I'm currently reading Hell's Angels by Hunter S Thompson. Written in the sixties after rollin' with the angels for a year.
Allow me to quote the great man (do read it, some things never change)
Quote:
For a lot of reasons that are often contradictory, the sight and sound of a man on a motorcycle has an unpleasant effect on the vast majority of Americans who drive cars. At one point in the wake of the Hell's Angels uproar a reporter for The New York Tribune did a long article on the motorcycle scene and decided in the course of his research that "there is something about the sight of a passing motorcyclist that tempts many automobile drivers to commit murder."
Nearly anyone who has ridden a bike for any length of time will agree. The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose is to avenge every wrong ever done them by man, beast or fate. The only thing that keeps them in line is their own fear of death, jail and lawsuits... which are much less likely if they can find a motorcycle to challenge instead of another two-thousand-pound-car or a concrete abutment. A motorcyclist has to drive as if everybody else on the road is out to kill him. A few of them are, and many of those who aren't are just just as dangerous - because the only thing that can alter their careless, ingrained driving habits is a threat of punishment, either legal or physical, and there is nothing about a motorcycle to threaten any man in a car. A bike is totally vulnerable; it's only defense is manoeuvrability, and every accident situation is potentially fatal - especially on a freeway, where there is no room to fall without being run over almost instantly.[/b]
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