06-17-2017, 03:36 PM
(04-04-2017, 11:22 PM)The ferret_imp Wrote: I toured through 5 countries in Europe. Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France and Lichtenstein and although I saw a fair number of motorcycles there (mainly scooters) the vast preponderance of vehicles I saw were still cars...small cars, but cars never the less. When I watch Youtube vids of riders negotiating in European cities, or test riding new motorcycles, it is still single motorcycles surrounded by a sea of cars. European riders may be more serious about riding than the average American (as is the ave Euro car driver), but from what I observed when it comes to commuting the car is still king there.
It may be different in Asia, I'm not sure, never been to Asia, but as far as I observed, the motorcycle has not replaced the car as primary transportation in any of the 5 countries I visited in Europe in any significant numbers.
To give you an idea in numbers ferret, in Germany there are round about 4 million motorbikes and 45,5 million cars listed by the KBA (Kraftfahrzeugbundesamt). This explains a lot.
The 4 million contain scooter, 125, Mofa, Mockicks and so on, which are in my eyes no 'real motorbikes'. Another comparision is informativ. Cars are driven lets write 12.000 to 15.000km averagely a year, motorbikes maybe 2.000 to 3.000km. Many riders have more than one bike. All this are reasons why you don't see as many motorbikes on the road as it would be nice for the eyes and sometimes the ears.
Don't think that the situation is very different in the neighbour countries. Surely it depends on the season, the places and even the daytime where and when I'm riding, but more often than not I feel as if I'm the only motocyclist among cardrivers.
Wisedrum