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Honestly I don't know how anyone with kids justifies riding at all, especially if they have small children.

If I get creamed on my bike, my cat and 2 dogs will get taken care of by friends and family and barely be aware of my absense (they each probably have only a few more years to live anyway - the dogs are about 8 and the cat is 14).

But kids? A dad or mom gets creamed and it effects those kids for the rest of their lives. Just too risky. I guess that's what life insurance is for, but money doesn't fix everything.

Statistically more people get killed in cars. I know I know bikes are more dangerous, but what do you do give up living? give up going to the city cause its more dangerous than the country? send your kids to private school cuz its safer than public school? There are so many variables in this world, and so many things with inherant dangers , whats the alternative?, live like Howard Hughes?. My opinion is reduce the danger in whatever you are doing, but make sure you take time to dance before the songs over. Lifes to short to worry and there aint no guarantees.

Gee, thanks alot for making me feel so good FJ. By the way, would you like to buy a bike..


Hey, parents should give up golf as well. After all, how many people are killed each year by lightning strikes on golf courses. Parents shouldn't be law enforcement officers, or be in the military either. Or get pilots licenses. Or be Nascar drivers. Or....

I didn't mean it like that. I just don't know how people come to grips emotionally with the risk in that situation. My guess is that most don't. Or most don't have a problem with the potential to leave their kids and spouse alone with a fat check from the insurance company. I dunno, maybe I DID mean it like that.

John its real simple same as letting him swim in a lake, same as letting him ride a skateboard. I ride with my son on the back every chance I get. He is in the right equipment,
and when he gets to ride his own he will already know how to ride defensive.
You know life is full of reasons not to, I ride cause I choose too he rides with me because he wants too. But I DECIDE. It my be politically incorrect. Do I have people like my mom getting on me for it yup. But its my choice, and let me tell you something . I would not give up a moment we spent together on that bike.
The choice is mine, if someone does not like it well its none of there business

I guess I just have a fatalistic outlook on life. My thought is that when it's your time, it is your time, no avoiding it. A guy I knew aboard the sub I was on left the boat one morning while we were in port after being on duty. He made it about 35 feet from the gangway of the boat, and dropped dead from a heart defect. Never had any indication of it in any physicals, and hadn't had a particularly stressful duty night. Or any of the people who got on Flight 93 that day back on Sept. 11, they were doing the same routine thing that every one of us does from time to time, traveling by a "safe" method of transit to see family, business partners, etc... What were the odds that the terrorists would board THEIR plane out of all the planes that day. None of them was doing anything particularly risky that day, a simple domestic flight. Another friend was driving to work one day, when a girl in the oncoming traffic, on the other side of a 20 foot wide grass median, lost control, launched her car into the air, and took out my friend in her Explorer, a nice big safe vehicle (compared to the small Jetta the girl was driving) My friend was lucky she survived, but JUST barely. Another inch higher, and the car would have come through the drivers door window and probably decaptitated her. I guess that's how I justify it, although I will also admit that I have been having thoughts lately about selling the bike simply due to the stupidity I see each day on the road, with people doing everything BUT driving their cars, and thinking maybe, fatalistic view or not, it is simply getting too nuts out there any more. I can be as safe as I want, ride no more than 50mph, always wear full leathers, whatever, and some idiot trying to see just how much he can multitask with his cellphone, laptop and coffee is just going to cream me. Sucks that I should feel that maybe I have to give up my happiness because of other idiots, but that is the reality of the situation...

So with that logic people in the military shouldn't have kids,crab fishermen shouldn't have kids steel workers shouldn't have kids, and who the hell said you shouldn't sacrifice fun or freedom for any reason, not me , we are talking about riding a motorcycle. I've sacrificed every day since ive had my kids and I do take responsibility for them, but to say, no one with children is justified to ride is the real bs.

