[Jeff Higgins]

I have been riding street bikes since 1976. I've averaged somewhere between15,000 and 20,000 miles per year, usually split between at least two bikes. I quit really keeping track of mileage quite a few years and a couple of bikes ago, when I crossed the half million mile threshold. I have been hit by other vehicles twice, and have crashed all on my own twice. Only one collision resulted in a hospital trip, about three and a half years ago when my wife and I were on our Road King and got hit head on by a left turning pickup truck. That's as close as a real disaster as I have ever come.

I kinda take it with a grain of salt when a guy says he's been riding for 30, or 40, or however many years and has never crashed. Maybe they have owned motorcycles that long, but ownership and riding are two different things. Plenty of guys have "ridden" (translate: "owned") bikes for 30 years and have not logged their first ten thousand miles on a motorcycle of any kind. They don't count when we are trying to compile statistics like this.

It is a "dangerous" sport. No getting around that. We can do things to mitigate the danger, to lessen injury when it does happen, but we do kind of have to accept it will happen, if we ride long enough. Dress for the fall, not the ride, stay alert, don't be stupid - and may The Force be with you...