I only barely survived an unavoidable and unpredictable crash on a road bicycle with 2 cars. I’ve had 6 crashes with 7 cars in 170k miles on the bike since 2009. Only 2 of those crashes were bad. However I only barely survived crashing at 30mph where the weight of the bike was insignificant. I wouldn’t have survived that same crash on anything more significant or at any higher speed. I had the critical damage of C1 and a fracture at the base of my skull. I was told if I hadn’t been knocked out completely, I would have died if I had moved before the swelling could keep everything together.

I wouldn’t recommend motorcycles until humans decide to replace driver’s side airbag covers with daggers. People drive like fools and since their incompetence is nonlethal to them, the culture of incompetence is unavoidable.

You likely think you can avoid anything by just being careful. This is not the case. I was ultra cautious and went out of my way to avoid hazardous areas. Most of my hits were from illegal U-turns. If you can predict a random vehicle parallel parked on the side of the road will try and make an illegal U-turn suddenly without warning, directly in front of a large SUV that is passing them, you can avoid the crash that almost killed me. That is the level of stupid that finally got me even on a road bicycle.

The human body is not capable of handling the forces of collision. It doesn’t matter what kind of armored jacket you wear, it will never compare to a car’s tolerance. I’ve seen a lot of people die on bicycles including 3 people I knew. My cousin died on a motorcycle last month.