I'm so sick of hearing about BR but this article is fairly balanced and makes sense I guess.
This story is not even news.. it never was except for he throws an ovoid pigskin around in a game for a living, which apparently makes him important. Inattentive driver and unskilled rider have a left-turn accident.. wow that is news?
I think there is nothing that can be done about people riding bikes they shouldn't be riding. It's just not worth the effort to try to stop it.. just let it go at education. The longer I ride motorcycles and the more motorcyclists I meet, I come to one conclusion., We motorcylists as a group are just stupid. Too stupid to grasp most of the concepts in the basic MSF class, too stupid to wear gear, too stupid to maintain our bikes in safe working order, too stupid to choose an appropriate bike, too stupid to ride legally and sanely, and too stupid to admit we have a problem. There is a tiny minority that is not stupid and understands all this.. but it's a tiny minority.
There is no way you are going to do anything to stop the typical punk kid from getting that Hayabusa... if you make it illegal for the dealer to sell it, he'll just buy a used one. If you make it illegal based on licensing, he'll just ride it illegally.. witness so many unregistered sportbikes being ridden by unlicensened punks.. what is the point of having a license when you're just going to go triple digits everywhere and run from the police on a semi-regular basis?
Just like you will never succeed in stopping the cruiser crowd from drinking and riding. (Or the sportbike crowd) It's just not going to happen.. drinking/riding/partying/pretending to be a badass are too intertwined in the minds of riders.
As an aside it's pretty funny to hear about a Honda dealer named after a Suzuki model who constantly has to tell customers he doesn't have a *different* Suzuki model. Since Honda and Suzuki are too stupid to value their brands enough to stop it, he should just pick up a Suzuki franchise and pocket the cash on those Busas, and then maybe Burgman can sell some Burgmans.