The case for commuting by motorcycle

Despite the reputation, it's better, more practical transit than you might think.

See full article...

 

[appliance]

Riding is a joy - for me, commuting every day through rush hour traffic would kill some of that joy. Sometimes there may not be a choice.

I'd mention a few safety things:
Good motorcycle boots - NOT work boots. Not very protective and do you want shoe laces near your chain? No. Would you glue skis to work boots - no. just no.
Airbag vests - all kind out there and they protect vastly better than the best armor.
Armor: Modern level 2 armor is thin and protective - no need to look like a robot.
Pants: Modern single layer motorcycle jeans can have AAA rating (the highest) and look good. Having a mesh liner is best.
One piece: I don't own one, but for office commuting, it might be ideal - zip it off at the office and underneath you have your work clothes (apart from the boots, which are not work boots).
Motorcycling is dangerous, but a lot of what you see is due to poor decisions that are in the rider's control: No helmet, bad or no gear, poor riding skills at a basic level, improperly maintained machines.
Some is out of their control, but can be mitigated by being alert - a phone distraction looks just like a drunk driver etc.. But there is still risk - ride smart, keep your cool, live to ride another day.

 

[egdm]

I used to commute on a 50cc scooter. Despite taking all precautions, I was nearly killed three times in two years by oblivious drivers who did things like run stop signs or blatantly cut me off trying to rush turns. Just not worth it.

Now living in LA, the risks riders take while lane splitting are WILD. I've never seen one splitting at appropriate relative speeds.

 

[SetsChaos]

I've had to ride less with more kid duties, but I was able to ride my Yamaha MT-09 in to work today. For those unfamiliar, it's essentially the Japanese version of the Ducati Monster with the anticipated cost savings both in purchase price and ongoing maintenance.

There is a ton of good advice in the article. If you're considering switching (or adding to) your commuter vehicle, you'd do well to heed it. I thoroughly believe that the more people that are exposed to riding, the safer the roads will be for motorcyclists. I'm far more conscious about them than I was before, not to mention there would be fewer cars to be hit by.

 

[MjchX11R6]

Everywhere i have lived motorcyclists have all had the same story of them being perfect drivers and no one paying attention to them, but when i see them ride they are the ones not paying attention and going to fast and not looking where they are going and getting apoplectic about a car that was not breaking the law while the biker was. I know this is anecdotal, but i still see it paly out everyday, and it has been every area of the USA, so i have a hard time believing that motorcycling is valid in any form on a road. I mean, I see some cars do these things, but i see every biker doing them every time i see them.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Motorcycling is dangerous, but as with anything else, you can do a lot to mitigate your risks and make riding much safer.

+1. Motorcyclists can decrease the chances of an accident significantly by just being smart about how/when they ride.

I crunched some numbers on motorcycle accidents a few years ago using NHTSA data because I was curious. Of all motorcycle accidents, about 50% are single-vehicle accidents. That means no other vehicles were involved but the motorcycle. Maybe that means the motorcyclist went off the road accidentally. Maybe that means swerving to avoid a non-vehicle obstacle. Maybe that means riding in poor weather. Maybe that means taking a corner too fast and the rear end washing out. Maybe that means doing something stupid. Regardless, if you ride, you can reduce your chances of accident by about half by simply riding smart.

The remaining ~50% were multi-vehicle. So another motorcycle, car, truck, etc was involved. In about half of multi-vehicle accidents, the motorcyclist was at fault. They either violated another vehicle's right of way, crashed into another vehicle, or something else. The remaining half, the other vehicle was at fault.

If you're doing the math, half of all accidents involved only the motorcycle (50%). For half of the other half (25%), even though more than one vehicle was involved, the crash was the motorcyclist's fault. That means motorcyclists have at least some manner of control over about 3 out of every 4 accidents.

AGATT is another good one. You're not dressing so you can be comfortable while you ride. You're dressing so your head doesn't slam the pavement and your skin doesn't scrape off if you crash. If it's too hot to ride comfortably with the gear, leave the bike at home.

Another tip not mentioned, riding at night is significantly more dangerous than riding during the day. Between motorcycle headlights not illuminating as much and as far as car head lights, and animals being more active at night, chances of accidents skyrocket after the sun sets. If you can't finish your ride in daylight, consider driving.

