JEDDAH, 11 August 2005 — Big Tony had cut his teeth on Squirrels and progressed through Dragonflies to Panthers. A veteran of thirty years living and breathing motorcycles and the hugely built proprietor of an Aladdin’s cave of a motorcycle spares shop in South London, he was the guru of the two-wheel fraternity that used his store as part club and part repair shop. Squirrels, Dragonflies and Panthers, by the way are — or at least were — motorcycles much sought after in the first half of the 20th century.
Through a haze of unfiltered rolled cigarette smoke, he had spotted that I cheerfully, in shirtsleeves and without a crash helmet, rode an ancient home-built motorcycle.
In the manner of the best gurus, his teaching method was simple and brutal. He wound his grimy silk scarf round my head, effectively blinding me and said, “Walk down the street ‘till you find a lamppost.” It turned out to be the best piece of advice ever given to a cocky young motorcyclist. I discovered, through the exercise of youthful braggadocio, exactly how much it hurt hitting a concrete lamppost at three kilometers an hour.
Since then, crash helmets have become compulsory wear for motorcyclists in most countries, including Saudi Arabia.
According to the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, in a head-on crash at 48 km/h, the rapid deceleration would cause a 4-kilogram child to weigh the equivalent of 133 kilos. In other words, the child would hit the dashboard at the speed equivalent to a fall from a three-story building. Multiply that up and use an 80kg adult and the equivalent weight becomes 2,400 kg (2.5 tons) for the same speed — a fall from the top of a fair sized office block. The damage to the human body would be infinitely more than the bruised forehead and bloody nose resulting from walking into a lamppost.
Imagine then exactly what the damage a motorcyclist’s soft and fleshy body does to a concrete wall or oncoming heavy vehicle at that kind of speed; absolutely none. Nothing that could not be hosed off the road anyway.
So why then do so many motorcyclists persist in riding on public roads in the Kingdom without helmets? Why do many wear no protective clothing at all? Why do the police motorcyclists — some of whom do not wear crash helmets and none of whom in my experience wear anything but a cotton uniform — not apprehend them?
Motorcycling is a terrific pastime as well as being a cheap and largely convenient form of transport. Any serious promotion of motorcycling as sport or transport must be accompanied by the equally aggressive promotion of safety, in motorcycling technique and proper equipment.
Images of baseball-capped individuals performing rear-wheel “wheelies” wearing everyday clothes or groups of riders out for a ride — less than 30 percent of whom were wearing helmets and none wearing protective clothing — send exactly the wrong message to those who still believe that motorcyclists are an irresponsible breed and also to potential purchasers of the machines.
