yambike

A member named Loomis posted this in the thread "rider down."


I didn't want to start a debate in a thread that was dedicated to someones injuries so I started this thread.

I do agree that public roads are not the best place to be doing stunts because of the increased risk of injury to yourself from cars, guardrails, things falling from trucks, etc. and attracting negative attention to the sport. But, the attitude that a motorcyclist is "risking the lives of others," this is an attitude most heard from hard on cops, and old ladies who have never rode a bike before. The most damage someone on a motorcycle could cause to the public is some property damage, no matter how recklessly they may be driving except in really rare cases. I challenge anyone to show me valid statistics that show that motorcyclists are causing injury to people driving cars, or trucks or to pedestrians to any significant degree. Anyone who rides a bike knows that the more valid concern is motorcyclists being mowed down by minivans or Lincolns driven by people who can hardly see out of the windshield.
I found this post offensive, especially in a thread that was started because a stunter was injured. It was true that he was injured due to his own actions but if he caused any injury to anyone else, I missed that part.

Save that "risking the lives of others" **** for www.soccermoms.com

Daniel411

I have complete agreement with that view. I really fail to see how they can actually say that. Asuming you're not on a residential street with kids. Only time I've ever heard of a person getting mildly hurt in a car vs. bike collision. Involved a hayabusa topping it out at night, rear ending a metro that had JUMPED OVER 2 lanes, (yes, the biker should have been prepared for that possibility-everyone makes mistakes though). Fortunately the biker lived, and the person in the metro was more startled than anything, had a pretty good smashed rear end though.

Especially on the highway or a country road where you can see that theres no kids or animals in all directions, and vehicles are moving parallel-no intersections for t-bones...

I fail to see their arguement.

Jay6

The thing is these threads are here for people to share there views no matter who agrees with them. I do think that that thread was the wrong place to post though. Just my

CldMind

I agree Well put.. The fact is there is just no place "safe" to stunt. This sport is just plain dangerous.. The people that participate know of the risks but choose to look past them. And Im thinkin that if I lost control of my bike on a highway and hit a car I would be the one hurting not the people in the cars with their air bags, seat belts, reinforced doors etc...

yambike

Jay6, you're right. I just got kinda worked up a little.

jamesjweg

I would have to agree that we are *more* likly to hurt ourselves. But I am one who says that we are endangering others when we do stupid stuff on the street on a bike. I guess that might come from helping the cops pull a sheet over a young girl after a rider hit them and his body flew through the window of thier minvan taking the girls head half off. Granted the mom pulled out in front of him, but there is no way anyone could have seen him coming on that road at the 130mph he was running. Yes a bike can kill others, keep the playing away from traffic, and off the roads if you can.

James.

snglsidedblade

..........and If I hear another dumbfu*K tell me " so & so deserved getting hurt/dieing/e.t.c. because they were stuntin on the street", there gonna be introduced to Mr Helmet mak'n a b-line for their head. That extremely pisses me off when people wish harm on riders playing on the stree. not saying that anything was said on this thread like that though. just my

KC Tony

I agree totally. A fellow rider of mine was killed back a few weeks ago and we were out at our spot and some cagers showed up to watch and said to us "Hey did you guys know that guy that got killed" we told hime we did. Then he said "serves him right for riding like an idiot". It took three of my fellow riders to keep me from beating the hell outta that kid.

Swurve

What do you count as "stupid" though....hell I'm sure alot of our parents think wheelies or stoppies or even crossovers are stupid but when you have them down they really aren't all that dangerous....as for "keeping off the roads"...WTF????? where do you ride then? If its not on a road we would be using dirt bikes...i don't advocate stunting at 3pm in a school zone but hell this **** started in the streets and we are all here on this site because we are, or for those who are going pro,were traffic criminals. Unless its a show..its prolly illegal...thats just the game we are in

yambike

Unless you are a paramedic/EMT I would tend to think this story is made up or overdramatised for your purposes on this thread. Even if it is true (and if it is it would be terribly tragic), I could probably find real cases of people dying from a piano falling on thier head. If someone can show me real statistical evidence that I'm wrong then I'll shut up.
What I'm saying is that cars and trucks pose a much greater risk to bikes than bikes do to cars and trucks. And it bothers me when people try to claim we are "risking the lives of others" when there is no outcry about the motorcyclists who are injured and/or killed by car drivers who weren't paying attention. This is just political/image bullshit. If more polititians, CEOs, doctors and lawyers rode bikes then things would be a lot different.