Also, if there's any chance you're going to use substances at all, don't ride. Though the same legal limits of intoxication apply to riding as driving, you need a lot more fine motor control when riding as opposed to driving. And the crash data show it. Accidents go up significantly when any alcohol use is involved.

Final tip (sorry, this got longer than I thought), find a Motorcycle Safety Program class near you. The MSP offers courses to new or experienced riders that teach them how to ride. There's a classroom session and practical session where they actually give you a motorcycle to ride. Some states will offer it for free, or accept it as the exam portion of obtaining a motorcycle license. All the perks aside, it's a great learning experience.

 

[BCGeiger]

I'm a motorcycle rider and I love it but the idea that it is safe, practical or economical is ludicrous. When you are riding a motorcycle you have to imagine yourself as the protagonist of a Final Destination movie. Everyone around you is trying as hard as they can to kill you at all times.

That’s what an older rider told me years ago when I was riding (I’m returning to bikes after way too long). “Always drive as if the other drivers WANT to kill you and make it look like an accident.”

 

[appliance]

I'm a motorcycle rider and I love it but the idea that it is safe, practical or economical is ludicrous. When you are riding a motorcycle you have to imagine yourself as the protagonist of a Final Destination movie. Everyone around you is trying as hard as they can to kill you at all times.

Pretty sure everyone around you couldn't care less about you one way or the other. - you can make them aware, and you can ride accordingly. a combination of proactive, lane placement, passive, good lighting and hi-viz etc.. A lot about those skills out there. Becomes second nature.

 

[Ravant]

I used to ride a Suzuki GSX-R 600. I was a defensive rider, and generally safe, much to the chagrin of my friends who wanted to wind out the engines on more open stretches of road. I rode it religiously, good weather, bad weather, for commuting, I almost made it my only vehicle until I got my dog and needed a way to safely transport her.

The reason I quit riding:
People texting and driving. Speed, DUI, all of it pales in comparison to the sheer number of phone-addicts who can't put it down long enough to pilot their multi-ton road-bound missile. What made me hang up my gear for good and sell the bike was when I nearly had to lay it over on I40 in Raleigh because someone texting and driving nearly rear-ended me. I quickly got on the gas and lane-split a bit to avoid becoming a decapitated sandwich between the F150 and the lifted RAM. How I didn't get hit with shrapnel/debris from the ~45mph differential impact between the trucks, I'll never know. But it was the closest call I've ever had.

In short, if you text and drive, you're worse than someone who drinks and drives, IMO.

 

[Cyrano4747]

A few years back I was like the second or third car into an intersection after a motorcycle got t-boned. Well before the paramedics, everyone getting out to try and help. Protected left hand turn, the other driver blew a red at 11pm.

Motorcycle guy was very dead. I won’t get into details but it was gruesome. Car driver was distraught and freaking out but physically perfectly fine.

They’re fundamentally unsafe to have on roads with four wheeled vehicles. If the motor cycle driver had been in a car it would have been a bad night but almost certainly survivable. I had a similar wreck (t-boned during left turn) in HS and, medically, it was no big deal (car was totaled).

If people want to take the risk that’s fine, but acting like it’s just as safe as a car is crazy. A 30-40 mph passenger side t-bone isn’t a life threatening even for the driver in a car, and it’s a pretty easy situation to get yourself into through no fault of your own. On a bike you’re lucky if it’s just live changing injuries. And this is only one example of many that others have probably already come up with ITT.

Ride if you want to but good lord you have to at least recognize the safety issues.

 

[Snark218]

One thing to consider is that, like General Aviation and other moderately dangerous activities - a big portion of the crashes come from things you CAN control for. For example, more than 1/3rd of fatal crashes were folks without a license in 2022, 40-something percent were intoxicated, and 1/3 were speeding.

I cannot fathom anyone getting on a bike drunk or under the influence and feeling like that was a good idea, but drunk people have even worse impulse control and judgement than they otherwise would sober, so.

That doesn't make motorcycling safe if you do those things - not by any means. People still get killed or severely injured all the time who are safe, licensed, sober, and driving defensively under the speed limit. It's just good to note that a lot of folks* (*young men, far and away) get on bikes with no experience, no training, no gear, often intoxicated and die. That's a big portion of the crashes.

