eBikes, Mopeds, and Motorcycles: Is There A Difference?

eBikes (“e-bikes”?) are becoming the most dangerous vehicle on the road, despite eBikers claim that bicycles and eBikes are not “vehicles.” Hint: if you are not walking and you are moving you are in or on a “vehicle.” "noun: vehicle; plural noun: vehicles 1. a thing used for transporting people or goods, especially on land, such as a car, truck, or cart." A bicycle/eBike is definitely “a thing” and even if you are just moving about recreationally you are being transported. This is, perhaps, the dumbest aspect of eBike promoters argument against regulating and licensing eBikes. If you like dumb arguments, you’ll love this doofus: Bolton Bikes.

If you’ve stuck with me for a while, you’ll know I think motorcycle licensing in the US is idiotic. And by that I mean any idiot with $13 and bare-minimal skills can get a motorcycle endorsement and, based on local traffic, I’d say every idiot in Minnesota has a motorcycle endorsement.

eBikes: Federal law in HB 727, a 2002 law enacted by Congress, defines an electric bicycle as “A two- or three-wheeled vehicle with fully operable pedals and an electric motor of less than 750 watts (1 h.p.), whose maximum speed on a paved level surface, when powered solely by such a motor while ridden by an operator who weighs 170 pounds, is less than 20 mph.” Most states adopted that definition of eBikes and most also adopted the federal park regulation that allowed eBikes fitting that description access to bicycle trails and bike lanes. In some states, eBikes are excluded from the legal definition of “motor vehicles.” That, mostly, is for the purpose of minimizing licensing requirements.

State bicycle/eBike helmet laws are inconsistent, irrational, and unequally enforced. If there are bike helmet requirements, most likely they will only be applied to whatever the state decides are “children.”

Mopeds: Mopeds are probably the most misleading named vehicle on the planet today. A moped is legally defined as "[a] vehicle that has two or three wheels, no external shifting device, and a motor that does not exceed 50 cubic centimeters piston displacement and cannot propel the vehicle at a speed greater than 30 miles per hour on a level surface." You’ll notice, I hope, that nothing is mentioned about pedals in the moped description. A zillion years ago, mopeds were mostly bicycles people had stuck un-muffled 2-stroke motors to, leaving the pedals to fool lazy cops (as if there is another kind?) and piss off as many pedestrians, neighbors, and property owners as possible. State laws about mopeds are all over the place. Some states require a license plate and motorcycle endorsement for any vehicle that meets the definition of moped and above (anything not legally a bicycle or eBike) and some states only require a license for under-16 or under-18-year-old riders. Most “mopeds” are just small (50cc/under-30mph) scooters. Moped horsepower definitions vary by state from anything over 1 h.p. to 5 h.p. Some states (Colorado, for example) have a weird undefined area between 750W and “4,476 watts for electric motors” (6 h.p.) where the vehicle is neither an eBike or a moped. I can’t imagine what kind of nutjobs wrote those laws, but I’ve pretty much given up on at least half of the fools in this country so I’m not inconvenienced.

Likewise, helmet requirements are all over the place for mopeds. Like motorcycles, there is no rationale behind moped helmet laws. Most states require helmets for 18-and-under, but states like Minnesota rarely bother to enforce those laws (or any other laws that don’t get cops into non-white people business).

Motorcycles: Motorcycles are pretty much everything else, including some 3-wheeled vehicles, like the Polaris Slingshot and Can-Am Spyder, that are “motorcycles” because that is how the manufacturers slithered past car safety regulations. The lesson there is “If you don’t care how many of your customers you kill, call your vehicle a 'motorcycle.’” The Bolton goober claims there “are no horsepower limits on motorcycles.” Of course, he’s about as useful a source as I am on particle physics. In 2010, the EU limited production motorcycles to 100 h.p. for a while, then changed its little mind in 2015 and reversed that ruling. France didn’t follow the EU in going back to unlimited horsepower and maximum road hazard until late 2016. US DOT restrictions indirectly limit production bike horsepower with emissions, noise, and safety restrictions. Of course our lazy local policing allows bikers to circumvent federal and state regulations because so many of the so-called “law enforcement” gangsters are also biker gangbangers. The one thing cops really hate are laws that apply to themselves.

It is fair to say that anything that isn’t either a bicycle (or legal eBike) or a moped is a motorcycle; regardless of if it is a scooter, an electric two-or-three-wheel vehicle, has or doesn’t have pedals, or is a custom one-off or production vehicle. The definitions of these three vehicles are solely determined by powered speed limits and horsepower/watts. Any attempt to cloud those definitions are nothing more that blown smoke and any policing fooled by that smoke isn’t worth the price of a badge or public support.

Motorcycle helmet laws have been under siege by the very people they are designed to protect, in practically every country. As I speculated a while back, the only real argument for not wearing a helmet is a childish desire to be recognized as a biker. In 1966, the federal government offered highway funding incentives for states to enact helmet laws. (Eeek! Social engineering!) Regardless of the look-at-me! crowd delusions, the evidence for reduced serious motorcycle injury and death with helmet use is overwhelming. However, helmet laws have been under attack by the AMA and ABATE and other biker disorganizations from the start and, somehow, the AMA convinced our congresscritters to repeal the federal incentives in 1975. At that time, California (believe it or not) was the only state not to have a mandatory helmet law. Today, only 19 states have mandatory universal helmet laws. Oddly, California is one of ‘em.

