02-14-2017, 02:49 PM
My points to make... Rant On....
Yes, I agree that riding a motorcycle involves an amount of risk.
But a set of warning signs is not the end all solution if a road or highway exit is truly engineered wrong. Think about this. There's a defectively engineered highway exit. Once a month for three months a motorcyclist loses control , crashes, and dies. Most would assume, and it would even be written in the newspaper report of the crash that the rider must have been speeding or not paying attention to the warning sign posted showing the decreasing radius curve, whatever. Now imagine if instead of three motorcyclists, those three crashes in three months involved three loaded school buses. I bet there'd be no time wasted for everyone to point out the 'outdated' exit design, and there'd be an outcry for the state to fix it immediately.
I think it's just too easy in most people's minds to blame a crash on the motorcyclist because (a) everyone's seen at one time or another, a reckless M/C rider zoom by them, and maybe also seen a gaggle of motorcycles at the local biker bar, and (b) it's too easy to think that 'hey, motorcycling's a dangerous hobby anyway'.
Paraphrasing Rodney... We don't get much respect from the general public, whether that's intentional or subliminal.
Yes, I agree that riding a motorcycle involves an amount of risk.
But a set of warning signs is not the end all solution if a road or highway exit is truly engineered wrong. Think about this. There's a defectively engineered highway exit. Once a month for three months a motorcyclist loses control , crashes, and dies. Most would assume, and it would even be written in the newspaper report of the crash that the rider must have been speeding or not paying attention to the warning sign posted showing the decreasing radius curve, whatever. Now imagine if instead of three motorcyclists, those three crashes in three months involved three loaded school buses. I bet there'd be no time wasted for everyone to point out the 'outdated' exit design, and there'd be an outcry for the state to fix it immediately.
I think it's just too easy in most people's minds to blame a crash on the motorcyclist because (a) everyone's seen at one time or another, a reckless M/C rider zoom by them, and maybe also seen a gaggle of motorcycles at the local biker bar, and (b) it's too easy to think that 'hey, motorcycling's a dangerous hobby anyway'.
Paraphrasing Rodney... We don't get much respect from the general public, whether that's intentional or subliminal.