I work in rehab and the motocycle patients are always the worst off. Lucky for me I rarely get to work with them because they usually don't make it to the rehab side :(
How many of the people you see were riding in full gear and were sober at the time of the crash?
I've done most of my riding in no-helmet-law states, and most people think I'm crazy as an ATGATT rider. I think they're crazy as shorts-and-tshirt riders.
Digging into motorcycle crash stats, my general impression is that a helmet keeps you alive, gear keeps you intact, and being sober helps your chances on a motorcycle very substantially, as does riding regularly (daily) and taking regular recurrent training.
At one point in my life, I was riding at least 35 miles a day during the week, and hundreds of miles most weekends. I
averaged 1300 miles/month on my motorcycle since I bought it (I knew people who rode more, but they had more motorcycles). Two high-average-miles awards at Buell rallies. :)
If you're riding that much, there's an edge one gets. I'd say 99.9% of riders don't even know that exists, because you won't get it unless you ride a ton. If I hadn't ridden on a three day weekend for whatever reason, I could tell on Monday morning that the edge was a bit dull, like I'd dragged sandpaper over it. It took a day or two to get back. And, at some point, after you've been riding a lot in an area, traffic stops surprising you. You learn how to identify the aggressive drivers half a mile away. You learn that certain years of Mustang have huge blind spots (I learned they would drive like I wasn't in a trailing position the next lane over long before I drove one and realized that they have a huge blind spot).
I don't have that anymore. Not even close. :/ But I know it's there.
The riders most likely to get into crashes, statistically, seem to be middle aged men riding a few hundred miles a year with no gear to bike nights at bars. I hate to stereotype, but the accident stats back that up.
So, uh, don't be that guy or girl. :)
Right? We are so super stoked to teach our boy/girl to ride! A few years out yet, but I fully expect them to have waxed chains before they learn to walk.
Lol chains. ;) Sorry. I love my belt drives and shaft drives.
My Dad's rule was that if you wanted a bike and wanted to ride you'll be the one fixing it. So that also meant learning MC repairs. One of my first jobs at 16 was working at a MC shop. Very fun! I was also the only 16 y.o. girl with her own van so I could haul my bike. I was quite popular with all the teenage boys for that reason (van!) alone ;-).
I intend to teach my daughter along this route. You ride it, you work on it. Plus, if by the time she's 12 or so she can outride and outshoot most of the boys, that's worth a few years of intimidation without me having to do anything. :D