Do you ever find some people automatically assume you’re a Hell’s Angel member because you ride a motorbike? I’ve often found myself in conversation almost being shouldered with the blame for other motorcyclist’s antics on the road. Some of my friends are very anti-motorcyclist, oddly enough all them are self described “petrol heads”, they usually go on about how dangerous bikes are - despite some of them do some very dangerous driving and also some previous under the influence driving (many years ago). However, they’re quite opinionated on the dangers of motorcycling. I’ve sometimes felt they’ve been rather lecturing towards me when they talk about how the saw one crazy rider on the M1 doing 130+ - as if almost I’m in the same chapter.
It’s almost if people don’t merit any individual riders, but they see everyone who rides a motorcycle as to blame for any sporadic hooligan riding encountered.
Of course I’ve seen idiots riding about before, I’ve been a little foolish myself (speed wise, never done anything stupid like terrorizing the population of Walton-on-Thames) but I’ve seen a damn sight more crazy drivers than motorcyclists in my time. Had much more run in with car drivers (even as passenger in friend’s + family’s cars) than any other cars, why? Because pretty 90% of all vehicles are cars on the road. But I’d never think to say “ALL CAR OWNERS ARE WANKERS!” Why? Because my dad drives a car, my mother does, my friends all do, 80% of people where I worked did… the list goes on. I know that not all car drivers are wankers because there’s loads of them. The only reason why motorcyclists are demonised by - quite a few - is because they’re a minority.
Now you may very well think that, hold on, I know loads of bikers and they are the stereotypes, they’re crazy, reckless and have little or no regard for the public’s safety. But statistics speak for themselves, whilst you are much more likely to incur injury or death through a motorcycle crash they are rarely involved in fatal crashes that cause massive devastation (there are the odd few), cars still kill the most people, whether it’s on the road or on the pavement - pretty much because there’s just more cars on the road than anything else. It isn’t about just killing people though, cars also have the most drunks on the road, driving under influence of drugs, dangerous driving and other violations of the road traffic act (again mainly because there’s just much more of them on the road).
The main point is, people tend to generalize, if we were all pedestrians we’d probably assume anyone driving a car was rolling the dice with their lives or had a complete disregard for the safety of others. One of the core problems is that it’s not just a simple “I don’t like motorbikes” issue, but that it’s one of real prejudice, you can even feel it sometimes out on the road, people get het up and annoyed for simple legal things like filtering to the front of the lights. I’ve even had someone tick me off before for parking in a car-park bay at PC world when there was no parking provided at all (bit weird).
Of course, unlike most forms of prejudice, when you’re not on the bike, wearing a helmet or talking about bikes, the prejudice ends. It is easy to see how people generally - almost naturally - form prejudice thoughts against anyone in a minority and prefer to act upon statistically unlikely information based on limited anecdotal experiences rather than an objective evidence-based view. It speaks volumes about humanity in a way, it seems that it’s been a constant issue for any minority throughout time. It’s like if you’re in a minority any kind of bad behaviour is immediately noticed and generalised. It might be a common natural human experience, but it doesn’t make it right of course. Of course I’m being realistic, this form of prejudice isn’t going to cost you your job, have you run out of society or marginalized but some people might think less of you.
(Also I am aware that I am criticizing an anecdotal view on motorcyclists whilst only really supporting with anecdotal views myself, but the frequency of occurrence is fairly huge and you only have to check the youtube comments on motorcycling videos to see 30-40% of comments say “**** off and break your neck”, the same certainly isn’t said for car owners)
One comical point, is that some people have quizzed me on the accuracy of Sons of Anarchy for just riding a motorbike 
, I have to remind them we don’t all sniff crank off a switchblade whilst riding away from “the man!”
