10 Rules to Stay Alive on a Motorcycle
Loud pipes don’t save lives—smart riding does.
It’s been almost 100,000 miles since I began motorcycling in 2006, and I haven’t had a bad accident yet. And I’m not gonna knock on wood because that won’t help me stay alive. Could something happen? Sure—stuff happens to everyone sooner or later. But I know the right mindset and a series of defensive habits have gone a long way toward keeping me safe, so I’ll share them. They’re loosely prioritized but all important. Feel free to recommend these to motorcyclists you know.
1. THE MINDSET: Always Assume Everyone and Everything is Out to Kill You.
It might seem like riding would be a drag if you think like this, but it’s not. You can make this your default mindset and still have a blast riding.
Example: That person ahead of you getting ready to turn onto the same road? Assume they don’t see you and will pull out just as you pass them.
Example: Riding through wooded areas around dawn or dusk? Assume that there are deer, and that they will leap from the woods just as you’re riding past them.
Example: On a 2-lane undivided road, assume that every car passing you going the other way will cross the centerline into your lane. (Always have an escape plan in mind.)
2. STAY FOCUSED.
Anytime you ride, you’ve got to be hyper-aware of your surroundings—every second, every minute, every hour. Riding a motorcycle is like flying a fighter jet—you can’t let your attention wander. If it does, slap yourself back to full focus immediately. You must constantly scan the picture ahead—the road, the terrain, the woods, other vehicles, anything that moves, anything that even remotely might be a hazard. In short, you’ve got to be a Terminator out there, scanning ahead like a ruthless cyborg. Nothing should ever surprise you or catch you off-guard.
3. Never Trust Your Tires’ Grip—Except On Clean, Dry Pavement
If you’re riding on clean, dry pavement, your tires (assuming they still have a decent amount of tread left) will grip the road—lean away in corners and have fun. On anything else, never trust your contact patches. Assume your tires will break free from the surface beneath them—and be ready for it. Examples of when you should expect loss of traction are…
• Dirt and gravel in the road
• Wet roads
• Bumpy, beat-up, asphalt-patched roads
• Chip-and-seal roads (sometimes called oil-and-chips)
• Random sticks in the road
• Roadkill (especially when guts are splattered and spread)
• Those large, fluorescent markers on city streets (the ones that indicate crosswalks, stops, etc.)
• Anything metal in the road (like manholes and expansion joints)
Also: never trust cold tires. In cold weather, you’ve got to give them time to warm up before they’ll stick.
4. Avoid Heavy Traffic Like the Plague
This is a big one: lots of other people in vehicles are very, very dangerous. Just don’t ride in heavy urban/suburban areas, period. (Or at least only do it if you absolutely have to.) You couldn’t pay me enough to commute by motorcycle into a big city like Washington, D.C. if I lived 30 miles out in the ‘burbs. No way. Contrary to popular belief, remote, empty, 2-lane country roads are the safest place you could possibly ride.
5. ATGATT: All The Gear, All The Time
Many motorcyclists make fun of riders who wear full gear all the time, which is idiotic. And people who ride without helmets are morons with a deathwish (seriously—you might as well play Russian Roulette every day). Good gear will save your life in an accident—and good gear doesn’t mean jeans and that cool leather vest (though that’s better than nothing). It means serious ballistics, with armor at your shoulders, elbows, and knees. It means real riding gloves, sturdy boots/shoes, and a full-face helmet (not a cereal bowl). It’s a pain, especially when it’s hot, but if you don’t want to experience being flayed alive against asphalt or turned into the mental equivalent of a slug, you gotta do it.
6. Don’t Ride in Large Groups—Especially Unfamiliar Ones
It might sound fun to ride with a bunch of like-minded people, but it’s dangerous. When you ride, you’ve got to be 100% focused on the road and every potential hazard. Riding in a pack drains that focus—you have to worry about everyone else too, and that’s bad. (The chance of someone f-ing up goes way up when you’re in a group.) You’re far safer on your own—or with a few trusted companions. The most highly-skilled riders I know generally ride alone or in very small groups (and they never ride in the middle of the group).
7. Don’t Ride in the Dark
There are way too many critters crossing the road, drunks who shouldn’t be driving, and you can’t see as far—I don’t care how good your headlights are. And riding in the dark makes rule #2 (staying focused) a lot harder. If you ever have to ride in the dark, take it easy—make sure your braking distance (see #9 below) is no farther than your headlights can reach.
8. Don’t Drink and Ride
Enough said. Just don’t do it if you want to live.
9. Bad Things Become Much Worse the Faster You Go
Part A: Always remember basic physics: the faster you ride, the force with which you’ll hit another object goes up as speed increases. There is a big difference between hitting a tree at 40mph and 60mph—possibly the difference between life and death.
Part B: Also remember the faster you go, the farther you’ll go in the time it takes you to react to a hazard. (The flip side: the time you have to react decreases exponentially with speed.) At 60mph, you travel almost 100 feet in a second, which is how long it will take you to react. Go out and look at 100 feet sometime. It’s a long way.
10. Maintain Your Bike
You’re already vulnerable enough—don’t take chances on a chain breaking or a tire blowout. (The result can be catastrophic.) And don’t forget all that other stuff like worn clutch cables, squared-off, bald tires, low brake fluid, etc. Your bike is your lifeline—treat it that way.
That’s it. Live (and ride) by all these rules, and there is an extremely high probability you’ll ride happily for years.
2016 UPDATE: I continue to ride every single day (I commute to work by motorcycle). And I’ve still avoided ever having a single serious incident by sticking to the rules above.
The one very minor incident I had was a result of not paying attention to rule #3: never trust cold tires. It was a 34-degree day in winter, and I was riding through residential neighborhoods on my way to work. I made a right turn without slowing down for the turn (I was only going about 15mph). My tires neatly slipped right out from under me as I leaned, and I went down on the pavement, sliding to a gentle stop by the curb.
Thankfully, the only thing hurt was my right-front turn signal and some scratches on the plastic body of the bike. But it definitely made me very wary of cold tires, and I take it very easy in turns until I’m sure my tires are warmed-up.