Absolutely. And that dovetails very well with this seemingly unrelated point:

Commute riding is so different to commuting in a car, which many people do with about 20% attentiveness. On the bike, if you want to stay alive, and in one piece, you have to have 100% attentiveness, all the time. It sure makes you feel alive. The commute becomes a whole other enjoyable part of the day, rather than a chore.

That kind of risk exposure, and the thrill of high stakes and maximum engagement/exposure, has a particular appeal to young men with ADHD. They find all kinds of way to chase their craving for stimulation, novelty, thrills, and the kind of danger that makes you feel alive straight into hospitals, wheelchairs, and early graves. Motorcycles are a cheap, accessible fix for that particular jones. Everyone I've ever known who died or got injured on a motorcycle, and a few more who died doing risky shit like free-climbing, extreme skiing, and street racing, was so obviously an ADHDer they might as well have worn a blinking neon sign on their chests. I suspect if you controlled for neurodivergence, the injury/fatality rates for motorcycles would look a great deal different.

 

[Happy Medium]

I work in a hospital as an ID doctor, often treating trauma-related infections. Even a regular bicycle or electric bike is dangerous enough. Add a ton more power and a lot more heavy metal to it, and its just catastrophic. You see your several hundred'th limb(s) amputation and traumatic brain injury from a motorcycle accident and it kind of makes it lose just a bit of that luster. Also, theres a VERY GOOD REASON lane splitting is illegal in many places, it's because it's the #1 highest risk ways of getting turned from a functional human into a pile of shattered bones and ejected cranial contents.

 

[tmeader]

I wish you'd mention some of the fatality/injury stats for motorcyles before saying they're not dangerous. These things are death traps and the data backs that. I worry about anyone that recommends them as a mode of travel.

Agreed. I owned a Honda 750 for about 10 years before finally selling it. You can be as defensive as you want, but all it takes is for one completely irrational/reckless car/truck/SUV driver to come out of nowhere, and it's over. I'd still highly recommend scenic rides with motorcycles if you get the chance, but, you couldn't pay me to commute with one anymore on the local DC highway system. The risk just isn't worth it.

 

[appliance]

The worst wake I ever went to was for one of my coworkers. She was a beautiful soul, worked with disabled children and was damn good at it. She and her Fiancee were on a motorcycle together and got hit by a car. She died on the scene, he walked away with nothing but superficial injuries. Having to look him in the eyes and give my condolences was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do.

It doesn't matter how good of a rider you are, the roads are littered with idiots on their phones, drunk, exhausted, you name it. It's just not worth the risk.

Friend of mine died - she was on a bicycle in the rain - put her foot doen at a light, slipped on a manhole cover, hit her head on a curb. Over 40,000 people in the US die from car crashes. Being a pedestrian is more dangerous than it has ever been. My suggestion: Do what you love, do it smart.

 

[The Playmaker]

Once in the emergency department, I saw a guy who got sucked into a combine harvester. That's the only thing I've seen that compares to motorcycles for gut-churningly gruesome injuries. Please don't ride motorcycles.

 

[AnarchyCorp.ORG]

Disclaimer: I teach people how to ride motorcycles and am a certified third party tester for motorcycle endorsements. I happen to like riding... a LOT. Although I live in a northern state, I still manage to typically get more than 10k miles/year on the bike.

I suggest that if you're bike curious, you take a motorcycle class. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation has a fairly well regarded curriculum used by several states as part of safety training. These beginner classes are designed specifically to take someone who's never been on a motorcycle before through learning to ride and ultimately passing the DMV test to get a motorcycle endorsement. Even if you don't end up riding, there's things that are taught in these classes (at least in the ones in my state) that also apply to driving cars. Things like looking where you're trying to go translate to just about every motor vehicle.

Additionally, a key to riding safely is to train to ride safely. Riding, like driving, is a perishable skill. If you don't do it a lot, it's easy for those skills to atrophy. Even if you do it a lot, it's easy to pick up bad habits. Although I am a trainer, I still take training as a student so other instructors can spot my bad habits before they take root.

As others mention above, it's not an activity without risk. You have to be present on the bike, not letting your mind wander, fuming about that crappy day at work, or whatever. For me it's helmet therapy and probably the only time I am completely "in the present" because there simply isn't bandwidth for anything else. That's kinda enjoyable.

