New Riders

New riders

TDC

Kevin Cameron

PITY THE NEW MOTORCYCLIST. HE OR she must not only learn to ride competently and safely, but must also deal with the concerns of parents, spouse and others who may perceive motorcycles as harmful or, as Cycle magazine’s Phil Schilling once noted, likely to give the rider tattoos.

My own case was, I think, typical. I telephoned my parents from school to report that I had bought a 125cc BSA Bantam (then probably the lowest form of motorcycle life on this planet). I was 18 at the time, and their instant response to the word “motorcycle” was, “Well, of course you’ll have to get rid of it.”

I expected this, for throughout my childhood I had been regaled with stories of young lads haplessly gored by the long tiller-style handlebars of their giant Indians or Hendersons. My parents were, I now know, trying to create a climate of “mature judgment,” within which they hoped I might grow up unscathed. But then again, they had also told me about the older couple who rode a sidecar outfit to California, over the all-but-impassable Lincoln Highway. They lived to tell the tale. This was balanced reporting. I figured I could make my own choice.

So I didn’t get rid of the Bantam. I used what would become a standard new-rider argument of the later 1960s. This is the “It’s only a little Honda” ploy. I learned to ride the horrible, essentially brakeless and gutless, threespeed BSA without incident and moved on to bigger things. I survived the stops on loose gravel and I survived the Little Old Lady from Wherever.

In the process of this adjustment, I had to listen to what is now my favorite, the “Law of Averages” argument, which completely ignores human judgment. It goes like this. Arguing from statistics that show motorcycles to be more dangerous per seat-mile than cars or living-room sofas, the speaker (usually one’s father or uncle) deduces that each mile you ride the aforesaid motorcycle adds something to your risk, like a deposit in a savings account. When this accumulated risk becomes big enough, it falls on you. Therefore, the longer you ride, the more certain it becomes that you will come to a ghastly end. “Why doesn’t the same argument apply to auto drivers?” I would ask. I received only a pitying look.

Every time I hear this argument today, I reply in the same way. You are about to fly the Pacific in a commercial airliner. Would you prefer to fly with Captain A, who has a career total of 20,000 flight hours, or with Captain B, who has just completed type-conversion training and has minimum hours? According to the Law of Averages argument, you should prefer to fly with Captain B. After all, airplanes are dangerous, because they fly way up high in the sky, and we all know that what goes up, must come down. The pilot with 20,000 hours is therefore “living on borrowed time” (another phrase I’ve heard more than once in this context). Much safer to fly with the inexperienced man.

Of course, the sane truth is that judgment improves with use. The longer you ride, the safer your operation tends to become. You learn to control your vehicle in a wider variety of situations, and you learn the value of playing three moves ahead of the four-wheeled traffic around you-as you must. In the process, you become a better automobile driver as well as a more skilled motorcyclist.

Another aspect of the specious Law of Averages argument is that it also flies in the face of physics. Toss a coin, and you know it has a 50/50 chance of coming up heads. But what if, as you toss again and again, it happens to come up tails several times in a row? Does this make it more likely that it will come up heads at the next throw? No, it certainly does not. The chance remains exactly 50/50. Yet people continue to propose that, the longer you ride safely, the more certain it becomes that something dreadful will occur-as if prolonged safe operation somehow makes accidents more likely or even certain. But we are not helpless objects of chance. We have the power of choice and we can learn.

Of course, it’s true that people tend to have more accidents when they are learning. That’s why wise learners are very careful not to let this happen, just as wise home-owners don’t smoke in bed and do own fully charged fire extinguishers. Wise learners draw on the experience of others by, for example, taking a riding safety course. Had such courses been available when I bought my dinky BSA, I’d have soothed my parents’ fears by signing up for one as proof of my seriousness.

Even experience has its limits, though. Anyone-veterans includedcan fall into bad habits. This happens when riding becomes “second nature,” and the rider lets his hands and feet do the riding while he thinks about other things. Just as with a desk that periodically becomes messy, riding habits can get disorganized. And so it’s desirable from time to time to “straighten up” one’s riding and think about it. This is why advanced rider safety courses are offered. Airline pilots are regularly reevaluated for the same reason-to keep the necessary skills up to date, in mind, and in use. The pilot with 20,000 hours has something to be proud of: long-term, safe operation of a complex and demanding system. That record is proof that the pilot is a thinking, reasoning, predicting person who deserves command.

Good judgment isn’t automaticespecially when we fall into the 16-24year-old age group-and there will always be people whose enthusiasm tends to outrun their sense. The process of learning to ride a motorcycle compels any intelligent person to examine and balance this relationship. Once the rapid initial learning period is past, operator safety typically improves greatly.

Competent, safe operators of motorcycles can take pride in similar achievement. □