We see or hear the grim reminders far too often. Whether it’s a second hand story about some unfortunate soul, an eyewitness account, or disturbingly graphic images from any of the many Internet sites that post uncensored motorcycle crash videos or pictures of their aftermath. Chances are, everyone who reads this has at least heard the gory details of a bike crash. But, with this being posted on a motorcycle website, most of the people who read this (they, likely to be bikers – a.k.a. "Motorcycle Enthusiasts") will have had an eyewitness account or first hand information about a crash, or know someone personally who is either ‘riding that great big chopper in the sky’, or who is unable to ride anymore due to the physical or the psychological damage they suffered in their crash. Some of you reading this may know that person to be yourself.

Like some of you, I am one of those fortunate people who took a spill and came out of it alive, and in my case, alive with the burning agony of road rash. The good fortune is that I survived "learning the hard way".

In a continuous line, varied in width, from my right wrist, up my arm, over my shoulder, down my back and onto the top portion of my right ass cheek, (how it got way over there I still don’t know) there lay a swath of grizzly flesh (hamburger meat as we call it). It was speckled through and through with tiny bits of gravel, grit, and sparkly stuff that must have been glass, along with rubber dust and whatever else that would stick to the pasty wet flesh where my skin used to cover me. Even now, at my ripe age, I can clearly recall every detail of that event, which took place over 25 years ago. Much to the same effect that I can clearly recall every detail of the day my toe got crushed in a door hinge when I was merely two. As I think in silent objection, "Where the hell has all that time gone?" I can even recall the lie I told my parents… that I had fallen off a skateboard when its wheels jammed on a rock while rolling down a hill. Quite frankly, I was in enough pain and didn’t want to suffer an ass whooping too.

Since wisdom comes with age, (though sadly not for all of us and rarely is it ever on time) I can look back and see that this crash took place largely because I didn’t fully understand what I was doing. Sure, I could lock up the back tire at high speed, skid more than a hundred feet fishtailing in a man vs. machine dance of daring, release the rear brake while safely avoiding the torque that could catapult me trough the air like a pea off a plastic spoon. But there were other things I just didn’t know, know-it-all that I was. Likewise, you think I would have learned not to be so nuts-o after hearing how my cousin bent his left leg while doing stunts on a dirt bike (more accurately… unsuccessfully doing stunts). And by the way, that was not a typo… he bent his femur. Just enough force was exerted to bring the bone to the verge of snapping and subsided without breaking it. It is the literal sense of almost breaking it (and here you though "almost" only counted with horseshoes and hand grenades). The odd thing about my crash though, is that I wasn’t running rampant at the time. I wasn’t trying any stunts or engaging in reckless craziness spawn of youthful invincibility. I was cruising at a pretty good clip, but nothing beyond that.

But, the point here (if there really is a point) is not to fill your head with gory tales of life-changing and life-ending crashes, or go on and on bragging about my war wounds while proudly displaying my scars afloat a sea of testosterone. Nor is it to tell you how close I came to having the local Volunteer Rescue Squad spend their late afternoon picking tiny pieces of me from the bark of an Oak tree the same way I picked the tiny specks of gravel from my arm. After all, I am not trying to deter you from riding.

Now, this may not seem relevant, but bear with me. You see… in the 60’s we said, "Man this is the 60’s". The 70’s came and we did it again, "Man this is the 70’s". The 80’s and 90’s were the same. Each decade came and went, and with each passing we suggested that in the previous decade we didn’t know squat. But as this trend continues, there will come a day when we will no longer be saying, "Man, this is the New Millennium." We will say, "These are the New Teens" (or something to that effect), and once again it will suggest that in the previous decade we didn’t know Jack. Well, if come the future we look back to what is now the present and suggest that we didn’t know squat, then we can safely fess up to the fact that we don’t know squat now.

I work for a railroad. During my time in this industry, and much to my amazement, I have found that the guys who get creamed by trains are not the new hires. Rather, they are the ones who have been working there the longest - twenty and thirty plus years on the rail. Simply put, the new hires are most alert to the new dangers and the veterans are so accustomed to the dangers that they have become complacent. There are other factors like "work engrossment", where your work is so involved that you are distracted from where you are. Then, seemingly out of the blue… Wham! You might think all of that would be the other way around.

So, what do these things have to do with riding motorcycles? I hope you didn’t have to ask that question, because it should be obvious enough. I know when I first venture out onto the highway I was hesitant to come out of the right lane. Though, little by little, I have progressed from cautious to something more aggressive.

Apart from things that are beyond your control, there are a host of simple things that are:

- Don’t let your experience as a rider betray you. Don’t let it con you into being complacent. Always perform your pre-trip inspection. Don’t assume everything is working. How sad it would be to find out you got maimed or killed because a two-dollar brake or turn signal bulb was out, or that you flew off the road to the same demise because your tire pressure or tread was too low, or even worse, from an oil leak.

