Any motorcycle enthusiasts here?
I received this via email earlier today as have been thinking about them...
(I don't personally know this person.)
I just wanted to let everyone know that we did find my brother this afternoon and unfortunately the news was not what we wanted. He [died] Friday night. He was in a motorcycle crash and hit a tree. It took so long to find him because he was so far from the road side no one could see him. He leaves behind 3 children ages 5, 3 and 2. And he will be greatly missed.
What do you suppose are the primary motivations in wanting to ride a motorcycle? The fuel efficiency is appealing, but I doubt many would buy them on that reason alone.
Do you think there is anything sinful about riding a motorcycle due to the danger involved? If this young man had been driving a car, he wouldn't have been missing for over 24 hours (we're not in the mountains or anything here) and might have received life-saving help.
Well.. I'm old enough to drive but my mother would probably never let me drive a motorcycle for obvious reasons. :farmer:
At the same time, I love the idea of having a bike and riding it (particularly a sports bike). I mean, think about it. Riding a motorcycle is incredibly exhilarating. (PIO.. I don't see why riding for the thrill of it is bad.. Since when are Catholics not allowed to be thrilled by
anything that's not related to religion :reporter:?)
I don't see why there would be anything sinful about riding a bike. Just because it's dangerous doesn't necessarily mean that it's sinful to ride a bike. After all, bench pressing 500 pounds over your body is very dangerous, but no one says that's particularly sinful. As long as you're being careful and not trying to kill yourself or recklessly putting others in danger, I don't think it would be a sin.
Obviously doing this has to be sinful:
Even if he's a good driver, who cares? What he's doing is blatantly dangerous, illegal and stupid. His back end is also sliding out a lot..
If you rode a sportsbike on the road and acted as though you were invisible (don't think people in cars won't do something stupid at any point in time. Always assume you're invisible to everyone even if you're wearing high vis. gear) and got into the frame of mind that everything and everyone were trying to kill you, I think you could really decrease the risk of you getting into an accident. Riding with good gear greatly decreases the risk of you getting badly bruised up if you don't die in an accident. I wouldn't want the skin on my legs to peel off if an accident sent me flying. Etc.
If you read the statistics on bike deaths, you'll see that a good chunk of them die from speeding, not wearing a helmet, trying to do tricks on the bike and all kinds of stupid things like that. Not doing things like that increase your survival chances.