Some stats about motorcycle riders, helmet use, and motorcycle crash data are . . . interesting. The average age of motorcyclists is somewhere between 51 and 56, depending on who’s data you’re believing this week. In 1980, the average age was 27. 19% of riders are women, compared to 6% in 1980. 3% of motorcycle deaths “are attributed to women” and 93% of motorcycle passenger deaths are women. (No surprises there.) “Mothers don’t let your baby girls grow up to be biker chicks?”

The point of this essay was to try and clarify the very clear lines between eBikes and the rest of motorized two-wheeled transportation. A surprise, to me, was that the line between mopeds and motorcycles is so sloppy.

What it all Means

Ever think about that butcher's chart Icon plastered all over the Airframe Statistic? Your first thought should be how many first impacts occur to the areas of the head unprotected by all helmets that are NOT full face: 45%. Those ridiculous things I can only describe as “toilet bowl helmets” add another 12% of unprotected area over traditional 3/4 coverage helmets. I’m not kidding when I say, “That is not a helmet.” It is barely a hat.

The Last Whining, Blubbering Motorcyclist on Earth

An email asking for support for this ridiculous "cause" made the rounds yesterday. The first time this silly panhandling link hit my email, I replied, "Funny, pretty much the whole movie appears to be about old guys riding older motorcycles. This e-panhandle is making the rounds. "Nobody thought it would happen this quickly," (other than me, but I'm used to being nobody). I've been predicting the end of motorcycles on public roads for two decades. Autonomous cars will accelerate the trend, but motorcycling's general hooliganism and the non-stop lousy safety states are the cause. It doesn't make much of a point that the lead character's motorcycle is barely a noisemaker. Bikers really resist the idea that South Park's "F-Word" is the opinion of motorcyclists by a whole lot of the public, but they're usually wrong and they're wrong again. I'm pretty sure the Constitution doesn't protect anyone's freedom to be a noisy, polluting asshole. I don't know why these old farts are worried, they'll be dead or in wheelchairs before it happens. I wonder if the horse and buggy characters whined this much when their toys were muscled off of the public roads?

"One thing is true. The next couple of generations are not going to be hoarders/collectors of anything substantial. All of the hoards are losing value like crazy; from motorcycles to muscle cars to electric and vintage acoustic guitars to art."


The third, fourth, fifth, and so on times I just hit "delete."

The dystopic future "The Last Motorcycle on Earth" wants to fix is described as, "Gasoline is $20 per gallon. Self-driving cars are everywhere. And motorcycles are outlawed. 

"This is the plot of our new dramatic TV series now in production and fundraising on IndieGogo. Starring bike builder and vintage motorcycle collector, Neil 'Morto' Olson and directed by Eric W. Ristau (of The Best Bar in America and Sit Stay Ride) the series asks the questions: 'What happens to motorcycles and vintage automobiles in a world dominated by self-driving cars?' and 'What happens to our motorcycles when petroleum is outlawed, as planned in Britain, Norway, and others?' We're currently raising funds to finish the series through an IndieGogo campaign. Take a look at the trailer and let us know what you think. Thanks for supporting independent motorcycle films!"

Your mileage will probably vary, but I'd just as soon see this project get aborted ASAP.

#152 The Little League Dad Society

All Rights Reserved © 2016 Thomas W. Day

We've all witnessed the "little league dad" syndrome and some of us have suffered that arrogant, egotistical, under-achieving fellow personally. Some of us have even been stuck with little league dads and moms. Way back in 2014 (I Hate Racing #155 April 2014), I made my personal take on watching little kids on motorcycles pretty clear, "When a stadium motocross is broken up (too often literally) with a bunch of 8-year-olds plodding around a motocross track, smashing into each other and the track obstacles, I have to be somewhere else. I can't watch." Even worse, when I end up following a dad on his bike and his kid dangling from the back--feet a few inches from reaching the passenger pegs, in minimal clothing, and an ill-fitting helmet--I have to find another route to where I'm going. I've seen dead and mangled adults and I don't like it much, but I can deal with it. I'd just as soon live my whole life without ever seeing a dead and/or mangled little kid. I'm afraid I'd never be able to get that image out of my mind. I saw a dirt bike foot-peg-gutted high school kid, 40 years ago, and I'm still stuck with that image as if it happened last week.

