Most of us are familiar with the ride2live / ride2die websites. Basically a plainly designed webpage of explicit motorcycle accident scenes. Sometimes people pointed riders (usually new and prospective ones) to those websites to illustrate some point. But in my opinion, the only good they served was to bump the page views on the domain name so the owner could sell it.

I checked out the website once. Luckily I was forewarned and hadn't eaten recently nor planned to. The pictures were graphic and highly disturbing. But honestly for me the whole thing was "So what?". I guess if a parent was trying to scare their child out of riding, it might do that rather well. But for someone like me, there was no message I could take from the website other than "Scratch crime / accident scene photographer off possible future careers list".

Many of the accidents pictured there would not have been survivable nor preventable in any amount or type of gear. Hell, some would have been fatal in anything smaller than a tank. Where was the message? Nothing we can buy in any store is going to prevent getting chopped in half when pinned between two vehicles. There was a picture there of a guy with what looked like a tree stump shoved up his a$$. A*, Dianese, Joe Rocket... None of them sell any type of riding pants that prevent impalement on a ****ing tree stump!

Most of the accidents featured on that website also lacked information concerning the accident's cause. Mr Tree for example. Was he riding drunk, hit a curb and landed on it? Mechanical failure on some mountain twisty that threw him over the guard rail? Some teen punching in "OMG LMAO!" to her BFF on her iPhone sent him flying? Even some of the injury photos left questions as to whether the rider was geared, with the accident exceeding the gear's limits. Or did the gear not function properly (some knee pads are notorious for not staying on the knee)? Or was the rider doing their impression of calamari, wearing a pair of Crocs right before their ankle snapped?

Those websites had shock value for sure. But what message was really being sent to the person? "If you ride, you're gonna die and it'll be ugly"? Great, so why the **** bother with gear or caution if that's the inevitable outcome? Or better yet, shake the new rider to his core with that crap right before he gets out on the street. It's my opinion that the one thing that a new rider MUST HAVE before skill is Confidence. They will attain skill through practice and experience. But without confidence, they are a danger to themselves. They'll have enough worry that they're going to scratch / drop their new baby. Filling their heads with images of gore strewn accident scenes and telling them "this could be you" puts a bigger elephant in the corner of their mind. If visually fixating on a guard rail tends to make a rider head straight into it, what do you think mentally fixating on a headless and legless torso does to them?

If you're trying to educate someone about gear and safety, send them someplace useful. Almost every manufacturer of gear has a survivors story section where people tell (and often show) how their gear prevented a major injury. Send them to the Hurt Report where they can see the statistics involving the crashes' circumstances. Even sending them Youtube video links of crashes provide a better education. Because there they can see what went wrong. You are showing them what not to do. The message is far clearer than wading through a website of gory pictures.

Ride2Die and Ride2Live are currently down. Personally, I hope they stay that way. They were never posted in any attempt to educate a rider. Just some enterprising tard aiming for publicity before selling the domain name. "Come here and rubberneck on 100 different accidents! Look as long as you want! The highest bidder for the domain names will thank you for your voyeurism"

/rant

 

I use that site quite often to drive the point home why riders needs to wear gear and I will continue to do so. yanno like the saying goes 'a picture is worth a thousands words' And it works if you dont see it, believe it, or like it.

 

How many of the guys here have pics of their rash in their galleries? At least with those, you can ask them "What happened?". Who is it, RydaGurl I think, whose avatar is an x-ray of her broken wrist? I know enough of us have gone down and can give plenty of proof of what we did wrong and what we did right.

I just think there are better ways to demonstrate the need for gear. Sorry PG, but when I looked at that site what I saw was a guy trying to profit off some rider's (or his surviving relatives') pain. I hear guys at work tryin to shake my confidence, asking stupid questions they don't really don't care if they get an answer so they can relate some stupid story they were told about how some guy was flayed alive despite his gear, so they can see me squirm. Doesn't work, mostly because I detest most of the guys at work already.

But pointing a newbie who's already nervous about climbing in the saddle at something like that doesn't do any good. And honestly, most they guys around here that don't wear gear are set in their ways and won't change their mind till about 2 minutes after they needed it.

 

I only read the first sentence. I like the ride 2 die sites because I like gore. I like watching motorcycle/car/boat/bicycle crashes. They are just cool to watch.

 

I agree with Kuroshio, those site are to profit from the death of others and most of those injured had no chance regardless of there gear. I've gone down several times and the last time wasn't wearing my jacket and suffered the result on road rash and 87 stitches without pain killer because of my allergic reaction to demeral and morfin. I've learned to wear my jacket and full gear but some injuries can't be prevented regardless of gear. I didn't know they had to stitch the inner layer before they could stitch the outer skin. Its painful to the point that your blood pressure drops and you pass out, and yea I still love to ride and stunt. Johnnyh

 

I think kuro makes a valid point. Hence why I made the post "squid or not". Really at 30mph are you worse off with a helmet,shirt and shorts to fall vs falling when I run at 20mph with just shorts and a shirt? There are to many variables in life and this shows it. Having all the gear on in the world is a great idea but sometimes not practical. People will wear it on a 100+ degree day and good for them..for me I would pass out which would cause me a higher percentage to crash. Ride within your limits but also trust yourself and your judgment. If you have a hard time trusting yourself on a bike why the heck are you driving a car then.

 

Although i dont have the patience to read this entire post much less the first post i do see some similarities to our many discussions of "to wear gear or not to wear gear". I mean seriously???? how many more f*ckin topics are we going to create criticizing each other for stupid gear beliefs? I think if this is goin that route admin should bundle it up in the "who gives a f*ck" box and burn that ****. If i see one more topic on peoples opinion on wearing gear im gonna quit this site!

 

Actually the post isn't about whether or not people wear gear. If you had read the first post, you woulda caught it has very little to do about whether or not people wear gear.

It's about the value of that website in general to do anything more than sicken most people, titillate others and potentially generate cash for the domain name owner.

 

Im with ya Kuro. I can't stand sites that make money off the sorrow of others. I've never understood the mentality of a person who gets off on crap like that. Maybe they've never suffered a terrible loss in their life, or have never truely loved someone. If you can dehumanize people and enjoy watching people die, there is definately something wrong.

I guess in some respects, its not any worse than the general media which does the same, they just have a higher profit and hide it better by not showing the gore, but still report on horrible events and make millions off the pain and suffering of others.

And I agree. Near all of the crashes on those sites would have made little difference if the person was geared up or not. I really don't see the point of the websites.

 

The owner of my local Moto site is on ride2die from his crash. I dont see whats "pointless" about them when you see people crash at the track and in full gear all the time sometimes going in excess of 140 and walk away with not even a scratch on them.