Assigning Blame, Taking Responsibility

A blast from my past called this weekend, wanting to talk about his summer’s misfortunes. We’ll call him “P” to protect his ego and our relationship. In early August (2019), P was sailing down a country two-lane, minding his own business, and assuming that Minnesota country roads are, somehow, safer than urban freeways and byways. (Statistics consistently demonstrate that this is a motorcyclists’ delusion. In 2018, for example,31 of 57 or 54% of the state’s motorcycle fatalities were in areas with populations under 10,000 and the majority, 22, were in rural, unpopulated areas. 913 motorcyclists were injured that year and 49% of that total were injured on those same low population roads.) 2 motorcyclists were killed and 102 were injured in the state’s over-250,000 cities; the Twin Cities, in fact. P, oblivious to the hazard of country roads, was riding somewhere between 55 and 65mph on a sparsely-populated stretch of the road, when a pickup pulled into his lane, partially shielded by a downed tree next to the driveway the pickup was exiting from. Mayhem resulted and P ended up with a multitudinous-fractured femur, a broken back, and a separated shoulder.

Fortunately for P, he was wearing actual motorcycle gear including a full-face helmet and armored jacket. As he said, “I didn’t spill a drop of blood.” Unfortunately for P, he has a long recovery ahead of him and he is not fond of physical therapy. He’s been here before. Several year ago, he was riding in fairly congested traffic and, bored with the pace of movement, he was occupied trying to read the call sign of a passing small airplane when he struck the stopped car in front of him. He flew over the car and, while he was airborne, he decided, “I don’t want to hear Tom lecturing me about not wearing a helmet while I recover from this” and he shielded his head with his arms just before tumbling into a ditch. The end result of that crash was a severely massacred pelvis from which he has yet to fully recover. To his credit, P took total responsibility for both that crash and his less-than-complete recovery. He also started wearing a full-face helmet and, at least, an armored jacket when he rode. A life-long Harley guy with a long history of spectacular crashes, the bike he crashed on the last two times was a big BMW touring bike.

I’ve ridden with P, maybe twice, but definitely once. We met at a small town a few miles from his place, for a Fourth of July fireworks show. Afterwards, for whatever reason, we decided to go back to his house before I headed back home. Both of our spouses were riding passenger on that trip. P immediately took off in the dark, on familiar country roads, putting some distance between us. I made a half-hearted effort to keep him in sight, but I do not ride fast, ever, with a passenger and since I knew where we were going I was not particularly upset to make most of the trip “unguided.” Since then, he’s often reminded me of that incident and of the fact that he was a “lot faster” than me on those mostly-gravel country roads. I do my racing, when I do it, on closed courses and I am never impressed with people who imagine racing on public roads is something to brag about. My wife would make short work of me if I ever play-raced with her on the bike.

Like many motorcyclists and bikers, P’s problem is that he imagines that he is seen, because he is a big guy riding a “big bike.”  While P’s BMW didn’t have loud pipes, P has ridden bikes with minimal muffling for most of his life and always deluded himself into thinking physics is his friend when it comes to sound and defensive riding, he suffers the false idea that people are looking for motorcycles. Even in a fairly motorcycle-friendly state like Minnesota, there aren’t enough motorcycles on the road any given day for a typical cager to have any reason to be watching for them. When we don’t amount to 0.001% of the total traffic on good days, asking drivers to “Start Looking for Motorcycles” is as silly as asking them to watch out for unicorns. Bicycles, pedestrians, old men on power wheelchairs, and kids on tricycles are far more likely things to be looking out for than motorcycles; especially motorcycles approaching a blind intersection (or driveway) at 60-65mph.

This is exactly the kind of situation where motorcyclists have to be watching out for everyone else. Even if, as in P’s case, the cager gets the blame for the crash, P might still be crippled-for-life or dead . . . but in the right. The price for being right is higher than I want to pay. To be clear, I am not afraid of being dead, but I practically terrified of being maimed and crippled. During the brief period when the MSF’s Basic Rider Course actually talked about risk management, I used to tell my motorcycle students that any crash short of a tree falling on you or a tornado blowing you to Kansas was the motorcyclist’s fault for not anticipating and avoiding the situation. If you think everyone else is looking out for, or responsible for, your safety, you will be disappointed and, probably, hurt or killed.

What We Don't Get

This winter, my wife and I took a cruise to Central America. While we were exploring Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, I found this flyer on a park bench. Practically every place we went I saw motorcycles that I've never seen before. All of those cool sub-500cc bikes that I've lusted after when I read British or Euro motorcycle magazines and stuff I didn't know existed. My wife got more than a little tired waiting for me to take pictures, ask questions, and ogle motorcycles.

I guess Katana is a ROW Suzuki label? There are so many models on this sheet that I'd like to test ride that I'm thinking a winter in Costa Rica writing about local motorcycles might be next year's plan.

For me, the CR-1, CRM, SMX-200, SM-200, CR5 250, SX2-250, CR6 300, and EN-125 all look aimed right at my target zone.

Costa Rica has great roads, paved and unpaved, amazing destinations, wonderful food, and incredibly friendly people and NO WINTER. I might have played out my interest in living through winters that get colder than 30-40F. I could see taking a couple of winters to explore the places we visited on our cruise.