Do you know how many serious accidents happen in the home? Just inside! And, you can at least double that if you go out in the yard (garden UK). And, even hiding under the bed, all kinds of nasty things grow under there that can give you fatal deseases, especially if you never take the risk of crawling out to clean house.
Life is full of risks, might as well chose which ones you want to face and enjoy yourself doing it. Leave the kids safely locked up at home and, if they don't burn the house down, a block of blue ice might fall through the roof and get them anyway.
What if the founder of Triumph, or John Bloor for that matter, had been brought up to be afraid to take a risk?

no more working in mines, oil rigs, skyscrapers, high steel elec. towers, auto raceing, bull fighting,....how far do we go with this???? there needs to be a law, if you have a family you cant work most jobs, drive a car, fly in an airplane, or join the military!!!! ya see i have had this argument with someone very dear and close to me for many yrs. finally she caved and the disussion stopped. my father fell into that trap when mom was due with me and he NEVER sat on a bike again EVER!!! i think it was his way of letting mom know he didnt like what she had made him give up and i think that was a sore spot with him untill the day he died??? but he always had a little shine in his eye when i would pull up on a bike. he new i was sticking to my guns and i know he always had that little voice in his head that said "good for you son, dont make the same mistake i made" we are here to live and if rideing a bike gives you some kind of fullfillment that you would otherwise be missing then i think it is better than the alterntive??? i saw the alternitive in my house as a child and it wasnt pretty. i think he regretted that he let her decide what was best and when she got away with that, there was many more times he had to cave, he was never to happy and it took me alot of yrs to figure out why. i had just gotton my new T.B.A. just before he passed and as sick as he was he got outa that bed and came outside to look and i had him almost convinced he should set on her (i was trying to get him to go with me for a ride) and just about had him and mom popped her head out the door to anounce supper, his whole attitude changed. there are things in life we cant change and death is one of them, when its your turn, its your turn. weather your on a bike, in a car, at work or rideing in a bus. these days there are to many awfull things going on to live life afraid to live. whats important is that family and friends know that this is what you do for you, everything else you do for them but this is what i do for me,(keeps me sane) and that if i die rideing, i died doing what i enjoy most and that as much as i love them this is(was) important for my mental health and helped make me the man (or woman) that i am/was. i once had a friend that used to love rideing his bicycle, he would ride enduro and he would ride the street, he was very good, had alot of ribbons and trophy's for his off street rideing. one day after getting home from work, eating dinner, he grabbed his bike (as usuall) and went out for his evening ride, kissed his wife and daughter, said i wont be long tonight i have somethings i need to do around here before going to bed. That was the last time she saw him alive, a drunk driver ran a stop sign at about 50mph (so they figured) and killed him. so now what, we have to stop rideing our bicycles too???? his family misses him but his wife told me that he died doing something that he enjoyed very much and he died instantly. SHE UNDERSTOOD!!!!! i know its not the same but his brother has done a pretty good job at helping with the daughter. she just graduated high school this yr. and is joining the military.

I have children and thats why I ride!- you have to have a dream!

Greg,

I'm sorry but that's all just coincidence and superstition. It doesn't really address the issue of how does one accept not only the risk to themselves riding (as I do, obviously) but the risk to their families either directly (kid on the bike) or indirectly (widowed spouse and/or orphaned kids).

The following is not directed at you but I'm too lazy to type it in a separate message.

I'm more facinated with the psychology of it than (other) people's rantings and ravings about how they think I'm judging them or saying they're a bad parent or telling them they can't live and have fun.

I suppose I couldn't have really expected intellectual, well-thought out and well-reasoned conversation from this group. I should have known better. Wait, Chris started out very well reasoned then fell apart towards the end.

I'M GLAD YOU DIDN'T REPRODUCE!

You might want to put a smilie face somewhere in that message or I might get the mistaken impression you're trying to insult me.

