Through the window of a Regional Transit System bus, you longingly stare at the motorcyclist next to you. Clad in black gear, he takes off at a red light and speeds toward campus. “Stop requested. For your safety: if crossing the street...” You tune it out and daydream of a reality without buses.
For those of us who are planning on switching over to two-wheeled motorized vehicles, including scooters, let’s not have any illusions about the risks associated with our decisions. But make them anyway, and ride safe, if you’ve weighed the risks.
I should speak to the grim statistics on motorcycle accidents first — those according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FDHSMV). The three-year average for motorcycle accidents in Miami-Dade County is 1,204 per year. That’s about three a day. Fatalities have a three-year average of 54 per year. That’s about one death every week of the year. The statistics do not improve when you consider fatalities per vehicle mile traveled.
As per the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, riding a motorcycle is 35 times more likely to kill you than driving in a car. It doesn’t get better when you apply lessons from the Hurt study, an authoritative on-scene study on motorcycle safety and mortality which analyzed data from motorcycle crashes.
Take a quick look around the UF campus: know both students and youth aged 16 to 24 are overrepresented in fatal crashes. In the county that houses our campus, Alachua, the ratio of fatal to non-fatal crashes is only slightly lower than it is in Dade. Slow, small-town Gainesville traffic doesn’t help as much as we might think it does.
Scooter riders, remember that you are not safe either. Think about how many of you are not wearing reflective clothing or helmets and riding without a license. Those characteristics are all overrepresented in motorcycle crashes.
If you retreat to thinking that a 50-cubic-centimeter scooter isn’t fast enough to be dangerous, consider also that even the cheap scooters cruise at 30 mph. The median crash speed in the Hurt study was 29.8 mph.
There are tangible countermeasures we can implement to improve our odds of surviving a crash — statistics again according to the Hurt study. Using them is shown to reduce injuries. These are things like wearing eyewear and using rigid protective boots and gloves. Helmet use cannot be overstressed.
We can’t look to the numbers for justification on why we can feel safe on two wheels. We would be taking those risks in the presence of alternatives, risking our lives for whatever benefit we get from speeding away at red lights.
One of my reasons is a grudge against RTS buses, which have forced me to use Uber one too many times.
I chose to live in a house that would offer me better quality of living and cheaper rent, but it is farther away and lacks reliable bus service. I choose to have the benefits of independence from buses and wallet-breaking chauffeur services over that risk of bodily injury.
I’ve weighed the risks. I want to be the motorcyclist outside the RTS window, complete with a neon orange full face helmet and colorful clothing. Wearing black is dressing for your own funeral.
Stephan Chamberlin is a UF political science junior. His column comes out Tuesday and Thursday.
