want to start riding again but unsure of all the collisions lately... | GTAMotorcycle.com

want to start riding again but unsure of all the collisions lately...

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snowboarder

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hello friends, i sold my bike and stopped riding 3 years ago to prioritize on other things. looking to buy a bike again. i still check the forums often.

but seems like in 2015 alone every few weeks a rider gets killed or seriously injured by a careless cager.

this makes me a bit nervous to getting a bike again. how do you guys who are already riding deal with this?

prior to me selling my bike i rode for 5 years about 30,000kms on my belt.

thanks for reading!
 
snowboarder said:
but seems like in 2015 alone every few weeks a rider gets killed or seriously injured by a careless cager.

this makes me a bit nervous to getting a bike again. how do you guys who are already riding deal with this?
Click to expand...

The smart riders know that the majority of bike crashes are actually due to careless or reckless riding by riders themselves, and realize that they can avoid a huge part of riding risk by riding responsibly.

Almost half of rider fatalities come from single vehicle crashes, just the bike, nobody else. Almost half of the remainder where a second vehicle is involved involve rider error.

You can mitigate a huge part of riding risk simply by adjusting your own riding habits so you try to have a margin available with which you can mitigate not only the driving errors of others that may put you at risk, but your own riding errors and bad habits.

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griff2 said:
The smart riders know that the majority of bike crashes are actually due to careless or reckless riding by riders themselves, and realize that they can avoid a huge part of riding risk by riding responsibly.

Almost half of rider fatalities come from single vehicle crashes, just the bike, nobody else. Almost half of the remainder where a second vehicle is involved involve rider error. You can mitigate a huge part of riding risk simply by adjusting your own riding habits so you try to have a margin available with which you can mitigate not only the driving errors of others that may put you at risk, but your own riding errors and bad habits.
Click to expand...

I was going to write "just dont **** around", but this is a better explanation.
 
OP, you rode for 5 years and did 30KMs. Not that much has changed in 3 years. You still have to ride just as defensively and intelligently as before.

You might consider enrolling in an M1X (or M2X...) course with the intention of using it to refresh your skills if you feel they're rusty.
 
+1 on griff2's explanation.

I usually attribute accidents to one of three particular errors:
1. Alcohol (or other influential substance)
2. squidly/showoff/macho/careless riding
3. Other drivers and/or road users.

The first two are easy to avoid: Don't ride under the influence, and respect the machine and your environment. Your environment is unpredictable: there can be a patch of gravel ANYWHERE that can & will put you on your ***.

The last variable is the only one you really need to worry about as you ride on the streets, but you can easily learn to mitigate this consequence by watching drivers around you more closely and developing good habits:

- Pay attention to cars around you to spot the high/drunk/inattentive driver as they weave in their own lane, or begin to change lanes w/o signaling, etc.
- Wear coloured gear to increase your visibility
- SMIDSY weaving on approaching left turning vehicles
- positioning yourself within your lane (blocking) appropriately to increase the chances you're seen, etc.

Riding is awesome, but we will pay the price if an accident occurs, so it's up to us to be proactive to keep ourselves as safe as possible.
 
Great to see some sensible talk in this thread after some of the nonsense in another one. Everyone has good advice. I'd also x2 the training course idea if you don't feel you're "above" that, even if it's just a refresher. I just came back to riding after a 20 year gap and even after riding for many years back the I'll admit the course was well worth it.
 
Kri$han said:
+1 on griff2's explanation.

I usually attribute accidents to one of three particular errors:
1. Alcohol (or other influential substance)
2. squidly/showoff/macho/careless riding
3. Other drivers and/or road users.

The first two are easy to avoid: Don't ride under the influence, and respect the machine and your environment. Your environment is unpredictable: there can be a patch of gravel ANYWHERE that can & will put you on your ***.

The last variable is the only one you really need to worry about as you ride on the streets, but you can easily learn to mitigate this consequence by watching drivers around you more closely and developing good habits:

- Pay attention to cars around you to spot the high/drunk/inattentive driver as they weave in their own lane, or begin to change lanes w/o signaling, etc.
- Wear coloured gear to increase your visibility
- SMIDSY weaving on approaching left turning vehicles
- positioning yourself within your lane (blocking) appropriately to increase the chances you're seen, etc.

Riding is awesome, but we will pay the price if an accident occurs, so it's up to us to be proactive to keep ourselves as safe as possible.
Click to expand...

I'll add to this...don't ride in a bad mood where you're going to dwell on the problem. You'll probably end up not concentrating on riding. Any stupidity that's happened because of my own fault has been when I was tired and distracted or just dwelling and mulling on an issue and not thinking about the ride.
 
Kri$han said:
+1 on griff2's explanation.

I usually attribute accidents to one of three particular errors:
1. Alcohol (or other influential substance)
2. squidly/showoff/macho/careless riding
3. Other drivers and/or road users.

The first two are easy to avoid: Don't ride under the influence, and respect the machine and your environment. Your environment is unpredictable: there can be a patch of gravel ANYWHERE that can & will put you on your ***.

