Racer-turned-libertarian-writer Harvey Mushman returns, with his thoughts on motorcycle safety. Remember, these are his opinions, which do not necessarily reflect ADVrider staff as a whole.

我已经阅读了很多关于本月安全。To be honest with you, I am becoming more concerned than bemused. For one thing, safety is not something that just happens. Usually, it is the result of a lot of unsafe actions. War, for example. For another, safety is only marginally desirable. In Britain, people are more interested in letting the dogs out every now and then than in being altogether safe. I do understand that a lot of people in other countries, many of them citizens of the United States, are very keen on safety. I presume this is the result of living in an environment they consider unsafe. One wonders why they do not change it.

Possibly this also explains why Americans are often so painfully respectful of the police. People, police are on the side of the system. Don’t think they’re responsible to you because you pay them. You don’t—The Man pays them, with funds extorted from you. Oh, you do not think they are extorted? Try not paying your taxes and see what happens. The police only keep you safe as long as it suits the system.

The simple desire for safety also suits the system. “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” That’s according to H. L. Mencken.

Why do I say that safety is only marginally desirable? Because human beings are not meant to be safe. There is a saying by Professor John Augustus Shedd, that: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” Not quite right: a ship is intended to return safely to harbor, after all. But that is usually at the end of those unsafe actions I mention above. Safety, rather like respect, is achieved not given.

Have you ever seen one of those pathetic signs that says: “Safety isn’t the first thing; it is the only thing”? And have you recognized it for the nonsense it is? Safety is not even the first thing for a child growing up. Experience is. Keep a child too safe, and it will not learn to deal with reality. Safety is not the only thing for a business, either. Profit is. If a business focuses primarily on safety, it will go broke.

Instead of being one of the states of existence, achieved at some cost and enjoyed within limits, safety has become a shibboleth of those who are too afraid to achieve safety by taking chances, and want it given to them instead. These are the people who do not want you to ride a motorcycleeven if you do the training.

They are right. No matter how much training and experience you have, you are not 100 percent safe while riding a motorcycle. Sounds scary, if you think most accidents involving injury occur on the road. However, data from the US’s National Safety Council (NSC) indicate this is not the case. In fact, traffic accidents are the third-leading cause of injuries. First are accidents at home (53.6 percent), with accidents in public spaces (27.5 percent) second.

“As a matter of fact,” says the NSC, “the most dangerous room in your house is your bathroom. While the kitchen poses some threats for injury, the bathroom is where injuries happen the most.” Non-work-related traffic accidents “account for all of 9.3 percent of hospitalizations and doctor’s visits for diagnosis and treatment of traumatic injuries.”

The NSC does admit that traffic accidents “account for nearly a quarter (22.5 percent) of traumatic fatalities. Some of the leading causes of auto accidents include: Driving while texting, talking on the phone or using social media; driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs; following too closely and weaving through traffic; merging and lane-change errors (including failure to yield); speeding and reckless driving; running red lights and stop signs.”

Which means, very simply, that yes, motorcycling is dangerous. If you look at that list of causes you will see that all of them have the potential to hurt motorcyclists even if they themselves are not engaged upon them. But riding your motorcycle is still not as dangerous as going to the bathroom.

Human beings need danger in order to learn to overcome it. Without danger one cannot achieve, but above all appreciate, safety. In the words of Sir Winston Churchill: “One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.”

Here is Benjamin Franklin’s take: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Yes, motorcycling is dangerous. No, it is not as dangerous as you might think. And even the danger it does pose can be therapeutic. Finally, safety is not what it is cracked up to be.