From: randy@megatek.com (Randy Davis)
Subject: Re: Harley Fashionable == Deaths
Reply-To: randy@megatek.com
Organization: Megatek Corporation, San Diego, California
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 20:37:59 GMT

In article <LOTTO.92Oct7085723@laura.harvard.edu> lotto@laura.harvard.edu (Jerry Lotto) writes:
|>>>>> On 6 Oct 92 21:01:58 GMT, randy@megatek.com (Randy Davis) said:
|Randy>   I'll take that bet.  The stats show that the death rate for HD is
|Randy> higher for miles traveled by each type of bike...
|
|This is a very interesting statistic, especially because it
|contradicts most other data that I am familiar with.  Could you please
|cite your source in a way that I can attempt to retrieve it?

  Nope, I made it up.  Just to bug Jim Groh (which it sure seems to have
done:-).  [Thanks for noticing, Jim, and I apologize if I raised your blood
pressure any].  Pretty much just to counter the overgeneralization made by the 
poster I responded to about "crotch rockets", and spark some thinking in this
generally thoughtless medium.

  Stats can be made to say anything you want, as I am sure we are all aware
of.  Personal experience, friends that are (were) cops and a girlfriend and
other friends that work at hospital trauma rooms that are aware of bikes tend
to feel that Harley's are over-represented in the larger bike accidents that
they end up working on (when they are aware of the bike that was involved).
But then, this is of course biased by me, and I do NOT submit it as data, just
a viewpoint.  By far, the highest percentage of motorcycle trauma's they deal
with are alcohol related (on the part of the motorcycle rider).

|The Hurt study showed that large displacement motorcycles were
|underrepresented in accident data, presumably because they tend to be
|more visually conspicuous.  They were also overrepresented in injury
|data, apparently because of the greater mass and the fact that there
|are lots more sharp or protruding parts.  The precrash mean speed
|was not significantly different for these different categories.

  Exactly.  Same as I've read.  Which is why I decided to kick in something to
get people thinking about the crotch-rocket == higher accident rate
generalization.  If crotch-rockets are taken to mean just the 600 and 750 cc
sport bike class, then perhaps that is true, but it is NOT true when taking
the liter-class sport-bikes into account.  JUST like the Harley class, the
liter bike class is more likely to have older riders (that can afford the
higher price of the bike).

|I have read many documents on motorcycle accident and injury
|statistics.  Some (especially those funded by the insurance industry
|for support of a specific policy or bill) are pure bunk and are often
|easy to dismiss on procedural bias or statistical misrepresentation.

  AAAAAAmen...

|Others are perfectly valid studies that reveal some anomoly - local,
|seasonal, political, etc.  Or maybe you are onto something here.
|Without additional information, I have been unable to find anything to
|support your claim.

  Well, I *do* tend to personally think that a Harley is more dangerous in
traffic than a more nimble (read: lighter, better handling) bike.  PERSONAL
opinion, OK??  I've ridden a number of Harley's and, AT LEAST I have that
experience behind me that a number of Harley riders cannot say the same for
my bike (including, obviously, Ed C.).

Randy Davis                            Email: randy@megatek.com
ZX-11 #00072 Pilot                            megatek!randy@uunet.uu.net
DoD #0013                                     ucsd!megatek!randy

Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles