You would quit driving cars??? :icecream

Yes, under the conditions you specified...if that guy (dead) rearended the truck while driving a car. That's what I said, eh? ;)

I watched a guy get hit from behind. He was at a dead stop making a left hand turn (in the turn lane) while he was on a bike. He was knocked off the bike, and skidded 50 feet plus on his back.

This is what keeps me off bikes.

The guy could have done nothing to avoid this and it was totally the car's fault.

I don't know if he lived or died, but he was carried away in an ambulance after they scraped him off the pavement.

It's not how careful you are... it's how blind other people are.

There's no protection on a bike.
No thank you.

These are my thoughts exactly. Not that I fear death that much... it might be a welcomed change. But my family needs me to hang around.

First of all anyone who rides a motorcycle without a helmet is an idiot. Risk management is all a part of riding but taking that risk means you are an idiot.

I don't ride every day, I don't ride to work, I avoid heavy traffic areas most of the time, etc all as part of my risk management. I still could die any moment of course just as a 37 year old man did two or three weeks ago riding out on the same country roads that I usually do.

A guy in our church didn't make a curve a few weeks ago and while his whole face helmet saved his life he did not have on proper riding clothes so had a lot of skin scraped off his arm and ankle.

He was in Vanderbilt hospital for skin grafts and while the ones on his arm took beautifully his diabetes has caused complications on the ankle and it is not taking. He may have to use articial skin there and in any case is going to require a lot more surgery. Believe me I think about those things since I am almost 50, have a little arthritis in both shoulders, and a calcified tendon in the left one. I also don't recover near as well at this age as I did in my 20's from things.

Some people make fun of guys like me riding with jackets with armored pads and jeans with kevlar and gloves in the summer but that is just fine with me. At least if I lay it down I have some protection!

I apologize for sounding snarky. I just have trouble wrapping my brain around this comment. I realize that you lost a friend in an accident and I send my condolences. But to quit driving because someone else has an accident and dies? I look at things differently, I guess.

What's next, quit walking cause someone you know trips and falls and breaks their leg?

If you're going to ride you need to be as smart about it as possible.

You're smart about it, CC.

( By the way, the guy I spoke about did have a helmet. They are mandatory in NY and that is where this accident happened )

I think the idea was that a car has protection, whereas a bike has none.

I ride every chance I get.
There's nothing else quite like it.