I always hear people saying that motocross is inherently a dangerous sport. Crossing a busy road is also inherently dangerous, so is driving a car.
However, we as parents will take the time to teach our kids how to cross a busy road (look left, look right, look left again, judge the speed, distance etc.). This allows the kid to make a better decision when crossing the road. The same applies to driving a car; you have to pass a certain test (orally, written, and physical) before you are granted the permission to drive on the road.
This is not the case in motocross. Instead of enrolling in Motocross classes, the parents will buy a full scale motocross race bike off the showroom floor and give it to their kid to ride on a track that is filled with manmade obstacles (never mind the other riders) and expect the kid to go faster and faster, without any form of training first. The kid gets hurt and the sport gets a bad reputation.
If I was traveling down a road and there was a fork up ahead. I can either go left or right if I had no prior direction as to which way to go. It will be a 50/50 chance as to which direction I will take. 50% chance of taking the wrong road. However, if I had gotten information before arriving at the fork in the road, I will have a 100% chance of taking the correct road.
So if turning left I will come to a dead end and fall off a cliff, and turning right meant I would come to a gas station, hotels, and restaurants, which path would I rather take?? 100% of all accidents on the track are either rider or mechanical error related.
Let me give you some examples of how motocross classes can help prevent accidents:
Following in someone else’s line:
If the rider you are following makes a mistake, then you will become part of his problem. Would you want to be a part of the problem, or part of the solution? So it’s no use getting mad at the rider for falling in front of you, because it was really your fault.
Kid with no control:
I saw a kid riding a 65cc on a big motocross track. The kid was going pretty fast but I could see that he had no control. In other words, he was not using his clutch properly, he was not using his front brake, most of the time he was hanging off the back of the bike and generally out of control, to me at the speeds he was traveling it definitely spelled an accident looking for a place to happen.
The same kid decided that he could not do a step-down double and half way down the jump, grabbed too much back brake without pulling in his clutch. The bike stalled and here the kid was standing in the middle of a blind step-down double jump. The kid wasn’t even strong enough to start his own bike.
Another rider approached the jump not seeing the kid. He jumped and landed on top of the kid. Both riders were badly hurt. I saw the parents of the little kid, blaming the other rider. I also saw the other rider blaming the kid. But here, it’s definitely rider error on both sides. Motocross classes would have made these riders aware of these dangers.
Added to this, there are also other people and other factors involved, e.g.:
Bike Maintenance
A rider never tightened his back wheel properly. When landing from one big jump halfway through the race, the back wheel collapses completely on him, and he breaks both of his legs. Whose fault is that? A rider forgets to turn on his gas line. Halfway around the track approaching a double jump at speed, the bike runs out of gas. He nose-dives over the double jump, obviously not making it, breaking both his arms, his sternum and his ribs. I guess that could also be classified as the bike’s fault???
Track Building
75% of track owners have no experience at building tracks or riding. They get some little 15 or 16-year-old hotshot rider to tell them how to build the jumps, which is definitely not set up for the average rider which is 90% of all riders. So many people get hurt, because the track was not built properly. FYI, there is no standard or rating for any tracks in the United States which is a shame.
Flagman
I have seen kids being employed as flagmen, and have no interest in the sport. They have no clue what’s going on. A rider would fall down in a dangerous area, and the flagman would not jump up in time to warn the other riders. The other riders were at full speed and run into the guy who fell down and end up injuring themselves and the other rider as well.
So all the information above makes motocross a dangerous sport? As you can see, it is not motocross that is dangerous. It is people error due to a lack of education. The proper Motocross classes and education helps prevent accidents.
