What is it with these kids on motorcycles these days?
I spend a bit a time on the highway almost every day and I’m seeing more and more youngsters on dirt bikes, almost all of them with no licence plates, flying up the road, popping wheelies and dangerously speeding in between traffic with barely a few inches between their bikes and the vehicles they are passing.
I’m even increasingly seeing the same behaviour on the busy road in front of my house as groups of these young Evil Knieval wannabes on their bikes, again with no licence plates, roar up the road daring each other to see how long they can keep a wheelie going when traffic passes all around them with drivers having to make dangerous manoeuvres to avoid them.
I’ve ridden a bike for most of my early years; in fact, my bikes were my only vehicles for some time as I couldn’t afford a car in those days, so I’d drive my bike way into the winter seasons until the weather made it possible to do so (I was always well insulated of course).
I’ve also been involved in a few motorcycle accidents, some serious, so I know just how damaging and painful it can be to hit asphalt hard.
It doesn’t take much to get hurt while riding a motorcycle; even falling over while stopped at a traffic light can cause cuts and bruises (and a great deal of embarrassment), so coming off your bike at any speed at all can have nasty results.
One time, a guy cut me off coming out of an intersection and, even though I had managed to slow down considerably before finally striking his front quarter panel, I was still pretty banged up when I hit the ground after flying over the hood of the car.
The driver fled the scene (but that’s another story) and I was left with a severe gash to my chin after striking it on the road and one of my front teeth was knocked out.
I also had road rash down my leg and had to have all of my fingernails removed after blood built up underneath them, which was very painful indeed.
Needless to say, I was a pretty scary sight to behold for awhile until I healed up.
These kids on their bikes popping wheelies and flying down the road, putting themselves and other drivers at risk, obviously have not had such an experience, at least not yet.
As is the way with most youth, they believe that bad things happen to other people and nothing like that would ever happen to them because they think they’re immortal.
I know this because that’s the way I, and many of my friends, felt when we were young, and I’m sad to say that I’ve lost some of those friends at an early age due to easily avoidable accidents and other misadventures.
As these motorcycle kids fly past me on the highway, scaring the wits out of me and all the other drivers around them, I sometimes wonder if I would be doing them a favour to pull alongside them and throw a raw turkey out my window so they can see what happens when flesh hits the road and pieces of the carcass fly in every direction.
I expect some would take a lesson away from that, but I know most won’t head any warnings until, inevitably, they end up with broken bones and cuts and bruises all over them (and that’s probably a best-case-scenario).
That’s the nature of being young I suppose.
But something should be done because it’s not just them that are put at risk, but all the other drivers and pedestrians along our roadways as well.
Parents and caregivers have a role to play here as they are ultimately responsible for the behaviours and actions of their children, but I think the police have a major responsibility as well.
After all, it's the RCMP who has the responsibility around here of monitoring traffic and holding those who break the rules to account.
Maybe all it would take for most of these kids is to face the consequences of their acts and be punished accordingly.
Let's just hope that something happens before someone is seriously hurt, or even killed.