I wonder how many parents have digested the real message behind the Will Smith movie, Concussion, or the book it is based on, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru's League of Denial? As one of the doctors in the book said, "We're exposing more than 1 million kids to early-onset brain damage, and we don't know yet how to prevent it." Well, we know there are a lot more than "1 million kids" exposed to this because he's just talking about football. Between baseball, hockey, soccer, motorcycle racing, and a culture that tells kids they can knock each other around like punching bags without consequence, almost half of our kids are exposed to early-onset brain damage (resulting in chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE) on a regular basis. Another sports-related concussion researcher said, "If only 10 percent of mothers in American begin to conceive of football as a dangerous game, that is the end of football." Obviously, the possibility that 10% of American mothers don't "conceive of football as a dangerous game" pretty much proves that there are a lot of clueless mothers out there. Anyone who has played football for more than one afternoon knows it's a dangerous game. However, until recently we didn't know how dangerous. CTE has been found in the brains of 18 to 21 year old football players and the leading neurological researchers are now recommending that "kids under the age of 14 should not play collision sports as they are currently played. We believe they should not be playing tackle football." Likewise, it's pretty obvious that kids under the age of 14 should not be racing motorcycles. It's a well-known fact that when you're racing off road, "if you're not crashing you're not riding."

Peter Lenz, center, poses with mechanic Will Eikenberry, Dylan Code, Misti Hurst, and Keith Code. Lenz died at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Of course, this is an issue where following the money gets to core of the problem. Danger is why we like these high risk sports: football (394,350 injuries in 2012 with an average of 12 deaths per year for the past 25 years), soccer (172,470 injuries in 2012), baseball and softball (119,810 and 58,210 injuries in 2012), basketball (389,610 injuries in 2012), hockey, volleyball (43,190 injuries in 2012), wrestling (40,750 injuries in 2012), gymnastics (28,300 injuries in 2012), field and track (24,910 injuries in 2012), and motocross and road racing (for which there are no reliable statistics). Hell, we've even figured out how to make cheerleading dangerous (37,770 injuries in 2012). And there is a lot of money to be made (the NFL's 2014 revenue was $7.24B) exposing young athletes to death, disability, and damage to their long term mental health. However, we're just getting started with learning about brain damage and the fact that 76 or 79 studied NFL player brains found evidence of CTE hasn't sunk; especially NFL players and their families. Regardless, you would have to be delusional to imagine that motorcycle racing doesn't have these problems. The sad case of ex-NASCAR racer Fred Lorenzen is probably the first shot fired in motorsports and I suspect there is a lot of hidden damage out there in race cars, motorcycles, and every other contact sport. Now that (a few) doctors know what to look for, a lot more cases will be popping up.

The big sea change here isn't that we are surprised that long term consequences result from injuries. We expect knee, hand and arm, shoulder, and even internal injuries from motorcycle racing that will hamper the ex-racer later in life. Racing is dangerous, get over yourself, right? My hip replacement was due, according to my orthopedic surgeon, to "use and abuse" and genetic factors. Racing and riding off-road motorcycles would be major contributors to that use and abuse. I wasn't surprised and I haven't once looked back and wished I'd not ridden motorcycles when I was young and made out of "rubber and magic." The big change in attitude should come from the knowledge that "getting your bell rung" can have long term consequences to your mental health: resulting in CTE which is "essentially pugilistica dementia (boxer's dementia)" with side orders of memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, anxiety, Parkinsonism, suicide, and progressive dementia. If you know your kid is being exposed to chemicals that could result in those symptoms would you keep him or her in that environment?

We use, semi-rationally, to justify risk is the associated reward. Those of us who chose to ride motorcycles, with some understanding of the risk we're accepting, have a collection of rewards that we believe makes the risk acceptable. The problem with this new knowledge is that the information is being aggressively repressed by the people who make the most money from these sports. In the case of football, the NFL has done everything possible (like Big Tobacco) to squash research and evidence that head trauma can lead to long-term cognitive problems. By "everything" I mean everything from creating bogus "research" to ridiculing researchers in public media to suing people for slander. I suppose murder hasn't been on the table, but you never know. Currently, their big argument has been that it's not "certain" that head banging is the cause of CTE. Since we're not absolutely positive that whacking on a kid's skull causes CTE, we don't have to stop it. Drug and chemical companies have used that bullshit argument for being able to continue polluting water, air, food, medicine, and the entire planet for a century. A more rational society would require the polluters to prove they aren't doing harm before they are allowed to do whatever godawful thing they want to do, but humans are mostly irrational. Maybe we're all brain damaged and it's too late to make any difference for the species?

In the meantime, I think parents should seriously reconsider the risk their children are taking for whatever weird cause they've used to justify putting a little kid on a motorcycle and putting that kid on a race track. Ten years ago, you could excuse this behavior with "it's not a problem, he'll shake it off and be ok tomorrow." Today, the evidence is good that not only will that headache and loss of memory stay around a while but it might become a whole lot worse in 30-40 years.

 MMM #183 May 2017

I Don’t Know What to Think

My first thought was, “What a pair of posers.” I’m still waiting for a second thought. However, here’s the press release and you can make up your own mind, then tell me what you think.

My primary, cynical-self thinks this is more anti-helmet, Harley-poser promoting bullshit.

Sens. Ernst & Peters Launch Motorcycle Caucus

Apr 04 2017

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Gary Peters (D-MI) announced the formation of the first-ever Motorcycle Caucus in the United States Senate. The life-long motorcycle riding senators will serve as co-chairs of the caucus, and will advocate for a multitude of issues on behalf of both motorcycle riders and manufacturers.

