While tuning up my motorcycle in the driveway, my next-door neighbor sauntered over.

“I’ve always wanted a motorcycle,” he said wistfully. “But as my wife tells me, ‘there are two kinds of motorcyclists: those who have had accidents, and those....’”

“Let me stop you right there,” I said. “I’ve heard this before....”

But undeterred, he continued “… and those who will have accidents.”

“I’ve heard that before. We all have.” I said, “At the same time, I know people who’ve been riding for over 50 years, without having any kind of accident.”

He smiled. “They just haven’t had their accident yet.”

I didn’t reply and continued working on the bike, it’s fruitless to argue. But what he said got me thinking. How many times do you have to hear something before it becomes a default way of thinking?

Response times vary from person to person, and studies show that it takes approximately a tenth of a second for a brain to recognize that it is facing a life-threatening situation, and another tenth of a second for it to formulate a response and send instructions to the musculoskeletal system that will help avoid or combat the threat. That’s not much time, and if you’re on your bike, rounding a corner, and there’s a downed tree there, a large rock on the road, or a car that’s starting to make a left-hand turn into your lane, then you need every single fraction of a second to react.

If you’ve had the “inevitability” of a motorcycle accident beaten into you, then you might resign yourself to this being “your accident,” instead of focusing on the threat, by swerving, braking, or accelerating out of harm’s way.

Everyone who has taken a motorcycle safety class has heard of “target fixation,” where one becomes so focused on an object that they ram it, or riders who lose their line in a turn and go off the road when just leaning into the turn a bit further would have gotten them safely through. But, how much of target fixation can be attributed to hearing that fatalistic tape-loop over and over again, “Haven’t had an accident, yet? No? Well, you will….”

It’s possible we may have an accident any time we’re on a bike; fate plays a hand in this, but there are many factors that figure into it that help fight the odds. Proper equipment such as armor, good tires and brakes, and working lights. Spending time in parking lots and trails practicing emergency maneuvers is another way to decrease the odds, as training activities like these conditions one’s responses against potential threats.

I’m not planning on wasting any of that fraction of a second before a possible accident in mentally throwing up my hands and saying, “Here it is; like everyone has been saying for years, this is my accident.”

I looked up at my neighbor. “You know what? You’re absolutely right. You shouldn’t have a motorcycle. You’re better off sticking with your car….”

John Luck is a long-time motorcycle rider, and when he's not headed somewhere on his bike, he can usually be found in Patagonia or Antarctica, where he works as an EMT and photographer on various expeditions. He’s just returned from his 14^th Antarctic expedition.