I'm asking because my piece of shit '96 Ford Explorer is starting to go down the shitter, it gets like 15 MPG, it's 15 years old, needs new brakes, needs window motor replacements, other service and the odometer stopped counting 5 years ago at about 180,000 miles, so I figure this thing has at least 250,000+ miles on it. It's been a great car while it lasted, never had any problems besides the ones that recently started showing up.
Anyways, I'm looking for cheap, yet nice cars which are fuel efficient. I am still in high school and the college I am planning on attending is roughly 20 miles away from my home, therefore I'd be doing a lot of driving back and forth each day. The average pocket rocket / Ninja, etc. gets like 50-60 MPG on a bad day. There's a kid who just got a bike recently, filled the tank up, added 700 miles to the thing, and is still sitting at just under 1/4 tank. That's pretty damn cool. Especially when you're making minimum wage.
Anyways, I'd still keep my car, but how dangerous are motorcycles? I'm not worried about my driving / handling, because I'm a very cautious driver in the first place. I always use my turn signals, stay within a 5 MPH range of the speed limit in many cases, and look before I merge or turn. I see lots of people on motorcycles that drive like dicks. I'm sold as far as the simplicity and efficiency of the motorcycle goes, it's safety that is my main concern.
Anybody have any tips or experience with driving a motorcycle? (Besides obviously wearing a helmet and whatnot.)
You can die if you hit your head on pavement without a helmet at 30 mph
They're only dangerous if you're dumb or really inexperienced. Don't get more than a 500cc for your first bike, or you probably won't be able to handle it.
I hear lots of motorcycle crashes with cars usually end up with the motorcyclist decapitated.
I want to ride a motorbike, but I can't because apparently my Dad used to know a lot of people who rode them and got seriously injured in crashes.
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I hear that a lot of car drivers can also be quite inconsiderate to motorbikes as well.
It's not so much the bikes that are dangerous as other drivers. You're somewhat harder to see on a motorbike than you are in a car, and there's a lot of idiots on the road.
I as a biker can tell you that, if you dont ride like a dipshit should have a fun time on your bike. Always turn your head
and don't trust those side mirrors over a look over your shoulder.
But most important ALWAYS think of any car driver as a homocidal maniac. Always expect them to pull out of the driveway
without looking, to cross your lane in a bend and generally, always think 'what is the worst another traffic member could
do and how can I take precautions'. Because no matter how good a biker you are, there is nothing you can do about someone
knocking you over out of blindness in traffic.
Only recently I had a frighteneing situation. I was driving towards an empty crossing with some other bikers. The guy up front went for the lane to turn left and we followed him. Just as he had stopped at the red light he changed to the line
straight ahead to our right. He must have decited that this was the shorter way, and I did the same. Now as we were waiting for
the lights on our line to turn green, the one leading left where we previously waited already started driving. There was only one car that had arrived after we changed laned and as he reached the middle of the crossing
I heared screeching tires and frantic honking. When I looked, all I saw was a car going supersonic that had
just ran over his red lights from the crossing road. If we actually had turned left, that car would have hit us perfectly in the sides, judging from how we would have blasted off faster than the car that could brake in time. That was some scary, Wow, we were one decision away from death shit
Damn, sounds scary. I'm not the type of guy to go show off or think I'm hot shit for driving like an idiot. I just think of a motorcycle as a way to save money and gas for making simple trips in some decent driving conditions. I think my biggest fear is other drivers, that's always my concern when I'm driving my car. Never been in anything close to an accident, I never ride people's asses when driving either or switch lanes without at least 8-10 feet of clearance between the car in front of me and the car behind me. Most of my destinations are very straightforward as well.
Now it's just talking my parents into getting one. I'm sure that the insurance for an 18 year old male on a motorcycle is just dandy. Also, my dad used to ride a motorcycle as a kid, but he tells me they're really dangerous. I obviously know this, the only thing I can do when driving a motorcycle or a car is drive defensively.
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