“Some of my most cherished memories include motorcycles, from delivering messages as a young girl to my dad while he was working out in the fields, to riding through the rolling hills of Northeast Iowa with family and friends,” said Senator Ernst. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to encourage thoughtful discussion and solutions on behalf of motorcycle riders and manufacturers through my new role as co-chair of the Motorcycle Caucus. Throughout my 99 county tour of Iowa, I have heard from many of these folks about some of their priorities, including improving safety, infrastructure, and energy efficiency. These concerns are shared by folks across our great state and country, and I look forward to working with Senator Peters toward solutions.”

“I’ve loved motorcycles since I was a kid, and I started a newspaper route to buy my first motorcycle at age 11. To this day, I believe there is no better way to see Michigan’s beautiful scenery than by bike, whether I’m riding to meet with constituents and small businesses or taking my bike out on the weekend,” said Senator Peters. “Motorcyclists come from all walks of life, and I can’t think of a better way to bring together a diverse and dedicated group of advocates to discuss everything from safety concerns to manufacturing. I’m looking forward to working with Senator Ernst as co-chair of the bipartisan Senate Motorcycle Caucus to foster these important discussions and find common ground with motorcycle lovers across the country.”

#120 That Is Not A Helmet

http://www.amazon.com/Geezer-with-A-Grudge/dp/B007RPQJ24

All Rights Reserved © 2013 Thomas W. Day

Everybody is getting on the "motorcyclists ought to be wearing helmets" bandwagon. MPR did a segment a few weeks about about the burst of motorcycle deaths in early 2013 and how few of the dead and buried were wearing "helmets." One of the local television noise generators repeated that theme and "moderated" the common sense recommendation by interviewing someone from ABATE spewing their tired "everyone just needs to look out for us" and "training is the answer" song and dance. For once,

ABATE and AAA were on the same page in that spring death-match propaganda blitz. They both quoted the same statistic that reported "wearing a helmet in a crash reduces the risk of death by 35 percent and the risk of brain injury by 67 percent." ABATE added the word "only" to each of those numbers, attempting to prove that helmets didn't really do much toward making motorcycles less suicidal. Sometimes, I'm not sure whose side those guys are on.

AAA's front section AAAAdvice article ("Motorcycle Helmets Save Lives") included the picture at right. I see that as a failure to communicate. That silly looking lid is not a helmet. It barely qualifies as a hardhat. It's possible that useless baseball cap might provide some protection if a cup of crushed ice were dropped from a second story window and it landed squarely on top of the rider's head. Not likely, but possible. The chances that a pudding bowl helmet will save your life, your consciousness, or your pretty face is pretty predictable, though.


It should be pretty obvious that a beanie helmet is good for about 20% of the impact that will coming your way when you hit the asphalt. If we wanted to be overly-optimistic, we could add the 19.3% of the forehead hits to the protected area, but I do not feel that is realistic. For example, Mr. AAA Douchebag's helmet at left makes a special effort to show his shiny forehead so that his admiring fellow douchebags will know who he is. That exposed area and the edge of the helmet above it provides plenty of leverage for the sliding surface to pull the helmet up and, possibly, away from that critical and fragile area of the skull. At least Mr AAA Douchebag has a 3/4 helmet on his pointy head.

Gay little biker beanies (Don't get your panties in a wad, girlymen. I mean "happy" or "festive.") like the thing at left are pretty much useless as protection 80% of time when a helmet hits the road. Unless you can figure out how to slide down the road on the top of your head (without grinding through the cheap plastic this sort of cheeseball helmet is made from), you might as well be wearing a bicycle helmet (another useless piece of mal-designed "protective gear"). This kind of hat is a designer statement, like high-heeled red shoes. It is not armor. Obviously, biker beanies automatically go with biker face (see douchebag at left, again) and there would be no point in spending all those hours in front of the mirror practicing your biker face if you were going to wear a real helmet and be a real motorcyclist. How would anyone know how serious you are if they can't see your scowl?

I have no idea what percentage of helmet wearers are wearing this kind of crap, but when I see the words "Harley Davidson," "motorcycle death," and "was wearing a helmet" in the same news report, I automatically assume this silly shit is what the cops included in their crash report as a "helmet." If I haven't made myself clear by now, I do not consider anything of the sort even close to a motorcycle helmet. The sound of blubbering, poorly-tuned tractor motors naturally ties to either no helmet or awful helmets and . . . death by motorcycle. On the rare occasion I see a hippobike rider wearing a real, full-face helmet, it always causes me to do a double, or triple, take. Exposing my natural prejudices to the air of honest admission, it also automatically forces me to re-evaluate all of my preconceived notions about Harley owners. "If the guy is wearing real gear, is it possible his bike is not garage candy? Probably. Can I imagine that he rides it to work and for general transportation? Probably. Damn. Now where do I pigeon-hole this dude?"

