In some form, your body must be trying harder to keep from falling if you know the repercussions are greater.. ? seems logical... no?
No.
Anyone who underakes a dangerous activity without regard for their own safety (regardless of whether catastrophe would result in death or just injury) deserves what is coming to them.
Most people in a dangerous scenario will do everything they can to alleviate the risks and moderate the danger. *Increasing* the danger because you think it will somehow unconsciously make you stronger/faster/better is as wrong-headed as you can possibly be.
Anthony wrote:If you were walking on a tight rope with a net underneath as apposed to one without a net, wouldn't you feel safer? Mind controls the body right? In some form, your body must be trying harder to keep from falling if you know the repercussions are greater.. ? seems logical... no?
What seems logical to you is not reality. You can't just "common sense" complicated psychological phenomena.
Ask anyone with a PhD in psychology about the effect. They will immediately tell you that you are 100% dead wrong in your assumptions.
There is a whole side industry for stage and film actors about combat. Armed combat (swords, knives, staves, firearms) and unarmed combat, because we get called on a lot to get into fights on stage, on TV, etc.
Following your reasoning, the best way to be safe is to actually endanger us. We'll be so aware of the danger that our heightened bat-senses will protect us.
What I can tell you is that, even with all of the safety, practice, and rules, we are STILL aware of the danger, because even with all of the measures we take to not get hurt or killed, people still get seriously injured. The fact that I might be certiifed in the type of combat I'm working on at the moment doesn't mean it's any less dangerous. It just means that I (supposedly) know what I'm doing and that the person who is fighting me does not have to worry that I am going to screw up and get us both hurt.
Even with that certification, our contracts require a third-party fight master (at least one) for smaller fights or else several people and possibly even stuntmen for larger scenes (film or tv usually) to look out for us, organize the fight properly, and supervise.
Stuff like this is tremendously fun. Where else do you get to fight with the type of swords they used in the 18th century? When else do you get to wrestle with a cop with no legal repurcussions? I look forward to this kind of work.
But I'm only allowed to do it after I've had a great deal of training. Adrenaline does not make you safe. It *does* heighten your senses, sure -- that's the kernel of truth in what you're saying, I guess. A false sense of security for any reason is certainly bad. But my gear doesn't give me a false sense of security. It gives me a last line of defense if I (or another motorist) screws up and I go flying. That's about all it gives me, and that's worth it.
You said that people who have a false sense of security from wearing gear are a danger. This is an accurate statement -- people with a false sense of security for any reason are a danger.
The problem is that it isn't the gear that is responsible for it. Any false sense of security is a bad one.
The sense of security you get from *not* wearing gear (because it makes you more alert, or whatever) is equally false, and not only that, it doesn't even have the side benefit of protecting you if and when you fly off the bike.
Nobody here has suggested that simply owning or having gear makes you invulnerable or impervious, but you are the only one to suggest that *not* having gear gives you an advantage of some kind.
There are no studies supporting this assertion.
There are not even any anecdotes supporting this assertion ("I just avoided that semi because I was so scared out of my gourd from wearing only a loincloth that my reaction time was five miliseconds faster!")
Please understand that this is not some personal issue. Like I said elsewhere, I don't care what you do in your own back yard or anywhere that the only person you can injure is yourself.
You are making poorly-informed statements and passing them off as fact.
What about the bike? Sure, you control the handbars, throttle, brakes, and clutch, but what about everything else? Tires blow? Did your mind cause that?
What about the patch of sand or gravel blown on the road around the familiar corner you take every day? Your mind control that as well?
What about the old lady who can barely see over her steering wheel, veering into your lane because she's too old to be driving? Jeeze man, you should be on TV with your mind control.
The Hurt Report found that riders who wore gear not only survived crashes with less severe injuries, but they crashed less frequently than riders who didn't wear gear in the first place. Causation wasn't studied, but there were lots of reasonable theories; a rider who wears gear prioritizes safe riding more than a rider without gear, gear actually helps a rider be more alert by protecting them from environmental factors and cutting down fatigue, bright colored gear makes a rider more visible, etc.
There are lots of understandable reasons (not good reasons, but understandable ones) to not be fully kitted up, but reasoning that your body subconsciously will make you a safer rider just does not compute.
"If you ride like there's no tomorrow, there won't be."