I have a friend that's a mechanic in the national guard. been in for 18 years. He has children as well. A while back he was very sure he was safe from any of this war business. He's now in Iraq. I broke my ankle a few years back while riding an atv, well actually I was upside down in a ditch with the atv on top of me when I broke it. While discussing my dilema with the doctors and nurse's I threw out, well I guess you see a lot of folks from atv accidents. Yep we sure do. But we see more broken ankle's from people slipping down steps comming out of their houses. Same results just differnt methods. FJ I guess I dont have an intelligent debate for your question either. I would just say this. What does each of see as quality of life. If we try to live each day trying to be safe to the extent that we give up all that brings us joy, where is the quality of life. I would hate to leave my children fatherless. But if I give up riding who's to say on my next visit to the doctor he may just say. Sorry to have to tell you this but you only got a few weeks to live. How do you get around that one. We are all here just for a moment in time. May as well have a little fun. Besides there's alway's the next life. Hope to see you there.

Well John, there is risk management, just do what you can to reduce the risk to life and limb. Of course there are always the variables that are completely out of our control, that whole chaos theory thing. What I read most of the responses as saying is that there are no guarantees of safety no matter what one does to negate the risks. And I tend to agree.

Then there's the denial factor. No one goes out gets on a bike and thinks; "Well I think I'll go get killed today".

And another, people die. Always have. No one escapes. Some die before their time, and leave children behind. It's tough, but not the end of the world. This isn't just patronizing either. My wife’s father was a police officer in Chicago. He was killed in the line of duty when my wife was nine years old. She is the forth of five children. The oldest was fourteen and the youngest four. What happens is that the family and community step in and help. That's no replacement for a dead father, but it does help. My wife and her siblings became responsible adults, and her mother (who never remarried and is now eighty years old)) was able to survive also, Emotionally as well as physically, surviving a bout with cancer.
Bottom line; too many ways to get croaked to try and avoid them, it'll get you when you're not looking. The kids will survive.

I'm thinkin maybe FJ was actually asking how, not proclaiming that someone couldn't or shouldn't accept that risk. I have to agree with FJ that it's hard to ask a question around here and get a decent response without someone getting in a twist over it. (not specifically you Greg...)

FJ, am I getting your meaning?

I recently read something on this forum that stuck with me. I can only paraphrase it here.

"If you ride motorcyles often enough and long enough you'll get killed doing it. The trick is to be good enough and careful enough to put off that day until after you die of old age."

Yep Larry! That was in this month's letters section in "Cycle World".

And a better bit of advice, you'll never hear.

Cheers,
Dwight

Well. If YA have some rugrats ya need to wear ya a Full Coverage DOT approved helmet 24 seven 365. You can also wear a kevalar vest just in case you happen to go to the bank and some criminal shoots you in the chest. When taking a bath you might want to put one one of those funny looking rubber donut thingies just in case you risk drowning. Sell your sickle, buy a quarter horse and ride it instead (with a helmet of course) and chaps. Horses are dangerouse too but for the most part you dont go bery fast!

Dont drink to excess (not more than two alcoholic drinks a night in the privacy of your own home.) Avoid eating too much sugar and carbohydrates and trans fats.

Exercise for at least an hour every day. Dont Drive, ride, step on cracks , or go out in thunderstorms.

If possible do not leave home at all. Just exercise, work at home, eat right, get plenty of sleep , drink plenty of water. Say your prayers if you are a believer. Take your vitamin C supplements.

See a therapist if you feel uneasy. Abide by these rules and live as long as you can. Watch Deepak Chopra videos and take up yoga.

But whatever you do ....DO NOT RIDE anything! (except the quarter horse)

And DONT FORGET THAT DOT APPROVED helmet. If someone laughs at you when you wear it on the bus or subway....screw em. At least you are safe.

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Honestly I don't know how anyone with kids justifies riding at all, especially if they have small children.

If I get creamed on my bike, my cat and 2 dogs will get taken care of by friends and family and barely be aware of my absense (they each probably have only a few more years to live anyway - the dogs are about 8 and the cat is 14).

