Motorcycles are not as dangerous as people think. What they are is unforgiving of mistakes.
My opinion is that the crash and fatality statistics are heavily inflated by the fact that risky people are drawn to motorcycles, and the evidence backs me up on that somewhat. Studies like the Hurt Report and subsequent NHTSA studies on fatal crashes show some absolutely baffling things, like over 20% of all fatal crashes involving unlicensed riders and almost 40% involving alcohol consumption in some way. Hell, in a shocking amount of US states, helmets are not required and every time I’m in one of those states I see people riding around on the interstate without any head protection. Absolutely terrifying and an incredibly stupid thing to do. I never ride without a full-face helmet personally.
There are plenty of ways to mitigate risk but most of the riders who die in crashes don’t do them.
It is a bit sad that reviewing takes a long time. I have had the same thing for a project, someone on the team pings someone to do a review, 2 years later you get a review saying you should rebase because the PR is too old. I get why; it takes people and time to review. It is sad though.
Motorcycle emissions standards are incredibly lax by today's standards when compared to cars. That Prius just might be releasing less toxic substances than your motorcycle - while being able to cart around more people and stuff.
That Prius, just by being manufactured, had an incredibly toxic environmental impact that it would take a motorcycle hundreds of thousands of miles to equal. Lithium battery manufacture is hell on the environment.
Oil processing is definitely bad for the environment, but think for a moment about the scales. Just in raw materials, ignoring the massive impact of battery manufacture alone, the average motorcycle weighs less than 600 pounds. The Prius weighs about six times that. That means six times the amount of shipping, forming, refining, finishing, et cetera…
The Prius still has an internal combustion engine that burns gasoline, and requires a significant amount of rare-earth minerals for the construction of its catalytic converter. Most motorcycles now have catalytic converters, but they are smaller and thus the environment suffers less damage per vehicle.
I agree that a Prius will burn cleaner while running than probably any motorcycle – but the total amount of damage done just by being built has to be a whole lot more than almost any motorcycle and it can’t be close.
This is very true, even newer bikes that have more modern emissions are still generally exempt from the same standards as any car.
That being said if you have a high traffic commute it would still be faster for you to use a bike as well as better for everyone else in traffic so pros and cons.
Fortnine has a video that touches on the emissions/trying to be green and riding a motorcycle. The fact is most bikes not made within the last 10 years (and some that are) are carbureted and have little if any emissions control. Sure that Yamaha vstar250 might get 80mpg but that has more to do with having a smaller engine than a lawnmower than it does any modern engineering.
E-motorcycles really are best of both worlds. Small, mobile, and more energy efficient. Plus high torque means it feels powerful. They were available on market several years ago - I remember seeing a Wired piece on one.
They’re very cool but the problem is aero. To build an ev-bike that’s fast enough to be a motorcycle you run into a lot of drag. Ebikes that still go pretty fast but still technically are a bicycle fit this gap nicely.
Another issue is price though. To do my current commute via electric motorcycle id probably need to buy the HD Live Wire Del Mar, which if I remember correctly is about 17k. Do you know what else was 17k? My electric Fiat 500e which is what I generally use to do my commute. On the other end of the scale is pricing for ebikes which isn’t that bad and does start around the 500-800 but can easily get into the tens of thousands of dollars for some very high end options.
While I see there’s a lot of people here that disagree with me on motorcycles being just fine for commuting, it’s important to recognize that not every task needs a car. Motorcycles are not the cleanest way to get around but they do overall have less impact. Sure you can off-road in a Cadillac Escalade, but how much will that tear the trail up compared to my 450lb klr650? You might be able to fit 6 months groceries in the back but you also need to park in the back to find a spot. Sure you can haul 8 people but how often is it just 1?
Must be something pretty modern with fuel injection!
I was very heavily generalizing; there are so many different kinds of motorcycles and they vary so widely in fuel efficiency that it’s really hard to average. Here in the US, the average new motorcycle sold is a 700-pound monster with an engine larger than 100 cubic inches of displacement. (Again, generalizing a bit, but Harley-Davidsons still make up over 4 out of every 10 new motorcycles sold here.) Harley-Davidson’s largest model, the Electra Glide Ultra Classic, gets less than 40 MPG and weighs well over 800 pounds.
My understanding is that the motorcycle/rider combination in most cases has a very poor coefficient of drag and that’s the largest issue at highway speeds.
Depends strongly on the motorcycle, however, as there are so many different kinds with varying amounts of bodywork. Some are absurdly efficient, like the Honda Grom, which routinely achieves over 100MPG.
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