motorcycles are dangerous and scooters not???

I'm in a reflective mood today...
Occurred to me how people always go on about how dangerous motorbikes are but no one ever really has a constant go at scooters in the same way. Considering a lot of crashes happen at fairly low speeds (one of the members here recently crashed at 35mph in London), someone else broke ribs doing 10mph at a roundabout etc makes no difference what you're riding.

You're actually very likely to be a lot worse off on a scooter since vast majority of scooter riders wear no protection whatsoever bar a helmet.
Riding around London makes no difference if you're on a scooter or a motorbike, if you crash the outcome will be exactly the same. Why do people seem to assume if you're on a scooter it's ok to ride in ballerina pumps and a skirt but as soon as you're on a motorbike you must be all geared up. The speed in town will be the same so if you crash...

[yorkie_chris]

Yeah it's one of the spastic little prejudices lots of people seem to have.

I think they should be considered completely separate since little chavvy w*nkers hurting themselves (which I'm all in favour of), makes the proper motorcycle crash statistics look bad.

Pedestrians are worse off I reckon.

Most scooter riders are teenagers young lads/girls who don't see the dangers and secondly these people who say bikes are dangerous see scooter/'proper' bikes as the same thing.

I had a lad on on a Peugeot scooter of Friday evening on my way home from work following me so close I couldn't see him in my mirrors although I could hear him, then at every junction/set of lights he would pull up and rev and rev and rev. Eventually I moved over and just let him go but he was undertaking just before junctions then swerving to the outside to overtake, all in 3/4 lengths and a t-shirt.

Despite the fact you can have just as nasty an off at 20 mph (what scooters are capable of) as at 60mph (what motorbikes are capable of) the dangers are pretty equal. I'd go so far as to say cyclists are just as dangerous, what's skimpy lycra going to do when you get crunched by a car at 25 mph?

[Mr Speirs]

I wouldn't be surprised if these people that have a blanket 'motorbikes are dangerous' attitude wouldn't actually know the difference between a motorbike and a scooter. To them if its got two wheels it's a motorbike.

Originally Posted by Stenno

Pedestrians are worse off I reckon.

The was something on BBC news the other day about traffic accidents and they said the one that's actually gone up is the pedestrians

Originally Posted by daveyrach

Most scooter riders are teenagers young lads/girls who don't see the dangers and secondly these people who say bikes are dangerous see scooter/'proper' bikes as the same thing.

I had a lad on on a Peugeot scooter of Friday evening on my way home from work following me so close I couldn't see him in my mirrors although I could hear him, then at every junction/set of lights he would pull up and rev and rev and rev. Eventually I moved over and just let him go but he was undertaking just before junctions then swerving to the outside to overtake, all in 3/4 lengths and a t-shirt.

I tend to just let them get on with it too. They are ignorant fools

Originally Posted by missyburd

Despite the fact you can have just as nasty an off at 20 mph (what scooters are capable of) as at 60mph (what motorbikes are capable of) the dangers are pretty equal. I'd go so far as to say cyclists are just as dangerous, what's skimpy lycra going to do when you get crunched by a car at 25 mph?

This reminds me when I first ever turned up to do CBT, never been on a motorbike in my life, knew nothing about them... I turned up on my Bianchi, full cycle gear - lycra shorts....

You have full permission to laugh! And I did manage to fall off (would have been alright but the person in front of me fell first, I was looking at her and followed down to the ground hahaha). Needless to say lycra didn't save me. Had a great big hole in my knee that took months to heal up

Originally Posted by agy

This reminds me when I first ever turned up to do CBT, never been on a motorbike in my life, knew nothing about them... I turned up on my Bianchi, full cycle gear - lycra shorts....

You have full permission to laugh! And I did manage to fall off (would have been alright but the person in front of me fell first, I was looking at her and followed down to the ground hahaha). Needless to say lycra didn't save me. Had a great big hole in my knee that took months to heal up

Oops! The instructors must have had trouble trying to keep straight faces as they gave the "safety firsts with gear" spiel