I'm going along with Kirk on this one, sort of. It's like the FAA flight crash investigations I used to read when I was working on a pilot’s license. 99% of the accidents were blamed on pilot error. Engine failed? Pilot error for not verifying the maintenance was done properly. Wind shear in a thunderstorm? Pilot error for not anticipating the weather and planning around it. Another plane flies into the side of yours? Pilot error for not maintaining situational awareness. You get the idea.
In my opinion, the crash that isn’t the rider’s fault is the rare exception. Cuddy’s wreck is an exception: if you’re stopped at a light with cars in front of and beside you, and you get plowed into from behind, there wasn’t much you could have done about it. But if the rider centerpunches the side of a car that pulled out right in front of him, maybe he should have expected it to pull out, and have had one or two ideas in mind for what he’d do or where he’d go if it happened. I ride with a guy who’s been riding for almost three years now. He rides in La-La Land; bumbling down the road, assuming the cars are going to do what they’re supposed to, barely paying attention at all. His riding craft has stayed even at best, maybe even deteriorated since we started to ride together. He hardly uses his front brake, even after having crashed on an exit ramp because he slammed on the rear brake when he went into a corner too hot. I stay ahead of him.
Here’s the point, Grasshopper: keep the attitude you have going now, and you’ll do ok. Every time you ride, try to improve your skills, using the lessons you get in class, from reading, and from experience. Get ****y, distracted, in a rush, ride angry or depressed or being a showoff, and you’ll be roadkill.
