Start Seeing Motorcycles

"Start Seeing Motorcycles!" the bumper sticker screams from the car in front. No doubt an enthusiast for the open road, I think, or an anxious mom. These words assume (rightly) that most of us don’t see motorcycles. They imply (also rightly) that road running cyclists (and not the rest of us) are most at risk when drivers fail to see them. They remind us of the obvious: bikers are especially vulnerable in accidents. The conclusion surely follows that all of us on the road share a particular responsibility for the safety and well-being of motorcyclists. To “see” them means to respect them, to treat them with common courtesy, to yield rights-of-way and, sometimes, to give them the benefit of a doubt. Not to see them means to violate their space, cut them off, and “marginalize” them as citizens of the highway.

Some people don’t like cyclists. If you are one of these, already you are conjuring rear-view images of leather-clad, motor-gunning, chain-laden, grungy, frowning, freeway marauders who interrupt the serenity of your Sunday drive, who rapidly bear down on you with God knows what intent, who arrogantly weave, pass, and lean recklessly into the ground. You see helmet-less hair trailing in the wind. And you are thinking, “Who do they think they are, anyway? Why should I be responsible for them?”

But you are. And the bumper sticker is right. Whether our vehicles have two wheels or ten, highway travel is a great equalizer. We have responsibility for each other. It behooves us to see everyone on the road we share.

To start “seeing” motorcycles is to discover something important. Bikers are as diverse as shoppers. For every “Hell’s Angel,” there is a college student on a Harley. More than 500,000 bikers will converge in Sturgis, South Dakota, for the 70th Annual Road Rally in August. There may be violent types among them, but there also will be attorneys, doctors, dancers and housewives.  There will be potheads and teetotalers, carnivores and vegetarians. There will be week-end riders and those colorful free-spirits who meander the continent like medieval vagabonds. Some may be living out their wildest machismo fantasies, but most will be plain and friendly folks. They are part-and-parcel of the multi-cultural stew of contemporary America. Not to see them not only endangers them; it impoverishes our own cultural self- understanding. I wonder how many other people I see, but fail to see, because of my fears, prejudices and stereotypes? 

I wonder also how many people fail to see me even when I stand directly in front of them? Do they see only my suit and tie, my white skin and balding pate, but fail to see me? Do our jobs, gender, race, age, physique, accent, religion, or neighborhood get in the way? Do our tattoos and piercings or lack thereof make us 'invisible' to one another?  I’m ready for another bumper sticker: “START SEEING EACH OTHER!” Do you think it will sell?

Photos from Sturgis.Com