 

[normally butters]

I wish you'd mention some of the fatality/injury stats for motorcyles before saying they're not dangerous. These things are death traps and the data backs that. I worry about anyone that recommends them as a mode of travel.

Motorcycles have significantly worse fatality rates than cars, but so do all other transportation modes that interact with roadways except for buses and trains. Fatality rates for motorcycles, ebikes, bicycles, and pedestrians tend to be clustered surprisingly close together in most countries. In some countries, there's more separation between pedestrian fatality rates and the two-wheeled modes, and in other countries walking is barely safer than cycling.

Especially in North America, we've made the roads safer for cars while making them more dangerous for everybody else. If you prioritize safety, trains and buses are best, cars are okay, and everything else is much more dangerous. The statistics and the trends over time are frightening, and from a purely data-driven perspective, if cyclists are wearing helmets, pedestrians ought to consider helmets, too. Socially unlikely, but that's what the data says.

 

[arsisloam]

But, but....I DO want a pickle! No motor-sickle for me!

View: https://youtu.be/BvLtNBm1yyA?si=cfqDacojvE9ktvHX

 

[Capstan]

Super dangerous as many people have said, but then there's the weather. You don't want to ride a motorcycle in rain or snow, so that means owning a car as a backup. If you live in a hot climate you will be sweltering in all that armor and helmet, arriving at your destination soaked with sweat. On cold days the wind chill at 60mph is very significant.

 

[reimu240p]

Would love to have a motorcycle due to practicality reasons but my family (particularly my mother) would never allow it.

 

[Porcupine Calling]

It very much depends on the country you live in, I think. Riding a motorcycle isn’t dangerous, but it is certainly possible to ride dangerously. I do my daily commute by bike and about 20k km per year. BMW R1200RT. No incidents so far. The trick is to avoid being at the same spot at the same time as the cars around you. As simple as that. Whenever you anticipate a situation where these conditions are not met, you move aside, accelerate or (not my preferred option) slow down. There are loads of options, but making your safety dependent on the actions of car drivers is never a good idea. Stay in control of the situation. Think about what could happen and anticipate accordingly.

 

[arc-tu-rus]

This article is disingenuous. Claiming that motorcycles are not dangerous contradicts statistics, regardless of how you cherry-pick the numbers. They can be fun, but that does not mean that they are not dangerous, and significantly more so than other means of transport. Even if you clad yourself in armoured PPE and are an attentive driver, it will not save you from other motorists who are not or from road hazards.

And, by the way, motorcycles are typically not used for “transportation” or commuting in Europe, but for short inner-city journeys. You seldom see them in multi-lane roads, even when the weather is appropriate

 

[Snark218]

A few years back I was like the second or third car into an intersection after a motorcycle got t-boned. Well before the paramedics, everyone getting out to try and help. Protected left hand turn, the other driver blew a red at 11pm.

Motorcycle guy was very dead. I won’t get into details but it was gruesome. Car driver was distraught and freaking out but physically perfectly fine.

There was an accident in Denver recently that....uh....well, it involved a motorcyclist, a curved off-ramp, several cars, and darkness, and, uh. Well. Yeah. Everyone involved will have PTSD, let's say. (Except the motorcyclist, I guess, but I suppose death is one form of post-traumatic symptom.)

 

[DistinctivelyCanuck]

Disclaimer: I teach people how to ride motorcycles and am a certified third party tester for motorcycle endorsements. I happen to like riding... a LOT. Although I live in a northern state, I still manage to typically get more than 10k miles/year on the bike.

I suggest that if you're bike curious, you take a motorcycle class. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation has a fairly well regarded curriculum used by several states as part of safety training. These beginner classes are designed specifically to take someone who's never been on a motorcycle before through learning to ride and ultimately passing the DMV test to get a motorcycle endorsement. Even if you don't end up riding, there's things that are taught in these classes (at least in the ones in my state) that also apply to driving cars. Things like looking where you're trying to go translate to just about every motor vehicle.

Additionally, a key to riding safely is to train to ride safely. Riding, like driving, is a perishable skill. If you don't do it a lot, it's easy for those skills to atrophy. Even if you do it a lot, it's easy to pick up bad habits. Although I am a trainer, I still take training as a student so other instructors can spot my bad habits before they take root.

As others mention above, it's not an activity without risk. You have to be present on the bike, not letting your mind wander, fuming about that crappy day at work, or whatever. For me it's helmet therapy and probably the only time I am completely "in the present" because there simply isn't bandwidth for anything else. That's kinda enjoyable.

