Fear of death or injury

[PowderToastMan_imp]

Me too on the YouTube gore!

But:

Many of those splats are preceded by rank stupidity on the riders' part.
There are plenty of horrifying videos that aren't motorcycles. Check out "drifting saudi arabia".
The average person dreads a sudden and horrifying death while day after day doing "normal" things that are inexorably leading them to a hospital bed with tubes inserted, out of their minds on medication; slow motion death by lifestyle.
I'm not normal, and I got that way by having a lengthy brush with death in spite of being "safe" in every possible way.
Everyone is going to die and it's a damn shame to die without ever living.

Exactly! Rather live a little with the risk of dying early than not-live and be miserable for a long time. And I think those of us who are actively doing things to mitigate the risk are in a fairly good position (not to say that you magicially become invincible by being a safety nut, but the statistics start to slide a little in our favor IMO).

For my wife's sake I do have this bad feeling that it is selfish of me to pursue such a high risk activity, but if I stop riding entirely, I feel like I will pretty much be dead on the inside anyway.
I could get hit by a car and die crossing the street on foot going to 7-eleven, or in the car on the way to/from work but am I supposed to stop doing those as well?