April 24 - People Make Emotional Decisions for Rational Reasons

Uh, well, that was a nice break.

“People make emotional decisions for rational reasons.” I don’t know who first said it, but I first heard it from a guy named Jim Zackrone. Jim is a sales guy in the high stakes world of semiconductor capital equipment, stuff that sells for the bargain price of 500,000 and goes up from there. He was fond of that quote. What it meant was that, basically, people make up their minds about what they want and then they find the facts to fit their decision. This is a process called rationalization and it applies to a great many things people do, not just purchasing decisions.

Fifteen years or so ago, I decided to start riding a motorcycle. This was for two reasons. The first was financial. An old bike was all I could afford to get around on. The second was because I truly enjoyed riding motorcycles. Not long after I made this decision, I started hearing from various people about the perils of riding. From anecdotes of emergency room doctors calling them “donor-cycles” to loved ones assuring me that they knew I would ride responsibly, “but what about the other crazy drivers out there?” To all these people, a motorcycle was an assured death trap.

I rode anyway.

I rationalized, myself, about this. My thoughts were mostly about my being in control and I thought that was a fairly good argument, to me. I was responsible. I did wear a helmet. But, I did think about it. What did I really know. I knew one thing. Motorcycles were not actually so dangerous that they had been banned. On the basis of this, I could pretty much conclude that they were not actually assured death traps.

So who was rationalizing, I wondered. Me or the folks concerned for me? I began looking into it. It turns out the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration compiles very good statistics on all sorts of accidents of all sorts of vehicles. They track the contributing factors to the accidents such as alcohol consumption, seatbelt use, etc. From this it is possible to determine two things. How dangerous are cars and how dangerous are motorcycles. I’ll sum it up, though you can read something called the Hurt report if you’d like more detail. Motorcycles are 4 times more dangerous than cars. 4 times more likely to result in serious injury or death. That might seem like a lot until you understand how surpassingly unlikely it is that you will suffer serious injury or death in a car. It might seem like a lot until you compare it to all the things you do every day that are far more dangerous than 4 times the likelihood of dying in a fiery wreck.

Things like, oh, say, going for a swim, taking a shower, riding a bike. That’s right, bicycles are incredibly more dangerous than motorcycles. Start looking at the various things that cause death. Next time you tsk. about a motorcycle rider, think about putting down that burger and eat some celery. You are going to die a miserable death of heart disease before he dies riding.

What I learned from this process is that us people are terrible at assessing risk. We make decisions based on a few anecdotes. The horror of the anecdotes set our minds, and any more information that comes our way, we slot it in to fit our view. Alternatively, we rationalize on the basis of desire or necessity and diminish the horror of whatever anecdote or information comes our way. Whatever. To make a good decision, you need raw information. I don’t ride much anymore, but it isn’t because of fear, but simply a lack of time. It turns out a motorcycle is an extremely selfish mode of transportation. Since I became a dad, I can not really justify taking off for an afternoon ride much, anymore.

I did learn a few other things about motorcycles that really make one wonder. For all the talk that motorcyclists talk about the other ignorant drivers, motorcyclists cause more than 60% of the accidents they are in. The reasons are many, but most experts are convinced that it has to do with the connection between the eyes and the motion of the body. When we move around we tend to go where our eyes are looking. Try turning your head while walking or running and see if you don’t tend to go in the direction you look. Because cycles (bi and motor) are so sensitive to body motions, they actually amplify this tendency. Combine this with the human tendency to fixate on something that is a threat, like an on-coming car, and you can quickly see how this could lead to disaster.

Every motorcyclist should be taught this. Without knowing this you may never recognize it when it happens in time to correct.

Aside from that, motorcycle danger is enhanced far more by external influences, especially intoxication. when you read the NHTSA data and you start adding alcohol into the mix and the danger shoots up to, if I recall correctly, something over 20 times more dangerous. Don’t drink and ride.

From here I’ll next explore “anything for the children”, but in reference to last week. What, exactly, do you suppose the risk from firearms is in this country? Anecdotes and individual experience, I'm afraid, are just not the sorts of things you can base decisions on. They are not enough for you to know the comparative risk to see if they are even worth addressing compared to the things that cause the most danger.

YetAnotherJohn finally weighed in on the last post considering the hazards of gun ownership...