Hi! It’s Fire Dog again. Today we’re going to talk about drinking and riding. When you ride, you need all your senses. You only have two wheels, and you’re trying to steady that. Well there’s trikes. That’s a whole different thing. But you still have to be aware on a trike. You you have to be on the top of your game because you have to be able to avoid other cars, obstacles, people.
You know, we’re a lot smaller than most everything else on the roadways. I personally ride like people are out to get me just because I want to make home to my loved ones. Alcohol will impair all your senses and impairs your reaction time. It dulls everything. Makes all your movements, your reactions slower, and sometimes you don’t realize it because it also impairs a section of your brain that should tell you that you are impaired.
A lot of the majority of the wrecks that are single vehicle wrecks involving a motorcycle, which means the only vehicle involved was the motorcycle. A majority of those have alcohol involvement, meaning the rider had alcohol in their system, whether or not it was above the legal limit. I don’t have those stats in front of me. I just know that that is a statistic out there.
I know back in college we did an experiment that we we did. They gave us alcohol goggles or drunk goggles, something like that. You put them on and they mimic having a .08 alcohol blood alcohol level. They mess with your vision, which in turn messed with your brain so that it mimicked being drunk. Even though .08 is not a very high alcohol level. I couldn’t catch keys. My reactions times were very compromised. It was very eye opening, and I think it was very open for everybody to sell that.
When we’re on the roadways and it’s you and your bike, you’re the one in control. And if you have a lot of alcohol or even for some people, a little alcohol, your control is not as fine tuned as it could be and maybe even should be.
Now, I’m not saying you can never have a drink when you’re on your bike. I’m not saying that I’ll call it bad. The amount of alcohol that you can tolerate and still safely function is different for every person. It’s determined by your body type, your weight, your tolerance. Your genetics, and if you have a full or empty stomach, all those can determine how effective affected by the alcohol you are.
I just want you to think about that. And I know a lot of the rides that we go on for charity and for very good causes end up being poker runs, where we ride from one bar to the next bar to the next bar. And I see a lot of people drink a lot at each bar. And those people I worry about, and I hope they make it home safe. And I know that not all the times they do. So when you’re out at stuff like that, I want you to think about that. Think about when you go to have that drink. Am I going to be okay? I mean, you’re going to tell yourself you’re okay, but we also know at some point when you’re not okay and if you need to leave your bike, secure your bike someplace safe and get another ride home, that’s perfectly fine.
I have ridden bikes home for people. I’ve put bikes in safe places for people. I’ve taken people’s keys. That’s part of that part of the motorcycle culture. I my brother’s keeper. I’m my sister’s keeper. And part of that is I tried to make sure that I keep my brothers and sisters safe, sometimes from themselves. As a first responder, I’ve seen quite a few people wreck their motorcycles because their reaction was to buy alcohol.
I just want you to be thoughtful and think of that the next time you’re out and you’re having fun. I want you to have fun once you enjoy yourselves. But I want you to be safe.
America is a free country. You can choose. This is just my opinion. Not telling anybody what to do. I do want you to be safe out there. So think about it. When you go to get on your bike. Me? I choose not to drink when I’m on my bike, but I can’t tell you what to do.
Be safe out there.