Before Taking Your Motorcycle Out For A Spin, Make Sure You Have These
Motorcycles tend to be an emotional subject for those who truly like them. They elicit an even more emotional response than cars tend to and often become part of a lifestyle, not just a tool to get from A to B. However, you can’t allow that emotional investment to get in the way of keeping the roads safe for you and other drivers. If you want to take your motorcycle out, make sure you’re taking responsibility too.
Knowledge of the conditions
Road conditions will always play a huge role in the safety of any drive. With the delicate balance of weight and speed involved in keeping a motorcycle upright, poor road conditions are even more dangerous than ever. If possible, avoiding riding when it’s windy, wet, or roads are slick with ice. If you can’t, know how to adapt to the situation. When surfaces are slippery, for instance, slow down, ensure you’re using both brakes instead of just the front and avoid any sharp turns or sudden movements.
An awareness of the road
The burden of sharing the road should, by most reasoning, fall to those least at risk. However, that’s not the case so you have to be a lot more aware of conditions around yourself than other drivers. You are harder to spot on the road, easily fitting into the blind spots of cars, vans, and trucks. Learning defensive driving and always maintaining a safe distance from other vehicles is crucial to avoiding a motorcycle accident. You can’t tell how responsible for your safety that other drivers are going to be. Yet road accidents are statistically much more injurious for motorcycle riders than drivers and passengers of other vehicles.
Dress for the ride, not the slide
For that reason, you should never ride without the equipment that can increase your chances of avoiding serious injury. Some question the effectiveness of helmets in reducing an impact. However, their benefits in mitigating the injuries involved in a slide are well known. Most motorcycle accidents don’t injure via impact primarily. It’s the slide across the road that leads to severe road rash, which can go on to lead to complications like infections and surface nerve damage. Many motorcycle clothing engineers are even creating air bag clothing that can in some cases reduce the impact of a crash.
Better safety features
Safety tech in automobiles is always improving and that is also the case for motorcycles. These are some of the few features truly worth paying more for. They include LED lights on the car that improve their visibility on the road to other drivers and new stability control systems. One of the most important is the rise of system monitoring diagnostics that keep you aware of changes in suspension, tire pressure and more, keeping you aware of when your bike’s condition might be endangering the ride.
Only when you’re physically and mentally equipped are you ready to take your motorcycle out on the road. Don’t forget that you’re at more risk than other drivers out there so there’s no benefit to being unprepared.
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