Motor Mouth: Riding a horse is more dangerous than riding a motorcycle

Now for the second part of my quasi-poll: How many of you bikers had the “over my dead body” discussion when you told your parents — in the not-at-all-uncertain terms that only a 12-year-old can muster — that you’d die without a new mini-bike? As in, you needed one pronto or you were going to run away (OK, that last bit might have been just me).

Despite having absolutely no data from Angus Reid or Ipsos, I’m going to take a stab at this one and guess that the former, despite its consecration in movie lore and fodder for much stand-up comedy banter, was pretty rare. The truth of the matter is that few of us, at least of my generation, were given any instruction on when, where and, most certainly, how to wield our “shame branch” — Robin Williams’ description of, well, you know — in anger.

On the other hand, rare indeed is the budding biker-to-be never subjected to the motorcycles-are-the-most-dangerous-things-on-the-planet sit-down. Like most mothers, mine was convinced that motorcycling was a death sentence. No other sport was even remotely as likely to take her baby away from her, a message, I imagine, was echoed in kitchens throughout the land.

As it turns out, mom was, well — and I can only say this now that she’s now gone to a better place — full of it. In fact, according to a spate of recent studies, riding motorcycles is statistically safer, for instance, than horseback riding and downhill skiing, both sports my unsuspecting mater had no qualms enthusing about.

Most surprising, I suspect to many, are the unheralded dangers of riding a horse. Nonetheless, according to the U.S. National Trauma Data Bank, horseback riding is three-and-a-half times more likely to result in injury than motorcycling. Now, no one’s arguing that more people die from riding motorcycles than from equestrian incidents, but, according to another study, this one from British Columbia, on a per-hour basis, motorcycling is safer. Far safer. According to the data, there are roughly 0.14 serious injuries per 1,000 hours of riding on two wheels, while those on four hoofs suffer 0.49 injuries/1,000 hours.

Making this horse-versus-horsepower comparison even more interesting are the similarities of the injuries incurred, and even the way they occur. For one thing, like motorcycling, a preponderance of horseback riding’s serious injuries are to the thoracic region (that’s the chest and upper back area) and, unsurprisingly, participants in both sports are prone to head injuries. For another, 50-to-59 year-olds was most likely to visit a trauma centre after falling from a horse, just as aging born-again bikers (BUBs) are over-represented in motorcycle accident statistics. One of the main sources of injury in an equestrian accident is having a 500-kilogram horse fall on the stricken rider, a mechanism mirrored by the fact that all three deaths in world championship motorcycle racing this year — a very bad year statistically, by the way — have resulted from the falling rider either being struck by his own motorcycle or those of riders following him. One other striking similarity is that both sports have developed airbag safety vests specifically engineered to reduce injury to the aforementioned thoracic area.

On the other hand, there is a wide divergence in some very crucial areas. So, for instance, while it is a legal requirement in Ontario that anyone under the age of 18 wear a helmet while riding a horse, anecdotal observation says the headgear admonishment is not strictly enforced. And even fewer are the adults who wear a helmet when riding. By comparison, at least in Canada, motorcyclists universally don skid-lid whenever they ride. And I don’t think anyone will argue the fact the Snell-approved full-face motorcycle helmet is significantly more protective than the bonnet that horsey types don.

Like most mothers, mine was convinced that motorcycling was a death sentence

More pointedly, horses have a mind of their own. Christopher Reeve, perhaps the most famous of recent equestrian injuries, was pitched off his horse when it simply refused to jump the third fence at the Commonwealth Dressage and Combined Training Association finals in Culpeper, Virginia. A motorcycle, in contrast, is completely controlled by its rider, its brakes remaining unactuated until a lever is squeezed or stomped. As well, a horse rider sits at least twice as high in the saddle as a biker does, that extra height blamed for at least some of the more severe injuries.

And yet, mom would probably have spent fewer a sleepless night if I had chosen to jump horses rather than the Honda CT70 she finally acquiesced to buy. I also suspect no one has been told they will have to leave home, as my ex-brother-in-law was, if they dared buy that infernal motorcycle. Not to mention being accosted by drunken louts — that should be read “bosses” — at New Year’s Eve parties about risking my offspring’s future, or being castigated by family doctor. Point of fact, has anyone, anyone at all, ever been admonished as to the dangers of riding a horse to the degree we motorcyclists are continuously harangued?

Which leads me to my final question: What’s behind this discrimination? Is it because no one knows of the dangers involved? How has the equestrian industry kept this deadly secret so quiet? Is there a media plot to diminish the dangers of Dutch Warmbloods and Hanoverian jumpers by demonizing the Valentino Rossis of the world?

I think not. Unfortunately — and I say “unfortunately” because this is the most base of human impetus — I think it’s simply because riding a horse is considered the sport of kings and gentlemen, while motorcyclists are all Hells Angels and hooligans. The human condition, it seems, allows us to forgive that which we think is genteel and rail against that which we deem base — no matter how much statistical reality might recommend the opposite.

Somewhere in the world, a mother is, as you read this, probably admonishing her offspring to not ride one of those demon “donor-cycles,” and begging would you please try riding a horse instead. Hopefully, for safety’s sake, she’s unsuccessful.