The last variable is the only one you really need to worry about as you ride on the streets, but you can easily learn to mitigate this consequence by watching drivers around you more closely and developing good habits:

- Pay attention to cars around you to spot the high/drunk/inattentive driver as they weave in their own lane, or begin to change lanes w/o signaling, etc.
- Wear coloured gear to increase your visibility
- SMIDSY weaving on approaching left turning vehicles
- positioning yourself within your lane (blocking) appropriately to increase the chances you're seen, etc.

Riding is awesome, but we will pay the price if an accident occurs, so it's up to us to be proactive to keep ourselves as safe as possible.
Click to expand...

Lots of good advice. I've had 10 bikes, about 150,000 km in total over 15 years and 1 not at fault accident with a car running a red light when I was 16 and inexperienced. How you choose to ride will determine your fate 90%+ of the time.
 
I deal with it by just not worrying about it. Unless I'm in stop and go in the rain on the 401 during rush hour I'm not too concerned.
 
I've been riding since I was 16, i'm 57 now, there is one thing that I started to do many years ago, and that is always have a planned route, and if you do change your route while riding do it while stopped at a place that you can take your time to decide.... I found more than once that if I changed my route on the fly, something usually happens, weather it's something stupid you did, or your new route just isn't right, and you need to change again. Ride with a route in mind and don't change it unless you are stopped and have time to think about it.
 
snowboarder said:
hello friends, i sold my bike and stopped riding 3 years ago to prioritize on other things. looking to buy a bike again. i still check the forums often.

but seems like in 2015 alone every few weeks a rider gets killed or seriously injured by a careless cager.

this makes me a bit nervous to getting a bike again. how do you guys who are already riding deal with this?

prior to me selling my bike i rode for 5 years about 30,000kms on my belt.

thanks for reading!
Click to expand...

Hello friend, welcome back into the fold biker brethren. Already some good tips and tricks posted. I would only add, consider the type of equipment you'll be helming. Being a snowboarder you're probably sensible, situationally aware and in full command of your extremities. Don't dull these positives by riding one of these grotesquely overweight low slung barges that seem all the rage among the working class. Get a nice handling machine and age gracefully.
 
The single-vehicle-crash risk is something for you to manage on your own. One of the ways I manage risk of brain-dead-cage drivers is simply to minimize riding in cities and major highways. It's no fun anyhow, so I don't.

The new beast that I bought last year has 2300 km on it, and I think it has been down the 410 and back exactly once and has never seen anything more urban than Georgetown. I don't think the cooling fan has ever come on.
 
As soon as I hear a rider quote the number of miles he has under his belt, I begin to wonder.
 
Read a copy of this year's Ontario Road Safety Annual Report. You'll find that motorcycle fatalities on average are at historic lows. While that doesn't help the guys who got killed, look even deeper at the stats and you will find that most motorcycle deaths are single vehicle accidents. Again, that doesn't help the guys who got creamed at an intersection, but in many of those cases the rider is at fault.

There are many people who have been riding for decades who have survived. Your attitude and your situational awareness will go a long way to keeping you alive.
 
snowboarder said:
this makes me a bit nervous to getting a bike again. how do you guys who are already riding deal with this?
Click to expand...
I gave up riding a while back due to an accident. I was too nervous/anxious to get back into it. Once that went away (or I missed it enough) I went and got a bike that week.

The other posts in here are dead on. You mitigate the risks by your behaviour.
 
Good advice above. Myself, I went through a few years of not riding because of life changes. Plus, I moved from up North to Toronto and the traffic is just atrocious. It takes awhile to get back into the groove after a layoff so, when you get back to riding, put your "head on swivel" and pay attention to what others are doing around you. I've gotten in the habit of looking at drivers and their mirrors to see how aware they are of others on the road and make sure to put some distance between myself and those that are: reading a book, doing a crossword, texting, watching a movie on their laptop, playing games on their iPad that is velcro'd to the steering wheel, etc...

Others will tell you their mad skilz keep them safe. The second you think your greatness as a motorcycle rider will get you out of a jam is when you are most likely to put yourself into a dangerous situation you may not get out of unscathed. Those are the same people that come on here and complain about cops and how many close calls they are in every day.
 
The driving standards are rapidly declining in this City.

Distracted driving wasn't really as rampant as it is now in 2015.

Every month it seems to get worse.
 
Jayv said:
The driving standards are rapidly declining in this City.

Distracted driving wasn't really as rampant as it is now in 2015.

Every month it seems to get worse.
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True that! The trend now is for drivers to wear earbuds and headphones. I always thought that was against the law. It completely insulates the driver from what is going on around them and I've found them to be very dangerous to be around.
 
How many of you ride downtown on a regular basis?

I do it now and then (such as riding to work) and it makes me question why i bother. You can never get any speed, the pavement beaten to sh1t, streetcars and their tracks, hobo jaywalkers, hipster byciclists, crazy taxis, idiot SUVs, etc etc. Its an efn wild west.

Jayv said:
The driving standards are rapidly declining in this City.

Distracted driving wasn't really as rampant as it is now in 2015.

Every month it seems to get worse.
Click to expand...
 
The best way to significantly reduce your chances of getting into an accident is to constantly work on improving your defensive riding skills. In the Spring, I like to take a one day skills enhancement course offered by one of the colleges or recognized schools like RTI. It puts me in the right frame of mind (defense mode) for the riding season. 'Confidence builds competence' and vise versa.
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