Newpaper article on motorcyclist's death

[eg23232]

This article was in today's Oregonian newspaper. A couple of things stand out to me, first that the widow had already taken the Team Oregon class but the husband had not; Her comment to the author about not writing something negative about motorcycles; The author speaking anecdotally of motorcycle commuters "sometimes...rocketing between cars in traffic jams" which is something I rarely see; The sidebar saying the EPA says motorcycles are 90 times worse than an SUV in smog-producing hydrocarbones (WTF??? New motorcycle ECU's have been programmed to the poing of anemia!).

Anyway, read for yourself...

https://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting/2009/...orcycle_tr.html

(oh and obviously the heading for this thread should say "Newspaper." Sorry.)

 

[Rolavine]

This is a sad story of a new rider who ran out of luck before he garned enough experience.

The social envelope is closing in on bikers and soon we will have European Regulations that will require new bikers to drive mopeds for years and take more training courses than is required to drive a semi.

On the emissions front, most bikes do pretty poorly at nitrogen compound output. The catalytic coverters on most modern bikes, like our FJRs, take care of that, but it was only recent that bikes had some regulations to comply with. My last large bike before the FJR was a 1997 Bandit 1200, and it stunk of rotten exhaust all the time, during warm up I moved away from it. A 1997 car, on the other hand, was required to be just about as clean as a new 2009.

Bikes aren't as bad as say outboard motors though, large conventional 2 strokes were sold up to only about 6 years ago. These motors put as much as 20% of the gas and oil they consumed back into the water and air, unburnt!

Here is a story from the LA times about it.

https://www.latimes.com/classified/automoti...0,3268856.story

 

[FJRBluesman]

Sad about the loss.

More on emissions - I have a question: How did they rate the pollutants, per person by vehicle or...???

I ask because if you divide the amount of pollution per amount of people that can sit in the car, it will always be far less since a bike can only hold two people Vs a car holding 6 or more. They do similar things with the "Carbon Footprint" A small jet pollutes far more by flying only a few people Vs a 737 flying 150 people. The footprint per person is much smaller. Did they do that in this study too?

Great Statistical Quotes:

Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything. ~Gregg Easterbrook

Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. ~Aaron Levenstein

Say you were standing with one foot in the oven and one foot in an ice bucket. According to the percentage people, you should be perfectly comfortable. ~Bobby Bragan, 1963

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." - Autobiography of Mark Twain

 

[650cent]

The wife asked that he not write a hit piece on motorcycles, but there wasn't anything positive that I could see. Sorry for the woman's lost, he was scheduled to take the safety course in two weeks at the time of his accident.

Bill

 

[BwanaDik]

This is a sad story of a new rider who ran out of luck before he garned enough experience.The social envelope is closing in on bikers and soon we will have European Regulations that will require new bikers to drive mopeds for years and take more training courses than is required to drive a semi.

On the emissions front, most bikes do pretty poorly at nitrogen compound output. The catalytic coverters on most modern bikes, like our FJRs, take care of that, but it was only recent that bikes had some regulations to comply with. My last large bike before the FJR was a 1997 Bandit 1200, and it stunk of rotten exhaust all the time, during warm up I moved away from it. A 1997 car, on the other hand, was required to be just about as clean as a new 2009.

Bikes aren't as bad as say outboard motors though, large conventional 2 strokes were sold up to only about 6 years ago. These motors put as much as 20% of the gas and oil they consumed back into the water and air, unburnt!

Here is a story from the LA times about it.

https://www.latimes.com/classified/automoti...0,3268856.story

Why is the guy in the picture wearing a helmet?

 

[Rolavine]

This is a sad story of a new rider who ran out of luck before he garned enough experience.The social envelope is closing in on bikers and soon we will have European Regulations that will require new bikers to drive mopeds for years and take more training courses than is required to drive a semi.

On the emissions front, most bikes do pretty poorly at nitrogen compound output. The catalytic coverters on most modern bikes, like our FJRs, take care of that, but it was only recent that bikes had some regulations to comply with. My last large bike before the FJR was a 1997 Bandit 1200, and it stunk of rotten exhaust all the time, during warm up I moved away from it. A 1997 car, on the other hand, was required to be just about as clean as a new 2009.

Bikes aren't as bad as say outboard motors though, large conventional 2 strokes were sold up to only about 6 years ago. These motors put as much as 20% of the gas and oil they consumed back into the water and air, unburnt!

Here is a story from the LA times about it.

https://www.latimes.com/classified/automoti...0,3268856.story

Why is the guy in the picture wearing a helmet?

I didn't even notice that, probably regulations, either that or it prevents that large snake that is eating his tailpipe from taking him down head first.