Speaking of fighter jets, I believe that they have the latest in computer assisted fly by wire tech in addition to G suits to keep the pilot from blacking out. Doubt the human NS could handle that low altitude/high speed stuff without it!
I think this gets closer to the real answer. Look at cars. The MC industry has always followed car tech / trends, sometimes at a long interval (when was the last 2-stroke car?).
Cars are in the spotlight of this question right now, and the engineering world is full of people getting well paid to protect s from ourselves.
Who really needs a 400+hp car on the street (besides me, drooling over a Veyron, but would settle for an R8)? Surely mom and the kids don't need to get to Vons that fast, but it's always been "bigger, beter, faster, more" here in the USA, so the manufacturers deliver the goods. Well once little Suzie spins out into a tree, there becomes a need for stability control. Since little Bobby can't be held responsible for throttle modulation, we have traction control (This is on a production bike this year). The vehicles out there have capabilties beyond that of their drivers. Not because of human physiology, but because of the lack of accountability.
People in and of themselves aren't going to go out and learn to drive that car / suv / mc to it's fullest extent, and the gob'ment knows it, and puts pressure on the auto makers to step in by adding all kinds of "protective" features.
Airbags are for people that wreck. ABS is for people that either aren't paying attention or don't know how to brake properly. Adaptive headlights are for people that are driving too fast for conditions. I could go on, but let me add this, these things aren't just
for these people, but
because of them. Every time someone sues someone else over their ineptitude, we get another warning label or piece of expensive technology that will help protect us from ourselves.
I concede that all of this does keep those starving engineers at work, and that if it weren't for this kind of evolutionary "nanny" technology, the gub'ment would be on us all like white on rice.
Evidence for that last point is the closing of public off road riding areas. Private property owners in adjacent areas complain, or get taken to court over someone's injury, and since there aren't enough cops to enforce the area, it gets closed. Sometimes it's just lack of enforcement capacity alone.
Whew! That was more than I expected to say, but the point is, look around at other indstries and the dynamics at play. The motorsports industry is relatively small, but has been under attack before, and will be again. It's just a matter of time. Personally, I'm pretty psyched at the attention that China's getting right now. No one will be looking toohard at "us" s long as there are millions of lead coated toys coming in.
Anyway, there's my $10.02.
