Issue #237 Just Cause | Sportbikes, Their, Crashes, One, Have

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Issue #237 Just Cause

Written by Robert Smith
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Some lessons you learn—I learned—the hard way. In a chemistry class in high school, I can remember casually measuring out a reagent for a particular experiment and mumbling, “close enough …” within earshot of my chemistry teacher. His response—thoroughly deserved but now illegal I’m sure—was a flat hand across the back of my head and an emphatic reminder that the only acceptable measurement was the most accurate possible within instrumental tolerance. Apparently, I wasn’t alone; and it’s reassuring to know that proper scientists, for all their training and diligence, are just as prone to “close enough” as the rest of us. The story goes that in 1961, meteorologist Edward Lorenz was running weather predictions on an early computer when, instead of keying in 0.506127, he took a short cut and just entered the first three digits—0.506—on the assumption such a small change wouldn’t affect the result. To his astonishment, ignoring the extra 1/1000th altered the weather prediction radically. Lorenz had stumbled on a phenomenon that became known as the Butterfly Effect—the idea that a minute change in one part of the world can have major consequences elsewhere. A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil setting off a tornado in Texas, for example. The Butterfly Effect has become one of the better known expressions of Chaos Theory. What does this have to do with motorcycling? The Butterfly Effect is an example of a causal relationship: one event, however insignificant, leading directly to another—a careless remark in a chemistry class leading to a whack on the head, for instance. Many relationships, though, are assumed to be causal because they seem intuitively to be so: for example, the facts (1) that sportbikes are fast; and (2) that sportbikes are involved in proportionately more crashes than other types of motorcycles. If there’s a causal relationship, then it’s the sportbikes’ speed capability that causes crashes. In recent times, a number of organizations have tried to make this leap of reasoning, including the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec, and the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Both bodies report that sportbikes are involved in far more road crashes than their numbers on the street warrant; and that sportbikes should therefore either be banned (SAAQ) or have their speed capability limited at the factory (IIHS). The assumption in both cases is that the bikes are to blame for the crashes. Parked in your driveway, an R1 is no faster than a D1 BSA Bantam. It takes the intervention of the vehicle operator to make it move, and to control how quickly. As they say, the most dangerous part on a motorcycle is the nut behind the handlebars. And one of the facts that both the SAAQ and IIHS conveniently overlook is that, according to the World Health Organization, auto-related fatalities, regardless of the number of wheels, are the number one cause of death for males under 25, whether or not they ride sportbikes. (Significantly, another leading cause is suicide.) Combine this with the typical profile of a sportbike rider—a male under 25—and the causal link between sportbikes and crashes becomes more tenuous. Bottom line—males under 25 will find a way of killing themselves even if they’re restricted to riding lawnmowers. It’s a natural result of hormones, peer pressure and a societal rite of passage. It appalls me now to think of it, but I used to hang with a guy who would routinely drive his car (with me in it) over blind bridges on the wrong side of the road, just for the adrenaline rush—and to “impress” the girls in the back seat, of course. They screamed and giggled. We were 17. So what is it that causes sportbikes to crash? Their speed capability? Or the fact that they’re predominantly piloted by relatively inexperienced, testosterone fueled riders with suicidal tendencies and a penchant for showing off? The answer to sportbike crashes isn’t banning them or restricting their speed. For one thing, the speed restrictor hasn’t been invented yet that couldn’t be unrestricted. And if sportbikes were banned, young males would just find other ways of going fast. Almost every weekend of my teen years was spent in someone’s garage or backyard trying to find ways (most of which were certainly counterproductive) of making our wheezy mopeds and scooters go faster. But our total focus was on more speed—not better brakes or safer handling. And if it made more noise in the process, that was a bonus. Sportbikes are great fun, and their superb handling and brakes should make them the safest vehicles on the road. But to use their full capability (and to properly exercise the pilots’ adrenal glands in relative safety) requires a racetrack. Sadly, since Westwood Plateau was reforested with pink stucco palaces, the only circuit within a day’s ride of Vancouver is Mission Raceway, a drag strip with a few turns added and ludicrous noise restrictions. Few Canadian cities are any better served. I know I’m metaphorically urinating into the wind here, but building a few racetracks and providing enhanced rider training would be more effective in reducing fatalities than banning or restricting sportbikes. After all, (girls and) boys will be boys Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment You must be logged in to a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet.