On a recent morning, as I headed eastward into work, a young man came around a corner on his motorbike, and I thought that if he had collided with me I would have been dead. The previous evening, as I headed westward after work, two young men on their motorbikes came around a corner weaving in and out of the traffic. I thought if they had collided with me I would have been dead.
I like motorbikes, especially the power and the facility with which you can move through traffic. When I was in my early teens my brother had a BSA 500cc motorbike, and one summer’s day he took me out on it — no gear, no helmets — and we did a ton up an out-of-town road. It was obviously a memorable moment in my life. One night he later collided with the side of a car and was flung over its top and landed on his face. His nose was broken, his upper lip split away, and his four front teeth smashed in.
I lived in Gibraltar for a year at a time when there was no access to the mainland. There were limited stretches of road on the peninsula, but there were no restrictions on the power of the motorbikes. There were a fair number of young one-legged men in Gibraltar then.
Even if the power of the motorbikes is restricted, speed is still considerable, and the force with which a bike meets a solid object and the human body is flung away is considerable. It is enough to cause substantial damage to limbs and — particularly if the headgear is inadequate, as are the half helmets worn without fastened chin straps — brain damage. The young bikers, however, are not deterred even by the examples of a paraplegic in a motor-chair or friends using crutches for months and then not being able to do active sports.
And who can blame them? In our young days we have all tested the elements, pushed the boundaries, pitted our wits against the world. The glory of speed is a wonderful sensation: feeling that you can achieve anything and that you are invincible and in complete control. I just wish I was not at the other end!
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