I think I asked myself a lot of the same questions as thread poster. FWIW, I offer my thought process. Just an opinion.
Six years ago, I began working 20 miles away, which was the longest commute I have ever had, having had the luxury of close jobs for years.
At the time, I kept thinking about alternatives to the fuel consumption lifestyle in my car. I considered m-cycles immediately, but it took me years to overcome fuss and change and expense and just do it. I owned a Honda 350 in the early 70s and hadn't ridden since. I sold it because I couldn't easily carry my gear (I am a musician).
For the first month of owning my bike, having not ridden for 37-years, there were a few flashes to terror, mostly at LOW speed, because I had forgot about handling in all those years. That's where the MS clases comes in handy, I reckon. And I'm an all-gear all the time guy, too. Hot in summer.
Most people were cool, a few gave me the "but you'll die" speech. But I examined those people and their lives, seeking some kind of wisdom about it. One person, the most adamant, has a husband who is a pediatrician. They lives lives of maximum safety, bla-bla-bla. The guy was leaving an x-ray lab and was beaten almost to death by black muggers who decided to pound a skinny white guy just for the hell of it (yes, this really happened). So much for all those years of living in safety. Another person, a woman who controls her husband and son waaay too much and would NEVER allow them on a motorcycle, is a chronic speeder who managed to run her car off of a road into a ditch that most of us go right by. She has seen me on the commute, going the speed limit, and thinks I drive too slow. She's tellin' me about safety and I know she does not have control of her vehicle. All that fear, all that control and all that hypocrisy, and for what?
Everybody dies and life isn't multiple choice. Most people spend at least a part of their life living as though they aren't going to die and it's funny. I admit, spending a part of your life living on a feeding tube is a much bigger concern than just dying, in fairness. That's a burden on others. And that's why many people with kids at home don't ride, then return to it in middle-age with the empty nest.
As a poster above said, you think about risk management everyday of your life, informally or formally. I think you already are a conscious risk-management person or you wouldn't be asking. I think you'll be safer if you have nothing to prove. I think you will find yourself most vulnerable to self-caused accidents at first. After that, you are at risk from the randomness of life. And always, don't do anything beyond your comfort level. I am convinced some people just don't have that capacity, to know their limitations, other stretch them on purpose or feel pressured to do so. As Mayor Clint said in a movie "A man's got to know his limitations." All genders, of course. Use that mantra, I do and it help me all through life, accepting what I can't change or predict and not wasting time asking about fairness.
The only reason I would stop riding at this point would be physical infirmity OR, and this is big, if I found myself unable to stay very mentally focused during my ride. In a car, you can practically sleep-walk with much lesser consequences to yourself. What scares me are sudden turners, and cell phone people. They latter are not alert and you have to do the thinking for them, frankly. If you can't live with that, don't ride.. To repeat in another way, because I commute on my bike (I don't ride on weekends at all), I have discovered what everyone else knows: it's easier to drive a car. You can be lazier, you don't need balance etc etc. You can eat, listen to the radio, chew your fingernails, whatever. Hell, on a bike you can't even stop a sneeze! Are you up for that?
Another poster made a brilliant point. If you are accident-prone in other spheres, you probably will be on a bike. If I was accident-prone, I don't think I would ride. I have accident-prone people in my family and I have had three cousins killed on motorcycles. So, it was a sobering decision to ride and remains so.
Fear-based living isn't living, whether its on a motorcycle or in your personal relationships. Proceed with caution, but proceed.
), got divorced and back into it about 4 years ago. Why? Because every spring, I'd see the sportbikes coming out, and it just hurt to not be riding. I've had my Gixxer for 3-1/2 years, I ride only on weekends, rarely during winter, and I've put about 34,000 miles on it. I can't imagine walking away from it again. No matter how good life is, it's better with riding. No matter how bad life gets, riding makes it better.
