp attempt at a license. As usual, that student was the most
confident of the group. In a discussion about evaluating traffic hazards and
escape routes, I described how easy it is to overestimate your skills and
capabilities and how quickly a traffic situation can catastrophically point out
your errors and limitations.
Our marginal student said, "That will never be me. I know
what I'm doing."
I replied, "In my experience, all of the really good riders
I've ever known are more aware of their shortcomings than confident in their
skills."
She said, "Now you're just making things up."
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Yep, I made
that up, too.
The real benefit to taking additional and regular training is
discovering how much distance there is between what you think you know and what
you actually know. That goes for anything, not just motorcycle training. Humans
are notoriously lousy self-evaluators, as individuals and as groups. One of the
most hilarious anti-government delusions is the fantasy of "self-regulation."
Literally, I can't think of a single area of human activity where any industry,
organization, or community has done a decent job of self-regulation. Anytime
humans are left to their own isolated devices they inbreed and become stupid
and corrupt. It doesn't even take expert outside observers to provide useful
advice; people mangle their intended purpose so completely and
destructively that almost anyone with eyesight can provide useful corrective
feedback. The
South Dakota cruiser rider was a terrific example of that.
One of the things I will miss when I retire from teaching
the state's motorcycle safety classes is the corrective feedback from the
students and the coaches I worked with. In particular, the classes that used to
be called "Experienced Rider" often exposed me to motorcyclists with far
different experiences from my own. During the discussions I picked up all sorts
of ideas about how other riders manage traffic, maintain their motorcycles, and
plan cross country trips. Having to demonstrate the exercises for competent
riders always added a little pressure to the otherwise simple activities and
gave me a solid benchmark for knowing when it would be time for me to hang up my Aerostich for good.
At the other end of that spectrum, beginning and so-called
"experienced" riders often discovered that their motorcycle talents were
dramatically less impressive than they'd convinced themselves. Sadly, not
everyone who miserably fails to cope with the course exercises is honest enough
to realize how low a bar they failed to step over. Riders who drive straight
through the offset weave exercises tell themselves their bike is the problem,
ignoring the fact that other riders on similar or less maneuverable motorcycles are handling the
course without difficulty. Riders who never learn to use and trust their front
brake pretend that they'll avoid having to make an emergency stop by sticking to
country roads and riding in a pack. One of the huge shortcomings of not having a
tiered license system is that completely incompetent riders can end up on
equally hard-to-ride motorcycles and won't discover why that is a problem until
seconds before becoming a statistic.
One fairly reliable indicator of riding competence is the
amount of gear a rider decides is enough. AGAT riders are consistently more
competent than the shorts and flipflops or bandanna and pirate outfit crowd. It appears that
the more you know about riding a motorcycle, the more aware you are of the risk.
The opposite of the Dunning-Kruger Effect is something every good scientist,
engineer, and technician knows, "The more you know, the more you know you don't
know." So, if you are confident that your skills are good enough to
allow you to ride helmetless and without decent gear, the odds are good that you
are likely to be fatally wrong.
The real benefit to taking additional and regular training is discovering how much distance there is between what you think you know and what you actually know. That goes for anything, not just motorcycle training. Humans are notoriously lousy self-evaluators, as individuals and as groups. One of the most hilarious anti-government delusions is the fantasy of "self-regulation." Literally, I can't think of a single area of human activity where any industry, organization, or community has done a decent job of self-regulation. Anytime humans are left to their own isolated devices they inbreed and become stupid and corrupt. It doesn't even take expert outside observers to provide useful advice; people mangle their intended purpose so completely and destructively that almost anyone with eyesight can provide useful corrective feedback. The South Dakota cruiser rider was a terrific example of that.
8 comments:
Exactly right on every front. The longer I ride the more aware of my shortcomings I become. I road raced in AHRMA many years ago and, as a youngster, thought I had skills. I'm 51 now and am smart enough to know better.
I have to admit, I really enjoyed writing this one. So much irony in those two barely used brains.
I used to ride in a group, mostly Harleys but a few sport bikes, and all of the worst riders in the group were the most confident and aggressive. I quit the group because every ride ended in an ambulance rescue.
I live in the St. Cloud are and there have been three fatalities in the last three days. Two down by Hawick and one near Kimble. As usual, I'm still commuting on my motorcycle and the same people that ask me if I'm hot in my armored jacket and full-face helmet are now stopping by my office to remind me that motorcycles are dangerous, like somehow I hadn't gotten that news in the last 40 years.
People are consistently amazingly inconsistent. There are things I miss about not going to work every day, but those conversations are not missed at all.
great article, and usual straight to the point assessment of the biker crowd.
Good truth in this piece, but dang, I thought I was the only motorcycle writer to quote William Butler Yeats.
OK, I didn't really think that, but still...
You could still the the only motorcycle writer quoting Yeats who didn't have to look up the quote to remember who said it first.
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