I once had a fascination with motorcycles. I’ve never owned one, but I took every opportunity to rent them while working in South East Asia in 2014.
I had a scare on a rural, mountainous road in Vietnam that changed my mind. A truck was attempting an overtake of a broken down vehicle at a blind corner. I needed to pull off onto the lip of the road to avoid the truck. The loose gravel, and my inexperience, sent my back wheel sliding out from under me. Despite the bike landing on my ankle, I escaped with only a few grazes and a bit of a hobble for a few days. I got lucky.
From that day on, I no longer felt comfortable with the motorcycle risk / reward trade-off.
Years later my uncle, who loves to ride his thunderous Harley Davidson, said the following about motorcycle crashes, “It’s not if, but when. And crucially, it’s how bad the accident is when it happens.”
That reconfirmed my decision. There are some activities that I’m now completely comfortable self selecting out of.
Whenever there is a “not if, but when” activity, it pays to think deeply about the severity of the consequence should something go wrong.