Thanks for this;:
In Canada there are similar training programs and they are brilliant, essential, and should be mandatory at a higher level.
And the people who teach those classes are -the best- because for one reason, it seems every single person I know who teaches these classes has at least two 'dead friends' stories to help make sure that the training lessons sink in.

And I have a couple of friends who were absolutely intense that they were going to get motorcycles: whose spouses insisted that the safety class be taken first: who didn't end up getting 'bikes...

 

[Snark218]

Sorry about your dad's accident, but rider awareness includes the mirrors.

How the fuck is checking the mirrors going to make that car that's rear-ending you stop faster or avoid you?

 

[Qyygle]

A few years back I was like the second or third car into an intersection after a motorcycle got t-boned. Well before the paramedics, everyone getting out to try and help. Protected left hand turn, the other driver blew a red at 11pm.

Motorcycle guy was very dead. I won’t get into details but it was gruesome. Car driver was distraught and freaking out but physically perfectly fine.

They’re fundamentally unsafe to have on roads with four wheeled vehicles. If the motor cycle driver had been in a car it would have been a bad night but almost certainly survivable. I had a similar wreck (t-boned during left turn) in HS and, medically, it was no big deal (car was totaled).

If people want to take the risk that’s fine, but acting like it’s just as safe as a car is crazy. A 30-40 mph passenger side t-bone isn’t a life threatening even for the driver in a car, and it’s a pretty easy situation to get yourself into through no fault of your own. On a bike you’re lucky if it’s just live changing injuries. And this is only one example of many that others have probably already come up with ITT.

Ride if you want to but good lord you have to at least recognize the safety issues.

And was the car driver charged for essentially murder?
I don't think the article wasn't making it out that riding is Safe by any means, but perhaps it's well past time to consider that having cars be the only method of transit in the US has made it dangerous to exist in anything But the Biggest car on the road?

Take it another way, if instead of airbags, we had shotgun shells set to shoot off in drivers faces, how quickly would the accident rate go down?

 

[AnarchyCorp.ORG]

Better for CO2, but aren't motorcycles worse for other pollutants? I think it is due to no/smaller catalytic converter.

My bike (a 2023 model) is EURO5 compliant and it has a catalytic converter. Most motorcycles built in the past 10+ years have had some sort of emissions controls. My previous commuter (a 2016 model) was at least EURO3 compliant. Both can pretty easily achieve 40mpg.

Where you run into problems are when riders remove emissions controls (e.g., "cat delete") in search of more power... but that same sort of ass hattery happens with people trying to boost power in cars.

[edit: formatting]

 

[Snark218]

This article is disingenuous. Claiming that motorcycles are not dangerous contradicts statistics, regardless of how you cherry-pick the numbers.

I think numbers without context and without understanding the assumptions and risk factors are just as misleading as blithe overconfidence

They can be fun, but that does not mean that they are not dangerous, and significantly more so than other means of transport. Even if you clad yourself in armoured PPE and are an attentive driver, it will not save you from other motorists who are not or from road hazards.

They are, but this is a very surface-level analysis.

 

[Spiders from Mars]

My dad had a motorcycle when he was young and when I was young and still living at parents' home I decided I was going to get one and he said sure but then you won't be living in our house anymore. My dad was a smart man who learned from the mistakes he made in his youth,and I didn't get one.
I actually have my motorcycle licence but don't have a motorcycle bc I like the sensation of speed too much, and I too, learned from the mistakes of my youth.
If I was richer I'd definitely do it on (the relatively-safer environment) of a track tho.

 

[airforceteacher]

One disadvantage not mentioned is tire costs. Car tires for a commuter sedan - 50-80,000 lifespan. Motorcycle tires - 5-10,000 life. Replace half the number of tires, but at 60% of the cost and 4 times as often, and you've just erased any fuel savings you've gained.

