Advice for older riders

Older riders are being advised to buy bikes with “large dials and easy-to-read symbols” as part of a series of potentially insulting tips from America’s Motorcycle Safety Foundation.

Apart from going for easy-read bike dashes, older riders are being warned to stay away from complicated and congested roads and intersections to avoid “input overload”. Best stay at home then.

Oh – and you should keep fit – your muscle mass starts reducing when you turn 30 unless you do regular training, it says. Fair enough, we suppose.

The organisation also warns older riders to keep their distance, saying it takes a middle age rider (40-54 – and that category now includes WSB superstar Frankie Chili and MotoGP hero Jeremy McWilliams) twice as long to react to a hazard as a younger rider. It could take three or four times longer after the age of 55, it says. Older riders should also pay more attention to their life-saver checks. Research in the States shows older riders are less likely to check their blind spots.

And get your eyes tested!

The advice is a response to reports of bike deaths tripling in the U.S. among over 40s in the last decade. Deaths among under 30s went down slightly.

But neither the safety advice nor the reports on the rise in bike deaths take into account the changed demographics in U.S. motorcycling. The average age of a motorcyclist in the States has risen from 32 in 1990 to 41 in 2003.

If more older riders are riding it’s pretty obvious that they are more likely top be more heavily represented in all bike-related statistics – including accident rates.