- As you sit upon your iron steed, remember; traction is one of your biggest allies. Without it, you are an accident waiting to happen. You only have a certain amount of traction available to you, based on your tire condition and pressure. Cold tires have less traction; so warm them up before lacing into the road. Accelerating, braking, and turning all consume a portion of the traction you have available to you. When you combine braking or acceleration with turning, your loss of traction is compounded by both. Most single vehicle motorcycle accidents happen from misjudging a curve and the equation is typically that you come in too fast and brake while leaning in the turn. The traction threshold is exceeded and down you go. Not to mention the unexpected road hazards like sand and other traction robbing conditions.

- Never overdrive your headlights at night. However far you can see with them translates into how fast you should ride. Adjust your speed so that your stopping distance is less than your viewing distance. You have the moment you see something in the glow of your lights, added to your reaction time, added to your stopping distance, and if you can’t get all of that done within the distance enveloped by headlight illumination, then you had better be able to take other evasive action.

- Don’t ride in a really bad mood. Your emotions will come out in the way you handle your bike (tell me you never cranked the throttle hard when you were angry). Also don’t let something that is on your mind distract you from what you are doing while riding. Rather, make it the other way around. Focus on every aspect of your ride so that it distracts you from what is bothering you. This in fact is one of the great escapes that riding has to offer. Use it.

- Use the defensive tactic of S.E.E. (Search, Evaluate, Execute). Always assume that no one sees you. You are a gazelle in a sea of tigers. Don’t end up in their grill.

There are two parts of the human body where skin cannot be grafted, the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet. How many accident scenes have you seen where a sneaker or shoe was lying in the road, where someone was literally knocked out of his or her shoes? It is very common. How much protection do you think a sock will offer you? I saw pictures of a kid’s foot, which after his bike went down in a simple spill was trapped against the road under his bike as he slid. His laces were not tied and his boot was pulled off. Can you say "reconstructive surgery"? Wear boots that come over your ankles, and take the time to lace them up or secure them properly. New boots are less expensive compared to a new foot.

When an object flies at your face, your eye will snap shut. It is an involuntary reflex. It is the body’s self-defense mechanism to protect the eye. At 50mph there is no seeing a bug on a collision coarse with your eye, and even if you do see it at the last moment, it will be painfully in your eye before it can snap shut. How well can you ride your bike blindfolded? You can’t. So don’t let something rob you of your sight after you are already going 50mph. Put on some impact safety glasses at the very least. Better yet, use something that will keep the dust out too.

The same goes for when you trip and fall; reflexively your hands fly out in front of you to break the fall. If you fall down on your bike, your reflex will be to put out your hand(s). These reflexes are very hard to consciously override. When your hand slides on the pavement, skin will be removed. Remember that it cannot be grafted at all. So why not take the time to put on a pair of leather gloves?

Most of the stuff I mentioned here, you might already know. That is OK. Take this as a friendly reminder of the stuff you may have forgotten or dared to ignore. If any of this is new to you, then even better. Knowledge is power. Now use it.

But be honest with yourself when I ask how many times you rode with out checking this stuff? How much of it have you dismissed through the complacency of experience and thinking nothing bad will happen? If nothing ever did, then you dodged the bullet. Good for you. I’m glad to see you are still here. Just remember, there are a lot of bullets out there. How long before you bite one? But for that matter… How many times did you walk down the stairs without using the banister? How may times did you walk down the side walk and not realize that the tiny little 6" curb that separates you from the road will not stop a car from getting on the sidewalk with you? There are dangers abound in our daily lives that we hardly even think of.

I’m not telling you not to walk down the stairs or the sidewalk because it could prove deadly, nor am I telling you not to ride your scoot. I only want to remind you to be and stay aware.

You don’t know how many times I have seen someone riding in low-top sneakers, shorts, and a cheap pair of mirrored sun glasses, let alone those daredevils who show off riding a 70mph wheelie down the parkway in traffic. Well, if you want to go100mph, standing on your seat, naked as a j-bird, then that is up to you. (Mind you, I have seen a video of someone doing this and I find it unimaginable that this person did not first mentally compare sliding down the pavement in full leather to sliding down the pavement in his own hide before trying it. As much fun as it must have seemed at the time, he learned the hard way what it feels like to loose skin… a lot of it.) I suppose that so long as you are only putting yourself in danger, it remains your choice, however foolish it may be. Just remember those famous last words… "This is gonna be great!"

The bottom line here is this; everything about riding a motorcycle boils down to the amount of risk you are willing to take. Even riding unto itself is a risk. But even if you understand that, you may not be looking beyond it. Do yourself and the ones you love a favor and look beyond the risk into the consequence of the risk. Personally, I feel safety should not be weighed against the likelihood of a bad event happening. Rather, it should be weighed against the outcome of that event should it actually happen. Do not allow your experience, or the desire to get out there and ride today, make you forgo simple precautions that only take a few moments. Focus on the desire to ride again and again, tomorrow and thereafter, to keep yourself diligent in remembering and practicing all of this basic stuff. You don’t want to learn the hard way… for that teacher can be very cruel and unforgiving.

James "Dragonfire"  Hetem