I realize that nobody dresses to impress me. I don't even try to impress me. But I suspect I'm not the only motorcyclist who has a similar check-list. Even more important, you should know that your designer hat is not a real helmet and it will more than likely be useless in a crash. You might imagine that you're not going to crash and won't need a real helmet, anyway. I suspect those dead folks the media clowns were talking about this spring didn't plan on dying, either. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

#15 Helmet Logic

http://www.amazon.com/Geezer-with-A-Grudge/dp/B007RPQJ24

All Rights Reserved © 2001 Thomas W. Day

A while back, some logic-inhibited wacko wrote MMM about how dangerous helmets are because he/she had a friend whose helmet got so smashed up in a wreak that the docs had to pick pieces of fiberglass out of his skull. Think about that. The helmet, which has about a zillion times the impact resistance of a bandana-protected skull, was shattered while still protecting the rider. It protected him well enough that there was a medical argument for surgically picking out the chunks. That sounds like an endorsement for helmets, not an argument against. That's the kind of "logic" I'm used to hearing from helmet-phobes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that there are large numbers of riders who don't wear helmets. There are too damn many people on this planet and the more who want to volunteer to leave, the more empty highway space there is for the rest of us. Thanks for asking.

On the other hand, I hate losing friends to stupidity (or anything), so I don't use this argument on anyone I care about. Not wanting to add to the depletion of the world’s resources, I'm not one of those do-gooders who loves humanity and hates individual people. I'm the reverse, couldn't care less about humanity but hate the idea of my life without certain people in it. The rest of you can do what you want: helmet/no-helmet, seatbelt/no-seatbelt, do-drugs/don't-do-'em, drink, smoke, get fat, chew gum and try to walk, whatever. As long as you have the whole story, you can do what ever you want and I'm on your side.

The first time I spiked a pointy rock with the top of a brand new Bell -- and walked away with nothing more than a ruined $120 investment and a fat lip -- I made up my own mind for life. That was thirty years ago. Since then, I've learned that I'm not man enough to ride helmetless. I've splatted thousands of wasps and bees with my faceshield, slid along dirt trails with my head leading the way through the shrubbery, and tumbled ass over teakettle through barbwire fences and cactus and I'm still here to write about it. That’s me and you are you. I'm still riding, after almost 40 years of falling off of motorcycles, and my protective gear gets a good bit of the credit for that. Jujitsu training and learning how to fall gets the rest of the credit.

This isn't a matter of me wanting to make your lives safer. I don't care about the "cost" of a helmet-less society. Even the medical insurance argument is a wash, in my mind. Sure, you'll cost me a few bucks on the front end, in emergency services and when the ER docs chew up time and resources trying to paste your busted head together, but you won't be there to suck up the Social Security account reserves. Except for those of us who die of boredom in our cubicles, everybody's going to be a drain on society at some time in their life. It ought to be a free country and you should be able to write yourself off anytime you feel the need. The problem with the "story," told to newbies by the “a helmet restricts my freedom” crowd, is that most of that story is a fantasy.

“Helmets prevent you from hearing hazards.” Actually, just being on a moving motorcycle does that job almost perfectly. Between the wind and motor noise, you can't hear a 747 until it's a second away from your good ear. Unless you are stopped, and sitting on a Honda step-through-90, the only noises a helmet keeps you from hearing are too quiet to be dangerous. On the other hand, a good helmet (and earplugs) will protect you from premature hearing loss. Weirdly, many of us think we can better hear important things with both a helmet and earplugs. I can’t explain that, but I’m not the only one who is mystified by that psycho-acoustic phenomenon. “Helmets obstruct your peripheral vision.” Not wearing a helmet with a face shield often obstructs your vision in all directions. (There's the reason the chopper crowd plods along at 45mph, hanging up traffic for miles behind them and irritating little old ladies on their way home from church: they can't see if they go any faster.) Between the bugs, dust and pollution, birds, flying rocks and gravel, and your own flapping eyelashes, serious wind protection goes a long way toward maintaining visibility.

“Riders sometimes die (or worse) from neck injuries received in helmeted accidents.” Without the helmet the stuff from the first vertebrae up may be all that is left intact, the skull is goo. Using your brain as bubble packing to protect your neck is seriously weird. The first motorcycling death I witnessed happened when a kid hit a stopped car at less than 10mph, rolled over the hood, and cracked his skull on the curb. His neck was in perfect shape when they buried him. A lawn sprinkler washed a gob of his brains down the gutter before the EMTs arrived.

All this said, I don't want new laws passed. Helmet laws do exactly the wrong thing. The only result I've seen from helmet laws is that a lot of helmets get sold because a lot of helmets got stolen. Rider safety probably isn't impacted nearly as much as the lawmakers might have expected because half of the helmets on the road were stolen. The stolen helmets got lifted by cutting the buckle from the helmet lock. A great helmet without a strap and buckle is next-to-worthless. After getting a couple of $400 helmets stolen, even the guys who love helmets end up buying a cheap hat. The end result is pretty pointless.

I’m sure some of you will write MMM (hell, go direct and write me at thomas@motorbyte.com) and tell us how you believe we’re criticizing your "personal choice." I'm sure you know better than the AMA and four generations of motorcycle racers who wouldn't cross the street without a helmet securely strapped to their heads. I just want to be sure you know what you're risking. I want you to be as free as you can be. Free to live or die, because it's no skin off of my skull.

