Sickening.
Certainly I make no reference to those have departed in the recent days and distant past. I post this in the (potentially vain) hope that it might open some eyes.
As a society we live with the belief that "it won't happen to me."
Often this belief is reinforced by the lack of adverse outcome, which teaches us, subconsciously, that whatever we have done is safe.
For example, I'm driving home from work, my phone sitting face up on the passengers seat. The phone rings, I look down, and there on the screen of the phone is a picture of my wife peering back at me. It's my wife calling. Several things go through my mind; if I answer that, I might get a ticket, I might kill someone (the ads say so), I might run over a child. All adverse outcomes. Then I realise that not answering a call from my wife carries a greater adverse outcome, so answer, quickly dispose of the call, and put the phone back down. Result? No adverse outcome. I've subconsciously reinforced the belief that what I did is safe.
The next time the phone rings, It's just that little bit easier to answer, based on my previous experience. After 400 calls, I'll be snap chatting, instagramming, facebooking, updating my work calendar.........you get the idea.
Same with other, motorcycle related behaviours. Those who don't wear gloves, and haven't for years, won't, because it's not going to happen to them. They are a good rider, riding for 30 years, never had a crash (that they will admit to), it won't happen to them. They don't need safety gear, it's not going to happen to them. No, this is not a rant about safety gear, this was just an example of historically reinforced risk behaviour.
But each day in NZ it happens to someone. I've attended thousands of crashes over the years, and if I had asked each driver involved if they knew their crash was going to happen, of course they would have said no. Because of they knew it was going to happen, they would have prevented it.
We don't know when it's going to happen to us, because if we knew that, we'd prevent it. We just don't think it'll happen to us.
We see no reason to maintain good following distances, as we've been following too close behind our riding mates for years, with no adverse outcome. Nobody can tell us to maintain a legal or better following distance. We've been lane splitting for years, legally or illegally, with no adverse outcome. Nobody can tell us it's a marginal idea. We change lanes without head checking, because we've been doing it for years and never had a problem, where's the need to change that little number?
How about we front foot stuff, and consider that however unlikely, no matter how flash a rider we are, it just might happen to us. Imagine that. We have the chance to change our outcomes. Wow, revelation.
Just a wee bit of a rant, as I've heard so much about how everything is someone else's fault. Police's fault, gubbermits fault, foreign tourists fault, white-van-man's fault. It seems everything is someone else's fault. The discussion about fault means nothing to your broken arm, broken leg or ruptured spleen. Fault means little when you are the victim of someone else's mistake, let alone your own.
And I repeat, I make no judgement regarding the crashes in the article. Poor beggars. But I bet they didn't think it was going to happen to them.
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