To Zleeper and others,
Hey it's really great to have all these posted in this topic. Of course, from a point of view might look like a kind of tragedy place to read.
But!, what happens is that usually theory is by far to little to be able to avoid accidents, then experience takes time. Something in between would really do.
For example you read through lines to use both brakes all the times, and also not to lock them. What does the manual scare you with? Well you'll skid like this and like that blah blah. No, no, you're dreaming. This is not your case, you most probably end up under the wheels of an incoming truck instantly, and you just didn't think that this can be that bad; but you read this topic before, and you'll quicky make the connection when you see situations contouring.
I was for example well pointed by Todds rain skid. just few days I took off in rainy weather, to see how bad or good it is, you can't just dream of driving under the Sun, once rain might catch you, and you're surprised. I was just thinking that basically the traction is pretty good on rain too. Since I read, I waited for the rain to wet everything, and to avoid going just when it gets wet, as it would be much more dangerous. Then in curves I kind of found it natural not to lean that much anymore, but I kept in mind that well can't be as bad as others say it, maybe next time I could lean some more, or push it more in some way. So after I heard how easily you can flip from Todd, for sure he fixed me up here.
Then another side of these accidents. So many of these new riders (any bike pretty much), I can bet they all see how cool others look on these sportbikes, how sweet and attractive this sport is, but have no clue about all its sides. Everyone should see few hundreds of pictures of tragic bike accidents, and what can happen to them. Then if they still have enough Gods to say that "this sport still rocks and I'm for it!" well then just go ahead, you picked the right thing, it looks like you have the exact cold and self controled blood for it.
This is like this poll that went through US some time ago. People were asked whether should US send in Kosovo 10000 ground troops or not? Somewhere around 75% were very insistent on it. Then they were made aware that probably around 3-4 thousands of these americans will die there, after which only around 15% were positive. I might sound funny and a bit too on fire, but I just find this a good example of the typical problem of not understanding all the sides of a thing.
And one more thing, if you didn't press the back button on your browser yet. Never think you really know something. You learnt to make a second gear wheelie, you are kind of able to do it most of the times, so you say, kool, now I know how to wheelie, I'm good. Nope, you suck, all you did you improved a lot, but you'll never have the right to say that now you know everything on the bike, in fact you better try to understand the new nature of the the mistakes now you are just able to make.
ok, finito, let's go back to the fun part of riding, i'll sound like a preacher soon :-).