September 2001

#7 If You Live Long Enough

All Rights Reserved © 2000 Thomas W. Day

One of the "features" of riding motorcycles for 35 years is getting to see a lot of people pass in and out of motorcycling. Quite a few of the folks I rode with and competed against, when I was young enough to think I might grow up to be fast, haven't been on a bike since they suffered some sort of motorcycling catastrophe: the first major broken bone(s), the high price of keeping up with racing technology, a scary and expensive get-off in heavy traffic, or (most commonly) marriage. It still amazes me to see people hang up their handlebars forever.

In the last decade, I've been almost as amazed to know a half dozen 40+ men and women who, swimming against the tide of anti-two-wheeling popular sentiment, purchase and learn to ride their first motorcycle. I will probably end up with an epitaph that includes the words "MSF," "buy a good helmet," and "learn to use the front brake," if some of those folks get to write it. I think it takes a lot of guts to start something as difficult as riding a motorcycle, when it's so obviously hazardous to aging fragile bones and organs.

I've hung out with guys, like myself, who have been in and out of motorcycle ownership their whole lives and will always think of themselves as "a biker," regardless of what's in the garage at the moment. I met one of the first of that group almost thirty years ago. He was a 70-something machinist who spun wonderful tales of riding, cross-country, across north western Texas on his 1920's Indian "sportbike," before there were paved roads (or any roads) in that part of the Great American Desert.

The good stuff about riding a motorcycle, especially competitively, at some point in your life is that you will always have bench-racing bragging rights over bikers who've never experienced a first turn traffic jam. Bench racing is the spice of life when life ain't so spicy anymore. But even if you've never raced, nothing on four wheels (short of a GP or Indy racer or rail-job dragster) even gets near the kick we get from punching a bike's throttle out of a well done curve. Motorcycling is about chasing some sort of adventure, anytime you pick traveling by two wheels over four (or more).

The bad stuff is that, if you ride and pay attention to bikes long enough, the adventure can turn deadly. Stay on the road for half a century and you're likely to see a biker maimed or killed. In my life, I've seen too-many-to-count off-road accidents, a couple dozen road rash events, and three motorcycling deaths; one in rural Nebraska and two in Los Angeles. Ironically, I was sitting at a picnic bench when I saw the first fatal event, on a bicycle for the 2nd,  and ridng my motorcycle to school for the last one. Of these awful moments, two were, without question, the biker's fault. The third, was such a pitiful excuse for an accident that, 25 years later, I'm still not sure who ought to get the blame.

The Nebraska death happened when a stereotypical little old lady in a Buick rolled through a stop sign in front of a kid on a small 1970's street bike. Any experienced rider, seeing the tiny bluehair peering over the dashboard, would have suspected she might forget to stop. I think the kid made that guess, himself, before sliding into the side of her sedan. He hit the car, just behind the driver's side door, at well under 10mph and slid over the top of the car without doing any damage to the car, his bike, or himself. He almost managed to hang on to the roof of the car, before coming off the passenger side of the car. But he didn't. When he rolled off and hit the pavement, his skull split against the curb. He was dead before the cops arrived and long before the ambulance. I read, the next day, that he was 17. Obviously, he was without helmet, but with as little protection as a Minnesotan's Mad Bomber's cap he might have survived that crash.

My second dead biker was a guy who was looking down and back, trying to get his feet into the California-idiot riding position (on the passenger pegs), in heavy Newport Boulevard traffic. The traffic stopped and he didn't. He went headfirst into the rear window of the car ahead of the car he slammed into. Also, no helmet and it might not have mattered. I think he was actually accelerating, before his bike came to an instant stop and he finished his trip by air.

My last dead guy on a bike was ripping down the median lane, doing at least 70mph in a 30mph stripmall zone. He slammed into the back of a stopped van without even blipping his brakes (assuming his brake light worked). He was wearing a helmet, boots, leather jacket, and gloves and most of that stuff came off on impact. The helmet, which may have been stolen because the buckle had been cut off, flew over the van and landed in a parking lot about 100 yards away. The boots were found under the van and one of the gloves landed on the hood of a car parked across the street in the opposite traffic lane.

When the light changed, I ended up getting stuck right next to the guy and what was left of his bike, so I put on my flashers and got out to help. The woman passenger in the van had jumped out to see if there was anything she could do to help, but she was only able to flap her arms, either trying to attract real assistance or in an attempt at flight. I saw the guy's skull was drooping to the shape of the road and blood was leaking out of his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. He wasn't breathing. The arm flapper wanted me to do CPR or something she'd seen on TV rescues, but I thought I'd do more damage by moving him. I backed my bike between the traffic behind the crash as a barrier and warning light and got off to either provide some assistance or be there as a witness when the cops showed up. We had a pair of motorcycle cops on the scene before I had a chance to finishing explaining to her that "I've been hunting since I was a kid and I've seen dead before. This guy is dead." I know that was insensitively said, but I wanted her to stop shrieking at me and she went right back to the passenger seat after I said that.

