01-03-2021, 06:49 AM
Thanks for asking this question tod.branko. It's great food for thought.
I'm with those who say there is no time to be scared in either a fall or a near miss. It happens fast, adrenaline floods your system and you do what you can to save yourself. I don't think you can then be scared of something that happened in the past because being frightened/scared is essentially anticipatory. So, on the three occasions, I've been in a motorcycle accident, I've not been scared. All happened too quickly.
Likewise with the many near misses of my life: in the moment, there's no time for fear.
I think I was scared momentarily in the middle of last year when I was sure someone I was riding with nearly t-boned a car. But it may not have been fear; just the adrenaline rush that might have happened had it been me.
I think I've become frightened of motorcycling a couple of times in my life. The first was more than a year after my first accident. I gave up riding as I didn't find it comfortable or enjoyable any more. That was fear, I think. I changed my behaviour as a result of it. When life's circumstances later led me to buy a scooter to commute, I had another period of being scared as the belief grew that, sooner or later, someone in a car wouldn't see me and would run into me. I stopped riding then, too.
The summary is that, for me anyway, fear has been a gradual and anticipatory experience that has twice led me to sell bikes and contemplate motorcycling from the comfort of a car. It is not something that arises in the moment of a near miss or accident.
I'm with those who say there is no time to be scared in either a fall or a near miss. It happens fast, adrenaline floods your system and you do what you can to save yourself. I don't think you can then be scared of something that happened in the past because being frightened/scared is essentially anticipatory. So, on the three occasions, I've been in a motorcycle accident, I've not been scared. All happened too quickly.
Likewise with the many near misses of my life: in the moment, there's no time for fear.
I think I was scared momentarily in the middle of last year when I was sure someone I was riding with nearly t-boned a car. But it may not have been fear; just the adrenaline rush that might have happened had it been me.
I think I've become frightened of motorcycling a couple of times in my life. The first was more than a year after my first accident. I gave up riding as I didn't find it comfortable or enjoyable any more. That was fear, I think. I changed my behaviour as a result of it. When life's circumstances later led me to buy a scooter to commute, I had another period of being scared as the belief grew that, sooner or later, someone in a car wouldn't see me and would run into me. I stopped riding then, too.
The summary is that, for me anyway, fear has been a gradual and anticipatory experience that has twice led me to sell bikes and contemplate motorcycling from the comfort of a car. It is not something that arises in the moment of a near miss or accident.