Those stat estimations actually come as no surprise.
Just his morning, a co-worker was asking me about my bike. He is always looking at the possibility of getting one... I recommended to him the SV650, but according to him, he would rather buy a used gixxer, if he was going to bang it up.... the SV650 was just not as cool as the gixxer. ....
We can all understand his point of view... I am willing to bet that most people interested in Sportbikes want just that: a Sportbike. Not a watered down version.
I think that the best solution is regulatory, just like many other countries outside the U.S.... I particularly like Japan's 250 and 400cc limitations ..... on top of this, they can buy 400cc Gixxers if they want... you see that's the way to go in the interest of rider and public safety, as well as keeping insurance costs low.
I wonder if the U.S. law makers/citizens will ever wake up to this reality.... rather than WAIT for the statistics to get really bad, they should just learn from other countries' tried and proven stats.
Another good way around it from a non-regulatory point of view is for the bike makers to produce an SV650 type of bike that has the APPEAL and LOOKS of a nice looking sportbike, but not carrying as much power.... but it seems to me that the bike manufacturers are unwilling to produce such a bike.
[ 01-28-2003, 11:42 AM: Message edited by: migz123 ]
Just his morning, a co-worker was asking me about my bike. He is always looking at the possibility of getting one... I recommended to him the SV650, but according to him, he would rather buy a used gixxer, if he was going to bang it up.... the SV650 was just not as cool as the gixxer. ....
We can all understand his point of view... I am willing to bet that most people interested in Sportbikes want just that: a Sportbike. Not a watered down version.
I think that the best solution is regulatory, just like many other countries outside the U.S.... I particularly like Japan's 250 and 400cc limitations ..... on top of this, they can buy 400cc Gixxers if they want... you see that's the way to go in the interest of rider and public safety, as well as keeping insurance costs low.
I wonder if the U.S. law makers/citizens will ever wake up to this reality.... rather than WAIT for the statistics to get really bad, they should just learn from other countries' tried and proven stats.
Another good way around it from a non-regulatory point of view is for the bike makers to produce an SV650 type of bike that has the APPEAL and LOOKS of a nice looking sportbike, but not carrying as much power.... but it seems to me that the bike manufacturers are unwilling to produce such a bike.
[ 01-28-2003, 11:42 AM: Message edited by: migz123 ]