The cops didn't do anything more than look at the shape of the guy's skull before deciding they could spend their time more productively by securing the accident scene. It took almost an hour before I could give them my statement and go home. The first officers on the scene really seemed to want to blame some aspect of the accident on the van's driver. They were still haranguing him when I escaped. I could see that he was stopped, waiting to turn, from two blocks away. They had, at least, taken the cuffs off of the driver and his wife when I left. I can't imagine what he could have done to avoid getting rear-ended by the bike. Still, I could see why the accident made the bike-cops tense. It bothered me, too.

I've had my bikes called "murdercycles," "donor cycles," and other fun things for all the years I've ridden. I admit that I, still and occasionally, have mild hooligan urges and have been known to "play" racer on isolated stretches of two lane. If you do some pretty simple calculations, it's easy to see how just a couple of seconds of badly thought-out vehicle management could result in a disaster. What I saw at these accident scenes has stuck with me for all of the miles I've ridden since. Maybe my 350,000+ uninjured miles of riding owes something to the example provided by these three events. Otherwise, my witnessing their deaths was pointless.

Keep riding and ride safe.

MMM August/September 2000

The Crap Just Keeps Comin'

This damn argument just gets dumber. The only motorcycle magazine I read from cover-to-cover (sometimes) is Motorcycle Consumer News. The editor, Dave Searle, usually pisses me off and his pro-hooligan attitude is not much different than the rest of the motorcycle press, which defeats the best purposes of MCN. This month's issue started well and turned to crap by the letters to the editor. Bad timing on someone's part. My subscription is about to run out and I still have 2-3 back issues I haven't been able to stomach. Now, I might just read the damn thing at the library on the rare occasion I need to know what Mark Barnes or Ken Condon have to say. I was so pissed off, I sent this letter to MCN's editor:
_____________________________________________
From:     T.W. Day [mailto:twday60@comcast.net]
Sent:    Monday, February 18, 2013 9:32 PM
To:    'editor@mcnews.com'
Subject:    Misuse of Statistics

I was pleased to see Dave's "Open Road" this month. It's unusual for a motorcycle magazine to advocate any sort of safety gear and, when they do, it's usually as unscientific and "freedom" biased as crap from the NRA. It didn't take long for that pleasure to turn sour, though. In a grossly incompetent and statistically misleading response to a readers letter on the NTSB's universal helmet law recommendations, the editor wrote, "the number of motorcycle fatalities in the US has been on a sharp decline over the past few years despite the fact that the number of miles ridden has increased. The decline in fatalities is not because more states have instituted mandatory helmet laws--they haven't."

The argument that motorcycle miles ridden has increased in recent years is doubtful. Until recently, the garage candy crowd has been purged from the road as their rides were repossessed along with their eviction notices. From 2008 to 2011, the only good news about motorcycling has been that fewer of us are on the road and fewer of us are dying because of that. Last year, there was a slight upsurge in motorcycle sales and the early and mild spring put riders back on the road and deaths jumped accordingly. If you look at the states' statistics (http://www.ghsa.org/html/publications/pdf/spotlights/spotlight_motorcycles11.3.pdfhttp://www.ghsa.org/html/publications/pdf/spotlights/spotlight_motorcycles11.3.pdf), you'll see a consistent rise in motorcycle deaths from 1997 to 2008 as states repealed helmet laws and riders took "advantage" of that and splattered themselves all over the nation's roadways.

The future of motorcycling is at risk due to autonomous vehicle development and our out-of-line mortality and morbidity contribution to highway safety and our barely-noticeable contribution to useful traffic. If we insist on pretending that we're getting safer and riding more when all evidence contradicts that, we're shooting ourselves in the foot and will deserve our place along with buggy whips, go carts, and horses in the history of discarded transportation options. The AMA and the motorcycle press are absolutely useless when it comes to promoting practical motorcycling. You should do better than that.

Thomas Day
Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly Magazine
http://http://mnmotorcycle.com/
http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/
thomas@motorbyte.com

Vanishing Point

All Rights Reserved © 2011 Thomas W. Day

We're banned from using the wasted lane-splitting space on roads and freeways. When we are stuck in congested traffic, we aren't allowed to reduce that congestion by filtering to the front of the line. Some states single out motorcycles for DUI and inspection stops. Fuel wasting stop lights are designed to ignore us. Our license fees are way out of line in regard to the damage our vehicles do to roadways and our need for road maintenance. Urban public parking often bans motorcycles. Drivers are encouraged to risk our lives by distracting themselves to lethal incompetence with communication and entertainment centers, food and beverages, and soundproof sleeping accommodations. Someday soon, the highway of the future will be a robot-controlled, wired-in, GPS managed, glorified passenger train with no room for any sort of two-wheeled vehicles.

And what are we up in arms about? The right to be stupid.

Motorcycles are being shoved from the road and all bikers care about is the right to hear the wind whistling between their ears and to irritate as many people as possible with illegal exhaust systems.

The Philip Contos thing still irritates me. A guy kills himself fighting for the freedom to kill himself. If he were trying to damage motorcyclists' already pitiful public image, he couldn't have been more effective. Between the YouTube parade of hairy gangbangers on noisy two-wheeled tractors and Contos' demonstration of suicidal lack-of-skills, he made international news. Seriously. Enter "Philip Contos" into a search engine (put it in quotes, so you're only getting hits for this guy) and watch 17,000 or more articles appear with titles such as "Embrace Your Right to be Stupid' or "Biker Protesting Helmet Laws Dies of Head Injuries from Crash" or "Darwin Award Nominee - Philip Contos" or "Philip Contos Goes Head Over Heels At Anti-Helmet Rally" or any number of sarcastic headlines describing Contos' 15 minutes of infamy that reflect the public's low opinion of motorcyclists. Thanks, Phil. We needed that.