We've never done anything like the cruise before. Hell, other than Mexico and Canada we've never traveled together outside of the US; most west of the Mississippi. The upside is that all forms of travel could be experienced on a cruise: from ocean liners to mini-taxis to trains and ziplines. The downside is the ship never stops at a port for more than a day, usually 8 hours of less. You don't get to know a place much in that little time, but we did learn that we love those islands, Aruba and Carsou, and the highlands of Panama and Costa Rica.

A Series of Dumb Decisions

The nitwits at Fox 9 managed to cobble together this information and interview with the rider, “Jankowski [the rider] was wearing a helmet and motorcycle jacket when the object fell of the back of the boat. He says he just bought the jacket within an hour of the crash, and was saving up for the pants and gloves.

“’I didn’t want to just swerve and possibly hit a car and get run over so I tried to get to the furthest part of the right of my lane . . .I just bought the jacket that day thinking I’d come back next week and get the gear and have the full set’ Brendan Jankowski said. ‘I happened to use the jacket I just bought to help save me quite a bit of pain.’” Apparently, he didn’t own a pair of jeans?

I really wish I could buy his evasive maneuver claims, but it looks to me like he was tailgating, panicked when he saw the pad fall out of the truck, and focused on hitting the damn thing until he did. Total rookie from the moment he appeared in the camera until he stopped rolling on the ground.

New Rider Blues

An acquaintance from work bought a used Harley for the usual reasons; middle age funk and more money than sense. He had the bike for a couple of weeks before he discovered that he was no longer a motorcycle owner, he is now a motorcycle theft victim.

As a brand, Harley's are no longer the most popular motorcycle among thieves. Honda has taken the top shelf, followed by Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki. (More detail about motorcycle thefts in 2011 can be found on the National Insurance Crime Bureau's analysis of their data.) Minnesota is ranked 35th among the states in number of bikes stolen (329 in 2011). One piece of depressing news is that 63% of stolen bikes are not recovered. While thefts were down 6% from 2010, the 47,000 motorcycles lifted in 2011 means a bike was stolen somewhere in the US every 11 minutes.

There is probably a moral here, somewhere. I've sort of given up on looking for morals in the state of decay where our collapsing empire current resides.Based on popular opinion and current politics, I suspect they are overrated and under appreciated.

"I need some hep." Yes, you do.

"$50 to borrow your scooter for a 1/2 hour - $50 (Eagan, IGH, Burnsville)

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"I need some hep and if you have a scooter that is at least 50cc's, street legal and licensed, I would like to borrow it for a 1/2 hour to take my Minnesota motorcycle test. I quickly found out last week that my full size Harley Davidson will not, under any circumstances, navigate that course. We could meet there, I use it for 20 minutes and then you are on your way. The preferred location is the MN License Center on Cliff Rd."

Ah, Craig's list. The place where all sorts of entertainment can be found and where people admit to the damnedest things. Sometimes the most personal failures become hillariously public in the strangest places. In this case, a big, bad Hardly rider looking to borrrow a 50cc scooter so he can pretend to ride competently enough to pass the state's license exam. I wonder if he'll wear his black toilet bowl helmet, tasselled buttless black chaps, and patched-and-badged wife-beater leather vest when he takes the test? That would be one hell of a picture.

Funny. I could have sworn that I met this guy, 4 times, this past week. We get this plaintive whine at least once an MSF class. Hundreds of Hardly owners take the Minnesota MSF course because "it's impossible to pass the state's test on a real bike." I'd like to address the "impossible" bit first. I've seen an old guy (my age) pass the state's test on a Goldwing with his wife sitting in the passenger seat. I've watched a couple of successful tests taken on Yamaha R1's, not exactly a bike designed for close and slow encounters. It's not a hard test. It requires basic low speed control skills, but it's a long way from being an observed trials event.

The problem with buying a bike for image is that most of us can't live up to the image. Usually, you have to work up from beginner to whatever target you're hoping to become. Buying a race car doesn't make one a race driver and buying a motorcycle doesn't make one a motorcyclist. The Hardly beginner-bike path is similar to those game players who actually buy into the idea that playing a video game is the same as doing the thing portrayed in the game. I've witnessed this disconnect with people who play Guitar Hero, Motocross Madness, and God of War. Unfortunately, going for the real thing in hopes that it will be liking stepping into a simple-minded video game is bound to end in tears and physical injury.

The character who listed this ad would be better served by removing all of the fluids from his Hardly, having an attractive stand fabricated for the hippobike, putting the Hardly on the stand in his living room in front of a big screen TV, and putting Wild Hogs in constant-loop mode on the DVD player. He could pretend he was cruising the streets in the safety of his home and nobody would be able to burst his self-image or break his bones.

On a more honestly entertaining level, a friend hooked me up to this New York Times article: The Case for Working with Your Hands. In the first few paragraphs, the author says, "The trades suffer from low prestige, and I believe this is based on a simple mistake. Because the work is dirty, many people assume it is also stupid. This is not my experience." He makes a case for real work over virtual work that is compelling and honest; something that is missing from practically every social and economic analysis I've read in the last decade. Thanks, Rob.