ngdawg

Way way back, about 1971 or so, I decided to do a little research after hearing about the KIA's in Vietnam and then hearing something about highway fatalities. What I discovered and ended up writing about in our school paper was that in one year, the number of highway fatalities MATCHED the entire KIA list over the course of the conflict.
But, which gets more notice? Not the ones who made it home, nor the number of drivers who DON'T die in their cars. That's not news or at the very least, worth stating.

Talk to any biker and you will likely find out he/she was in a bike accident. You will probably also find out they're vets or have been in some form of civil service. Fact is, car or bike, very very few can state they've never been in an accident.
So, if we take all these bikers, sift thru some facts, we may find that a) they've been in an accident and b) they've been in the service. If we do as the news does, we can then conclude that if a biker has a service record, he/she is more likely to have been in a motorcycle accident. D'OH!

What actually gets me is this mentality behind the article: Yes, it's ok that 20 died in combat, we pay them to. We don't pay them to race around on sport bikes and, BY GOD, that has to stop.
There are 22,000 Marines in Iraq. No one mentions the 21,980 that are alive. 18,000 Marines own bikes; no one mentions the 17,975 that ride safely or survived a wreck. There are approximately 180,000 Marines total, which means about 10% ride.
There are approx.305,000,000 people in the US. 4 million of them own a bike, which means a little over 10% of the US population rides. Approximately 5100 in 2007 died in a motorcycle accident. That's about .01% or 10x the amount of marines by population percentages. BY GOD, that has to stop. But it ain't news.