This is a freedom we're willing to fight for? When real freedom is vanishing in all directions, when access to public roads, practical use of the roads we pay for (at least with property and fuel taxes, if not with licensing taxes) is in jeopardy, we want to pretend that baring our heads to the tender mercies of asphalt and concrete is a "basic right?" Not me. If I'm only going to live so long, get into so many battles, and have limited energy for all of it, I'm going to pick my fights. I disagree with the helmet protest and I'm on the other side of the loud exhaust battle, so fighting for these silly issues is one of the many ways "motorcycle organizations" (almost as oxymoronic as "military intelligence") alienate me.

Most likely, the AMA, ABATE, the Motorcycle Industry Council, and the rest of the characters representing every point of motorcycling view but that of the daily commuter and the safety-oriented, law-abiding rider could care less about my nickels and dimes. I not only don't own $30,000 garage candy, I haven 't bought a new motorcycle since 1974. I am more likely to put my time and money into Occupy Wall Street than motorcycle political action for anything less than a movement to legalize lane-splitting or off-street downtown parking. If cagers have to wear seatbelts, motorcyclists should reasonably be expected to wear helmets. If I can't stage a 120dBSPL rock concert in my backyard, the pointless noise made by gangbangers and cager-squids in Honda Accords and rednecks in RAM pickups should be restricted to legal limits.

I am aware of the fact that my opinion doesn't matter. The money is behind the other arguments. Aftermarket companies sell loud pipes, bike manufacturers hustle the gangbanger or the squids-in-wife-beaters image, and even the politically-correct-and-connected AMA is only half-heartedly promoting safety and neighborhood-friendly exhaust systems. Even the MSF is afraid of offending the noisemaker crowd, because you can show up for an "Experienced Rider Course" on a bike that will deafen your instructors who have no way to send away a motorcycle that was, apparently, legal on the public streets.

All that probably makes the proponents of motorcycling's two big issues feel in control. They are fooling themselves. All around the country, local, state, and national politicians, traffic safety engineers, and planners are hearing complaints from communities, medical professionals, urban traffic planners, and insurance companies about the real issues motorcycles present. Very little of what they hear is positive. In fact, the story motorcyclists present is so overwhelmingly negative that we have about as much social clout as a climate scientist at a Tea Party convention. With many (or most) motorcycle "clubs" on the Justice Department's Gang and Terrorist Threat Lists, getting grouped in with "bikers" may be a fast route to Guantanamo for all of us.

So, how do we fix the mess we're in? While it might be too late for motorcycles and motorcyclists to fix a public image that is so wrong we're practically in the gangster category, we've got nothing to lose but energy we're going to burn sooner or later. 

Ragheads on Wheels

A while back, one of the local MSF coaches told me I should check out the Parts Unlimited catalog for do-rags. More recently, Paul Young pointed me at Iron Horse Helmets (a mis-named website if there ever was one) to look at the neoprene face masks. Considering that the children who wear this crap are about as rabid anti-helmeters as douchebags get, you have to wonder why they want to cover their ugly faces and bald heads with napkins and wet-suit material. I've worn a wet suit in the ocean, but I can't imagine the up-side to wearing one on my face on a hot summer day. 


However, having looked at images like the one at left, I get it. This is a "truth in advertising" thing. A clown mask for a clown. Makes perfect sense. We all know what's under the mask and this is clearly an improvement. If Lady Bird Johnson were alive, she'd call this "highway beautification." If you click on the clown mask, you can see the whole collection, all 182 of them, of Iron Horse's neoprene face bags. Maybe you can find one that is just right for your next convenience store hold-up. In fact, I'd sort of like to know why cops don't fire a few warning shots into these things just to get the morons' attention? Seems like a reasonable response to someone wearing a mask in public. 

The napkin craze is totally over the top. There are at least eight pages of these girlyman things in the Parts Unlimited catalog (click the the nancyboy's picture at right and feast your eyes on the douchebaggery). Amazing. You'd think the napkin pages would be followed by a selection of pancake premixes and griddles. If I'm gonna look like a fool, I at least want to be cooking something edible while I do it. (Damn that kid has a lame "biker stare." He looks about as badass as Bill Clinton after a two day intern-boinking binge.)

Crap! I bet I know what the next non-helmet biker hat craze will be: a chef's hat. Everything the dochebags love is wrapped up on one stupid looking hat: uselessness, clownish appearance, a way to hide a bald head, and head wear that makes a Harley look like it's moving faster than a crawl. Freakin' awesome. Right now, the typical chef's hat costs about $3. We should corner the market and wait for the biker clowns to catch up to us, then sell hats for $10 each (the going price for biker napkins). Tell me that the fruitcake on the left doesn't look like he belongs on a Harley.