Hmm. You might wear leathers if you had seen what happens to clothes and skin at even a 30mph slide on tarmac! It's true the easily seen ones tend to be expensive. You can get cheaper leathers and use a high-vis jacket though. They are very effective protection. I saw a young person belting through town on a scooter wearing just shorts yesterday - made my blood run cold to think what he would look like after a fall.
I have - I've come off push bikes at 20 mph in shorts and sustained nasty injuries. There's no way I'd wear thick clothing on a push bike in heat though. We have to take some risks. I've sustained nasty injuries just falling while walking.
We have the hi-vis ones, they are padded and very tough.
Yes. But see above.
Mary
When I was just sixteen .... we came upon an accident involving a vehicle and a motor cyclist. My driver assigned me to the motor cyclist while he attended to the vehicle driver. The motor-cyclist - had been wearing 'leathers and helmet' and was conscious, coherent and in great pain. My driver was a recently de-mobbed NS Army Fire Service Sergeant and 'took charge' of the scene - dispatching a bystander to a nearby factory gatehouse to 'phone for Police and Ambulance, marshalled blankets etc. etc. My assigned job was to hold the left heel of the motor-cyclists boot. I was instructed to rigidly hold the boot - the road surface had ripped off the toe end of the motor-cyclist's left boot and the enclosed toes and foot! The guy was in agony. My driver staunched the flow of blood by means of a tourniquet until the Ambulance came and carted the guy off to hospital. Months later we had to attend court as witnesses and met the motor cyclist, hobbling on his crutch. That put me off ever wanting to ride a motorbike.
Decades later a trauma surgeon at PMRAF Akrotiri told me he got most of his experience patching up motor cyclists who insisted on riding bikes with inadequate clothing -particularly boots.
...
I've ridden motorbikes for almost fifty years and never liked it, even when I had my own. But life is full of compromises.
My brain surgeon told me a lot of his jobs were repairing motorcyclists' skulls (even though wearing helms) and trying to tell them not to do it again. He sees many of them again.
Today Spouse saw a motor-trike with a man driver and a woman behind with a young boy drapes across her lap, legs dangling down the side.
None of them had any protective clothing or even a helmet. Of course, you don't legally need one for a trike ...
Mary
We have a radiologist in our Dutch office who once had to do a stint in A&E. He came across a motorcyclist once who had come off his bike, got entangled, and been dragged by it, the same thing had happened to his face, it removed his nose, mouth and much of his lower jaw.
The same guy had had to stabilise a Dutch Paratrooper who had "collected" a hand grenade which had fallen down his boot in a Chinook helicopter in Iraq. It went off when he noticed it and tried to fish it out leaving his hand as a "Palm Tree" of structures (as he described it). He was back in Holland and on the operating table within 26 hours.
DG
In message , Mary Fisher writes
I used to be a licensed DVLA instructor - taking the mere mortals out on their 50's / 125's and issuing their CBT's, or training them up for their full test.
I think the "what can and does happen when you fall off" talk was the scariest for all of them. The statistic of losing 1mm of skin and bone for every 10 mph of speed when sliding down the road was the clincher. "Look at your own knuckles" I used to say "and work out if 30 mph is sustainable for you". "1mm just for sliding, now add in the impact factor" (this all being part of the talk to encourage them to wear "proper" protection whilst riding).
I think they'd have rather been trained by Edward Scissorhands :-)
Saying that of course, the bike is still the best way to go. Fun, fast, danger, mortality, injury, yes all of them, but I still prefer the bike.
Incidentally, their was a study some time ago (no reference sorry) which suggested that the most invisible setup was a big white bike with the rider in flourescent clothing (ie local plod). Don't know what came of it though so I could just (once again) be talking shee-ite. Someone
Yes - but I can't work in the kitchen with bikers' gloves and I've sustained that kind of damage there. Yes, it's always been through carelessness - just as coming off a bike is.
Spouse and I never needed the CBT but we've known others who've done it and we've been impressed with the instructors.
Well, there you go.
I still don't like it :-) But I don't want speed, danger, risk of mortality of injury and don't find it fun in any way. That's just me though, if others enjoy it I'm not condemning them - as long as there's no danger to me. As far as I know pedestrians are safer when bikes are around than with cars.
I think you are. Or the 'study' was flawed.
Mary
In message , Mary Fisher writes [snip]
It is related to contrast - we recognise contrasting objects quicker than any specific colour of object. The problem with big white bike and bright yellow jacket is the lack of contrast. A contrasting colour scheme (including the high vis yellow) is far more likely to be noticed (or noticed quicker).
It was a Rospa intructor who first shocked me with that tidbit many years ago. Someone
It's been shown more than once that the way to make yourself most visible on a motorbike is to look like plod. The stuff you mention about contrast etc doesn't actually make any odds.
cheers, clive
There's plenty of contrast with such a kit compared with the contrast of a black clad rider on a black bike against the road, especially in the dark.
Nobody's perfect :-)
Mary
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