So, I got my new bike a week ago. It’s the first bike I’ve had in more than a year. I haven’t had it out much because of the rain (Monsoon season here) but I did ride it to work on Monday and some of my co-workers got a look see.

My foreign co-workers didn’t have much to say but I’ve been getting a lot of flak from my Korean co-workers because they think it’s dangerous. A lot of my Korean co-workers ride scooters, even some of the ones that are telling me that motorcycles are dangerous.

I know for a fact that most people who ride scooters here don’t wear helmets. Just the other day, I saw one of my female co-workers riding by on her scooter wearing sandals, a dress, sipping on a coffee with no helmet. It’s not tiny scooters they’re usually riding, either. They’re anything from 50cc to 125cc.

I never get on my bike without wearing at least my helmet, my bike-jacket and gloves.

Can someone explain to me the logic behind this? How is riding a scooter inherently safer, even when people who ride scooters rarely wear any kind of protection? People who ride scooters in nothing but shorts and flip-flops are telling me my bike is dangerous.

I would understand if I was some kind of speed demon or something but I’m not. Their argument sounds like they think motorcycles tend to explode at random or something. The logic just escapes me!

 

It’s a pre-conceived notion among ingorant people…nothing more. More power = more danger doesn’t apply to everyone, and there are some scooters that pack a 600+ cc punch, which to me is equivalent to a 650R dressed in frumpy clothes.

50cc isn’t tiny? I don’t know about Korea, but here, it’s WAY more dangerous to ride a 50cc scooter than it is to ride a 600cc motorcycle….IMO…but that does depend partly on the rider. You wouldn’t catch me dead riding something that small on Central Expressway. I’d be nothing more than fenderwell decoration or a hood ornament. Side streets aren’t much better.

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