Are Motorcyclists suicidal?

[basshole]

Dying is the LAST thing on my mind when I ride. Too much other stuff to concentrate on.

[Loonette]

Suicidal would mean that you would intentionally point your bike at the largest oncoming truck on the road and crash into it at 100 miles per hour. It's all about intentions. I'm not afraid of death - I view it as yet another phase in my spiritual path. But the person who I am now doesn't intend on dying anytime soon, if I can help it. Like Kal said, I just want to enjoy living before I die.

Cheers,
Loonette

[Ninja Geoff]

..................Call me crazy but I can't explain it, I really can't. When people talk about their deaths I'd rather go out in a blaze of glory than peacefully in my deathbed....................

Works for me at age 90 or so, but not now. I'll keep wearing my helmets and other gear till then.

i second that.

[Mintbread]

I for some reason have very little, if possibly, no fear of death. Strictly relating to motorcycles, if I were to die on a bike in the near future I would have no regrets. Call me crazy but I can't explain it, I really can't. When people talk about their deaths I'd rather go out in a blaze of glory than peacefully in my deathbed. People who get on bikes know the risks, so why continue? I think everyone who rides is a bit suicidal, whether they realize it or not.

Hit a car at a fair rate of knots and live to tell about it, I can guarantee you will then think that is not the the way you want to go. It is horrendously violent and the worst part about it is that you have no control over the situation. I don't know about you but I hate that feeling.
I love riding fast and taking risks, but I would much rather die a less painful way.

[Pin_Cushion]

I love motorcycling because it has forced me to pursue a dangerous endeavor and accept the risk of death as real. Most people I talk to about this are clueless. They drive their cars and feel "safe." They seem to have no idea that a faulty brake pad, or something even more trivial like a sudden gust of wind, could create a chain of events that will kill them instantly. I believe I have grown a little in my own humanity because of this acceptance. I could hit a patch of sand in a turn, someone could cut me off too closely, or a tire could blow at a bad moment and I will die. Do I consider this as on par as a soldier staring death in the face every moment? Certainly not. I do, however, see it as an ounce of the reality that they are drowning in. It is both frightening and sobering, and reminds me that on this planet of 6 billion humans and trillions of life forms the premature extinguishing of a single man's life doesn't amount to much.

Death will come to us all. That is an absolute. There may be some that will not live to finish reading this post. It is simply a fact, and though my biological imperative to survive recoils at this knowledge, my rational mind accepts it as painfully obvious. I am not suicidal. Even so, discarding the notion that one can be "secure" against death has liberated me of the gnawing, paralyzing fear of it. Because of that I can now ride a motorcycle. It is a small victory, but one well worth celebrating.

[sapaul]

Why do I train so much?, because I am so NOT suicidal. Yes there are factors beyond my control but I am not going to spend all day worrying about them. I will minimise my risk as much as possible because I want to enjoy my motorcycling and have a firm belief that there are things that you can do to protect yourself. Wear the right gear, take courses, do track days, talk on forums. I have said before that, twice I have averted disasters by using counter steering of which I had no knowledge before I took the BMW acadamy course. Some people are naturally skillful, others, (like me) have to work hard to be good. We typically ride long rides and travel high average speeds. I want to know that I can do this without fear, the only way I can do this is to arm myself with as much knowledge as possible as to what can go wrong in order to avoid it. As for the romantic notion of buying it in a crash. STUFF THAT. I am in insurance and see this all the time, it is far from romantic or glorified, in fact the closed coffin funerals are often the saddest.

[BuzZz]

My main goal for the day when I wake up is to make it back to bed the next night, with as little pain as possible. I never actually do anything I am not pretty sure won't kill me. I don't want to die and tend to invest alot of effort into avoiding it, and some of that effort includes trying to hold the bike on the road and upright rather than ride into a wall.

But at the same time, the thought of being dead doesn't really bother me.... So I try to avoid dying, but when it comes, I can accept it(like you get a choice ).

[CajunBass]

I suppose I'm in the minority here, because I see a motorcycle as simply a means of transportation. Yes, I enjoy it, but it's just a way to get from here to there. Yes it's more dangerous than driving an automobile, but I don't have any desire to die in one of those either so I drive defensivly. I watch the other guy, and assume that he isn't watching me. I wear seat belts in the car, and I wear helmets and jackets, and gloves etc when on my bike. I don't run red lights, and I check to make sure no one else is before I pull into the intersection.

I don't think I'm any more careful on my bike than I am in my car, because I'm as careful as I can be in my car. I don't want to hit anything or even "get a rush." The more uneventful the ride/drive is, the better I like it.

[shane-o]

Ive been involved in a rather nasty head on as a pasenger in a car, and ive also felt the sting of being unhorsed from my machine, and I can tell you, I have absolutley no desire to die a bleeding mess on any road or in any car