Motorcycles = Death Traps

Let me preface this story by saying that those who know me know that I hate motorcycles. I find them highly unsafe and, frankly, stupid.  I don't understand the appeal of the big Harleys, or the crotch rockets.  I can tolerate dirt bikes for riding on trails in the mountains, mostly because that's at a much lower rate of speed. But even then, I'm still not a fan and you won't see me on one - as a driver or a passenger.

So the other day, one of my neighbors from a street over was riding his new motorcycle - a crotch rocket...a speed machine.  At one point, he was seriously speeding through our streets, which really pissed me off becauser we have a lot of kids in our neighborhood and it was time for them to be coming home from school.  In fact, I was tempted to walk out and either say something to him, or alternatively, just throw something at him as he zoomed by.  I did neither.  He eventually stopped. 

Last night, I put down an incredible book I was reading at 11:30 and went to bed.  Eric went to bed long before me because he had a 4:30 shift to work this morning.  So when I came to bed, it woke him up.  We stayed awake for a minute, talking about Thanksgiving, and that's when we heard that stupid motorcycle again.  I told him about the previous day's joy rides up and down our street as the dude went flying by our bedroom window, AGAIN.  He made one lap down the street, and was making his return lap - I'm not kidding, I bet he was going at least 70 mph. In a neighborhood. Well somewhere along the line, he lost control and we heard an incredibly loud SMASH.  Both Eric and I said "oh shit!" and flew out of bed. I ran past Eric and told him to call 911 immediately, and we both ran out into the street. We saw the guy in the driveway of our neighbor across the street, the motorcycle was imbedded into the side of their van. Several other neighbors were also running over there to see if he was ok.  He was a bloody mess, that's for sure - huge laceration on his arm, and he had a shaved head so it was obvious to us that he also had some head injuries as the blood was flowing everywhere. We had him lie back down, at which point we could smell that he was totally drunk.  He kept yelling out for his friend, who lives around the corner, and he came running up. They insisted that we didn't need to call the police, but I told him that we already had them on the line and the ambulance was en route. Once we established that the guy was going to STAY conscious, another neighbor and I really chewed his ass for riding around like that in a neighborhood with children. The owner of the motorcycle, the one who actually lives here, said he completely understands how we felt and I said "actually, no I don't think you do because you were doing this yesterday as well. You are all damn lucky it was just him who got hurt, but you have destroyed someone else's vehicle and ruined everyone's night of sleep." That shut him up. An hour and a half later, one ambulance, one firetruck, seven police cars, and one tow truck finally left and I think Eric got in maybe two hours of sleep before he had to go to work.  What a night!

(1) Don't drink and drive

(2) If you insist on driving around a motorcycle, wear a damn helmet. You can do without a thumb or an arm or a leg, but you are pretty screwed without your head.

(3) Whether in a car or on a motorcycle, neighborhood streets aren't the place for hot-rodding/racing around. Trust me, I'm one of those people who likes to feel that "need for speed", but I'm not going to punch my car to 100 mph on a neighborhood road. (not that I would ever go that fast anyway...hi dad!)

Be safe, people!