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FJ....
Would not that same bunch of friends and family look after your children? You have singled out children as the number one reason for not riding. What about one's parents, thier spouses... using your logic how does one justify riding as long as they are all alive. You asked for an intelligent debate but accept what has been said as much dribble because no one has agreed with you. It's called life dude, you die... everybody dies. Along with the oh so many instances you have been given there are tens of thousands of more ways that will do you in. How does that chain-smoking obese mother deal with herself everyday knowing she prolly won't see her kids graduate from grammar school... wait maybe she doesn't have to deal with it because she is in denial. Maybe that's it, we are all in denial.
Where do you draw the line? What becomes an acceptable risk to you may be considered the exact opposite by another. If you wanted an intelligent debate concerning your view you happened to ask it in the wrong place....not cause it's full of idiots as you alluded to but because it's filled with motorcyclists. Perhaps you could have more responses similiar to your beliefs at www.motorcyclistswithnonextofkinornothingtolivefor.com


oh here, it's the winky, smiley face so you know I'm not annoyed.


Steve

I think there would be nothing more horrible than to be on your deathbed and saying to yourself "Gee, I sure wish I would have..." I have a daughter and I ride. FJ, I think you are just scared of having kids and are using riding as an excuse. Too bad, you are missing out on something amazing. I find being a Daddy to be the best thing in the world.

That's certainly an unexpected response. I'm 39. I've been riding for 4 years. I think it's safe to say that the reason I have no kids has nothing to do with motorcycles.

The problem I'm finding with some of these replies is not that they're not without merit, but that they deal only in absolutes. I would never suggest that someone never ride during their entire lifetime because they had/have kids. I'm not even really suggesting that people with kids right now shouldn't ride. My very poorly stated original question/musing/pondering was more about how risk entered into the equation.

It's clear that some people give up riding while raising a family or pursuing a career and return to riding later in life. Still some weigh the options and do their best to wear the proper gear, take safety courses and attempt to mitigate the risk. Lastly, there are people who are completely oblivious to it. The latter category contains people like Gov. Arnold and that football player that just got creamed this week. These doofuses don't even bother to get licensed they are so clueless. Of course, these three categories are not absolutes either - there are inifinite variations between them.

Post deleted by Grump

Well John here is the thing. 12 years ago I gave up riding (read was guilted into) because I had a son. The old line, we want you here to see your son grow up.It was the first time I didnt have two wheels in my life. You learn to live with out it. But I have to tell you everytime I heard a bike ride by my head would go up and I just sigh.
I dont want to be 80 years old and look back and say "I never should of sold that bike". Im 46 years old, my brothers son came home to him dead on the floor from a heart attack, he was 50.
And you know what My brother always played it safe after he had his family.
Can I get killed on a motorcycle, sure.
With the family history of the men in my family I could die a few other ways too
But the one thing Im going to do is enjoy what time I have on this earth. if thats a month a year or 40.
Life is what it is, you try to live it.
Look I am a very lucky guy, I have a wife who loves me
a son who is just something special and I ride every chance I can
and thats a rant without the rant

I think the whole idea here is a bit overblown. (see sarcastic earlier post). Thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines go forth each day and "play" at war as well as actually going to it. Lots of em are married and have children.

No guarantees in life. Riding a motorcycle is a hazard but probably not as much of a hazard as bding in Iraq or Afghanistan or participating in training exercises stateside that can and do get GIs killed. And they are all volunteers who are given equal opportunity in terms of being made knowledgeable of the hazards. That does not stop them from having a family.

Just ride and try to be the best safest rider you can according to the laws and regulations of your state.

This is one of those debates (?) that could go on forever, nobody is going to change anybody else's mind. I ride with full face always, jacket most of the time, and well within my capabilities. I avoid Fri. and Sat. night traffic in town, prefer country roads to city. Was without a bike while raising 2 set of kids. Riding is risky, but it has added a whole new dimension to my life.

