Originally Posted by AnTyx

How do you feel about seatbelts?



Leaving aside the confirmation bias (you only remember the deadly ones - you would not have been called to investigate the ones that resulted in a property damage claim!), ATGATT is not for deadly crashes - it is for the middle ground between a bad scrape and mincemeat. ATGATT is to ensure that in a crash, you either die, or limp away - instead of surviving with life-altering injuries.



In Australia or Texas, sure - it's very hot and the cops are macho. Someone who is both a trained emergency rider, and spends their entire working days every day on a motorcycle, will make an informed decision that the continuous risk of overheating is a bigger threat. But regular riders don't ride like cops, and don't have the permanent scan-for-threats mindset of cops - and here in Europe, our moto cops are absolutely ATGATT.



So you've been lucky. I've had a few crashes that were caused by my own inattention (and habitual riders WILL be inattentive at least some of the time, especially on holiday when they are enjoying the ride and scenery, to say "if you'd ridden defensively it would not have happened to you" is victim-blaming and unhelpful). In those cases, ATGATT meant that I walked away with some bruises and sore muscles - the damage to my ankles is actually from falling off bicycles, in normal street shoes, not from dropping a heavy motorcycle on my boot!

But the reason that one of my forearms and both of my wrists are held together with titanium is that while I was riding on a straight, empty, countryside road at the posted limit of 90kph, on a dry sunny day with perfect visibility, a dude in an SUV decided to blow through a stop-sign and send me on a helicopter ride to the nearest major trauma center. Your defensive riding will not prevent other people's unbridled idiocy, and if it hasn't happened to you (ever or yet), that's a matter of luck.