If anything ****** me off about all this, it's that new motorcycle drivers shouldn't be allowed to drive from a dealership without thorough instruction on that particular machine and safety orientation class if it's a new motorcycle driver. It's really very different than driving a car.

I rode a motorcycle as my principle vehicle in Los Angeles and San Diego for about 35 years with no serious injury. I looked up fatality statistics years ago for a presentation. If memory serves me well, 50% of the fatalities were on new, borrowed, or stolen bikes. A friend of mine got killed on a brand new Honda he was driving from the dealer to show his parents. He was young and didn't have PN. 90% of the fatalities were during the first year of driving a particular motorcycle.

Here are some recent statistics: http://www.seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Se...09-02Bikes.htm "Compared with a passenger car occupant, a motorcycle rider is up to 26 times more likely to die in a crash, based on vehicle miles traveled." 40% of the fatalities are senior riders.

In this site: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd...004/809908.pdf the motorcycle fatality rate in 2004 was 32 times higher that automobiles per miles traveled.

Clearly, much of the higher fatality rate is due to a propensity for risk taking behavior in motorcyclists. Especially in my late teens and early twenties, I did totally idiotic things on my bike. I was just lucky those first few years, then became cautious and extremely traffic wise.

I truly loved motorcycling, but increasing traffic, road rage in too many car and truck drivers, and my slower reflexes prompted me to sell my gorgeous BMW R70 about 20 years ago.

Aging people and people with PN have slower reflex times. It's probably not wise for most of us to drive a bike except in a group and very sensibly.

The controls on a motorcycle are so different than in a car. The controls on many bikes are different than other bikes, and motorcycles can accelerate faster than almost any car. It's easy to make a mistake until one is used to that specific bike. Here are examples of mistakes on a bike that can cause a crash:

-hitting the foot shifter lever instead of the foot rear brake lever (most bikes shift with the left foot, brake with the right),

-taking a turn too fast,

-for new drivers, turning toward a hazard you're looking at instead of where you want to turn to avoid that hazard,

-hitting an oil patch on the road during a turn,

-not being able to find the right gear for quick acceleration to get out of troubling situations,

-not being able to shift one's weight properly for a very quick emergency maneuver.

-assuming that car driver sees you,

-This next one almost killed me on a big bike I was test riding: not being able to reduce speed during full acceleration because the bike accelerates faster than you expected. Your weight shifts back and you can't decelerate because you're hanging on to the twist grip accelerator to stop from flying off of the bike at high speed so you're actually making it accelerate more. My buddy crashed my very fast bike in a test ride around the block for exactly that reason.

Tragedies happen in spite of our best efforts and intentions. To repeat, it's really very different than driving a car and inherently more dangerous. I wish I could have talked with your husband before he bought his bike. I'm so sorry for you about this and hope this helps you make some sense out of what happened.