Yeah but I think all of the military folks weigh that in their mind forst before they join up. It's not the fact that there is risk in what they do, it's how they accept that risk and do it.

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I'm sorry but that's all just coincidence and superstition.

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OK, perhaps FJ. When I had my accident 2 years ago, it was through no fault of my own, the guy in the other car simply pulled into my lane with no warning, and I was against a concrete median strip and oncoming traffic, so no amount of skill would have helped. I was lucky that it was only a broken collarbone, a little different fall and it could have been a broken neck. When I was in the Navy, a buddy was fooling with his .45 one late night on midwatch in the torpedo room, and discharged a round, which ricocheted several times, and then landed exactly halfway between my chest and a 1100lb (that's 1100lbs of high explosive!) Torpedo warhead. 3 inches one way or another, and it could have been disasterous. Neither incident had anything to do with me taking actions to avoid risk or planning anything. Nothing I could have done either time would have changed the events. I guess I look at it this way, and maybe it's selfish, but it is my life as well as my family's:
I get one shot at life, there are no rewinds or redo's. I do not want to wait until retirement before I start enjoying life, because you know what, I might not make it. I might have a heart attack, I might succumb to diabetes like my grandfather, or Parkinsons like my grandmother, or heart disease like my other grandfather. I take care of my family, but I also deserve to enjoy some part of life. I take all necessary precautions, but I cannot prevent the stupidity of others. Or simply fate. A guy was driving to work near here a year ago in rain, and hydroplaned, hit a tanker truck, and was decapitated. Yes, it could be argued that he was traveling "too fast for conditions" but I'd be willing to bet he was traveling no faster or slower than prevailing traffic. He was wearing his seatbelt however, so he had taken precautions, but those precautions did not help. If that is not "fate" then what is it?

And no, I understand your question and don't take it as a judgement of my parenting. Even without the motorcycle I wonder sometimes if I'm not doing something to screw up my kids...

I ride. That's what I do, what I've always done. I've done other things that I really enjoyed, but those are gone now for various reasons, mostly the doings of others. Truth is, riding is about all that is left that I really enjoy. When that's gone, all there will be is to find some amusement to occupy my time while I wait my turn to die. Now yes, there have been a few times when I briefly thought about whether I should really be doing this, but such thoughts were quickly dismissed when I thought about the alternatives.
So, everyone who has doubts should stop and think about this. Fast forward to maybe 40 years hence. Imagine yourself scrolling around Google Maps in satelite view mode looking at the places you've been or wanted to go, and suddenly realizing that these places are gone now. Will that bother you? Will you wish you had hopped on the bike and gone to some old familiar place one more time? Or gone on that trip you dreamed of before you gave it up? If that thought doesn't bother you, then maybe you are not the sort who will be sorry later. As for me, I know my kind and know that I would be bloody miserable to stop riding, then one day realise it is too bloody late to go back.

I have seen posts that fairly well explain the concept, but I'd like to add that I've taught my kids by example. How to drive, treat others, be honest, and among other things, live life. Take chances, have adventures, enjoy the moments while you can. I'd hate to see them die in an accident, but I'd like it even less to see them live a long, miserable life playing it all way to cautious. There is a balance in everything we do, just watch out for the extremes. Awwww, but what the heck do I know?

later, Tom.

FJ....You are 39 and have no kids? I was 46 when I married. I never wanted to make babies as there seems to be enough unwanted ones in this world. I married my wife and she already had 3 boys. They had no father. I raised them from 9 years (the oldest) and they are now all grown young men.I have been riding motorcycles for more than 40 years and throught out raising those boys, I never considered Not Riding.
I have done many things to earn a living that are far more dangerous than riding a motorcycle. The truth be known, I believe that an experienced aware rider is safer riding than most cage drivers are driving.The world is determined to kill each and every one of us in it's own time.That is no excuse to hide under the covers waiting for the grim reaper to come for us.Two of my boys and my wife ride now. I worry about them. But I am not going to deny them what has brought me so much pleasure in this life just because of my fears for them.I am sure my momma woried over me, but she did not stop me. She was a biker as a girl in England growing up before WW2. I have the pictures to prove it. At 79 she was riding passenger on the back of my bike. She died in her 79th year of Parkinsons.
I could have been a gangbanger performing drive by's.I ride motorcycles instead.