 

[McKoogly]

There are a lot of people that are just plain scared of them. Some are fair-weather riders. You can ride in the winter, prepare for it. What's a snowmobile, but a motorcycle with wider tracks that does not turn. Get a URAL brand, where it comes with a side car, and two wheel drive. Plenty of room for small things, grocery runs. And they are still fairly cheap. The Can-Am Spyder/Ryker doesn't do well in the snow. Heated gear really helps. But you won't catch me out in the cold any more. I do use mine as a weekend fun machine, but do use it to go to work on. It's the oversized trucks that don't see you, people running red lights, garbage on the roads that seem scary. Things wear out a bit faster. Tires, 5-9000 miles, good job. Batteries 2-3 years, chains, sprockets, finding a reliable mechanic...all challenges.

 

[foofoo22]

Know what hospital Emergency Room staff call motorcycles? "Donor-cycles"

 

[metlman13]

The other article the author links to really hammers home why its so important to wear proper gear when on a motorcycle ride. He walked away with some pretty nasty bruises and a hematoma that took like a year to clear up, but that crash could have easily killed him if he wasn't wearing good safety gear.

 

[AusPeter]

Where I live, I detest the loud Harleys. No, they don't save lives, its called Doppler effect and I only hear you as you pass or from behind, and rattle our windows. How some don't wear helmets is just asking for Grim Reaper or deafness.
Too many distracted drivers. Else yes, I would ride an electric motorcycle or Motorbike (BMW) to work and for travel. But you are limited to weather. Better have your bloodtype/Med ID on your self. (friend is EMT. He told me how he took Helmet Extraction training. I don't ride now).

I used to ride many years ago and took all the safety precautions and dressed for survival and not fashion/comfort. I now live in NM where motorcycle helmets are optional, and people on motorcycles dress as if road rash is not a thing. So I cringe whenever I see such an idiot go by. But what I can’t comprehend is how these riders avoid heat stroke when riding with a bare head in summer.

In car comparison the bicyclists generally all wear helmets.

 

[pug fugly]

Commute riding is so different to commuting in a car, which many people do with about 20% attentiveness. On the bike, if you want to stay alive, and in one piece, you have to have 100% attentiveness, all the time. It sure makes you feel alive. The commute becomes a whole other enjoyable part of the day, rather than a chore.

The same is true, and much safer, in a Miata

 

[donfelipe]

What a stupid article. Should have been titled:
Try this one new trick to make commuting even more dangerous!

 

[sword_9mm]

I took the learner's course and got my license endorsement but never went further and that was almost 20 years ago.

The wife basically said no (paralegal by trade) and well I've never had the space to keep on (condo with only 2 car driveway; no extra space at all).

The gear is something I just wouldn't be able to handle about half the year. Riding to work and stripping 'wet' with sweat is not going to work. Winter would be mostly ok though.

There is the 'danger' aspect but I'm not too worried about all that. Though watching someone speed by on the interstate at near 100 does seem sketchy though. Not that I would do shit like that.

I'd love to live in a place with more mopeds/motorcycles/bikes. The cars = gear = too fucking hot. If I could live in one of those places where you just hop on the moped and go and there's no real cars around then that'd be neat. I guess that means East Asia or somewhere abouts. Though gear there would be no way either.

So yeah; it's too fucking hot to ride a motorcycle here for most of the year for me. YMMV.

The CA lane splitting thing is interesting. I feel like that shouldn't be legal honestly though I'm sure the bikers would be mad.

 

[AusPeter]

Hold it right there. "I had to lay it down" is pure fiction. Rubber has a much higher coefficient of friction than steel or aluminum does. A bike that's on two wheels can stop FAR more quickly than one that's sliding on it's side.

"I had to lay it down" inevitably means "I panicked and screwed up (usually locking the back brake and/or not using the front enough) and don't want it admit it - even to myself".

If you've "laid it down" you have already crashed. And things are probably only going to get worse.

The only time I laid a bike down was when turning onto a highway from a minor road. The highway was also doing a sweeping turn, and was slightly banked, and I was entering from the high side and leaning into the camber and not away from it. And it was summer, and that morning was the first rain shower in several weeks, which made the roads a lot slicker than I realized. Before I knew it both wheels had slipped out and I was sliding across 3 lanes. Fortunately my riding gear saved me from the impact with the ground, and being 7am on a weekend there wasn’t any other traffic around.

 

[alecTwhite]

I've been an on and off daily motorcycle driver for nearly 15 years. It's dangerous. I've been in one major accident but was lucky to walk away with just road rash. As any rider will tell you the most dangerous thing is other drivers. I love it, its cheaper, its fun, and I dont mind the risk. Not for everyone though.