jamesjweg

I'd say it's stupid when we don't leave enough room for an error, ether on our part or someone else's. I was talking about stuff like the crash I spoke of in my last post, the guy was running somthing around 130 mph on a city street, that is stupid. "stupid" probably wasn't the best choice of words, like you said my parents think riding down the road at the speed limit with both tires on the ground in full gear is stupid. What I said about the road was "off the roads if you can", some of us have the blessing of having somwhere off of the streets that we can play on, if you have such a place that should be were you play, if not try to find an open road with little traffic. As for it being illigal, I don't give a **** if it is, I'm just speaking from a safty aspect for non-stunna's. We all know it's danderous to us, that's just a risk we take, but we do need to think about not putting others who don't wish to take that risk in danger.

jamesjweg

I'm not an EMT, nor is the story made up. This happened in jax, fla about 5-6 years ago in front of where my brother worked. ( on San Jose blvd) I had gone down there to help him with a project. We ran out of his office when we heard the crash, and were the first ones there. Yes it was tragic, very tragic. I was telling about it so you might understand why I am concerened about hurting someone else when I ride. It probably is a very uncommon thing for a cager to die in a bike vs cage crash, but I saw first hand that it has happened. Yes, I agree that cages are much more of a risk to bikes than the other way around, I was just saying that the risk does exist the other way as well. I agree with snglsidedblade, I'm also pissed off when people have the "serves him right" mind set, in fact I got rather pissed that one of the cops said something like that about the rider that hit the van. Don't think for a secound that I'm not just as upset as you about cars getting away with hitting bikes.

James.

krunchasaki

I only have one thing to say to those that say non-supportive comments about one of us going down and getting f**ked up.

Swurve

Wellput james..this was a good response

JPratt

What I think Loomis meant was riding on a highway. Yes, that post didnt belong in that thread. But I have to agree that doing stunts on a highway is asking for trouble, theres plenty of spots if you look around to do stunts where you ont run a higher risk of running into this type of stuff.

I prayers goes out to this guy just like anybody else. Im not downing him or anybody that stunts on a highway, but I think you should keep it low when on a highway. I guess I feel this way, cause Im one thats against street racing, so that carries over to bikes too.

Nobody goes out and expects anything bad to happen, but its that one time when your not expecting it is when it will go bad. And everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so no need for the gangsta comments to come out.

loomis

I agree, maybe i shouldn't have posted on that thread but........

here's a link to a motorcyclist injuring a pedestrian. and NO, the driver of the car was not injured, BUT DAMN. she ran the biker over.

http://www.reddingclassifieds.com/ne...930lo010.shtml

TEDDY.B

come on, this is common sense!

think of it this way. what if you were in your car and someone flipped a wheelie infont of you, you had no way to avoid them and run them over. yes you'd feel bad (which would also lead to psychological problems for killing someone) BUT you'd also be pissed they wrecked your car, if you say you wouldn't, your kidding your self. NOW what if you swerve and hit another car, or you go off the road and flip. bottom line **** on the street(in traffic) IS endangering others. Period!

now with that said i agree that the orginal message didn't belong in the thread

skillz

First let me say that I hate to hear about anyone getting hurt , members of the stunting community or not. Second believing that other members of our communities aren't affected by our actions is just stupid, I will give you an example of something that happened to me which still stays with me even after 3yrs. I didn't have my bike this day so I was video taping my friends stunting at a park,needless to say the crowd of onlookers got pretty big and the crowd ran the length of the road we were using to stunt on. Everybody was having a great time then someone had to show everybody his low altitude fly byes. Thats when I decided it was time to leave because I said to myself if this guy doesn't knock it off someone is going to get hurt. as I walked away I heard the guy lose control as he looped a wheelie. the bike took to the air and hit a woman who was there with her child who I was standing to not less than 10 sec. ago. Who knows why that guy lost control. I don't think this woman who lost her life knew that she was putting herself in harms way.Maybe if I would of said something maybe this kid would have a mom today." Never happens " does happen

yambike

This is getting a little off track.

Stunting in a public park is beyond my comprehension. I try to keep it to empty parking lots, after business hours or way out of town in farm land where there are no cross roads or even driveways and absolutely no pedestrians. Let there be no doubt that I care about other people's safety more than my own.

For every hypothetical situation or freak occurance that you can come up with where a someone on a bike injured a pedestrian or driver in a car there are probably hundreds of cases where a car injured or killed a biker. I'm not arguing that these things never happen, of couse they do. Just nowhere near the frequency that motorcyclists are hurt. And motorcyclists are the ones with the image of being a public menace when they are far more likely to be injured than causing an injury.

TEDDY.B

1. whats the difference between the park and a road with lots of people walking on the sidewalk?

2. do the math, there a hundreds(thousands) of more cars on the road than motorcycles.

if you say that you are not putting others in danger while stunting in public (be it roads, highways, parks whatever) that statement is made in pure ignorance. there is no argument that will ever change that.