Well boys and girls, if we want to talk Statistics here, then rest assured that in the grand scheme of things, the fact that any ONE of us is alive is an astronomical miracle.

Think about it: In order for me - as an example - to be writing this post, I had to have had a successful operation at the age of 7 to fix an exploded appendix. At that time, the doctors gave my parents a 50/50 chance of success. If I'd been born some 20 years earlier, I'd have died.

So, if any of you has had a life-threatening illness or injury that you recovered from, think what might have happened if you'd been born fifty years earlier. How may of us wouldn't be here? Medical science is currently at a level where the majority of us would probably have died years ago without it!

And spinning that Darwinian roulette wheel even further back into the past, in order for any of us to be here right now, our parents had to not die. Sounds simple, but in truth, being dead is much easier to achieve and much more likely than being alive. If you want to get really existential about this, there's a pretty good argument that being alive is something of an abnormality in this crazy old universe (Douglas Adams did a great take on this in "The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy, which I won't butcher by repeating but urge you to check into the first book, first chapter.)

And keep going backwards. If your ancestors had been alive and well in South America in the 1500's, they were lukcy not to have died in the 1600's after the Spaniards arrived with diseases in tow. If they were living in Europe in the early 1300's, there's a one in ten chance they'd have died of the Black Death by the late 1300s.

Keep going back...

Any relatives from the Roman Empire circa 165 AD? Well, fortunately they lived through the Antonine Smallpox epidemic that helped almost 5 million folks shuffle off their mortal coils.

And all these pale into insignificance next to the chances your ancestors had of being clubbed, stabbed, chopped, burned, diced, sliced, or gassed in numerous wars - whether as a soldier or civilian.

So when you tot up all the probabilites that you, or your ancestors, would join the choir invisible, it is nothing short of miraculous that you're here at all!

Gee, and who said riding a motorcycle was dangerous?

Siggy

My friends and family keep trying to say that I'll fall in love and get married (as if those two things are related), "When I least expect it." Yeah, well, the whole falling in love, getting married and having kids things is pretty much missing one important ingredient: a willing egg donor. Actually my situation we're missing a willing sperm donor, too.

Be careful what you wish for Johnny boy! I was 39 four years ago, just ambling along minding my own business.. wham! Now have two children under 3..!! And what's more, I only took up biking last summer and I'm now roaring round London's rush hour traffic on my black Speedy (and loving it). How dumb am I?
Everyone has their personal risk thresh-hold. My personal experience is influenced by the following:
In 2002 I was in Istanbul, Turkey, on business. On a sunny Thursday morning was in a glass walled conference room on the third floor overlooking a busy road. Some dipwad 20 year-old Anatolian farmer decided his quickest way to heaven and 40 virgins was to drive a truck loaded with 17tons of ammonium nitrate fertiliser mixed with diesel into the building I was sitting in and detonate it. My son would have been a 3 month old orphan but for a concrete balustrade that diverted most of the blast over our heads and into the ceiling.
When you've been in a situation like that and got out without a scratch you have a different perspective on risk.
One of the reasons I started biking? In July last year some more brainwashed dipwads decided to take out three tube (underground) trains and a bus and a hundred and something people with them. Now statistically I'm far more likely to be taken out biking than I am in a terrorist bomb attack, but once bitten twice shy so to speak.. I'll take my chances!
Having said that, I try and tweak the odds as much as I can, ATGATT, and never over 100mph in a 30mph zone .