The way I heard it explained was that car drivers' brains basically compute an oncoming motorcycle's profile as equivalent to a pedestrian's and assume a pedestrian's speed. Never having ridden, they have no idea of the speed and acceleration of a two wheeler (and, basically, don't care because they think they are protected by all the metal armor around them).

I never had or made an accident because of speed.

Some interesting things came out of the Hurt Report, e.g. weather is not a factor in 98% of motorcycle accidents and most motorcycle accidents involve a short trips, the accident likely to happen in very short time close to the trip origin, but the median pre-crash speed was 29.8 mph, and the median crash speed was 21.5 mph. High speed crashes, e.g. in the 80s, were "one-in-a-thousand".

Speed was not a major causative issue although, obviously, severity increased with it.

Similar speed questions and here were asked recently.

 

145mph (obviously not on the public road though)

 

Had my 99 EVO up to 100 with some left. Ran out of road, the world passes ya QUICK at that speed

 

I've seen 125mph on my '94 Softail Custom.
It's got a Stage 1 -dynojet and screamin eagle ignition module, but that's it.
With speedo error I guess it was somewhere between 115-120.

I think the gearing may be different on the UK bikes, the vibration starts smoothing out at about 75mph.

I've covered nearly 20k miles on it now from new, still runs great, don't think I'll ever sell it!

 

If you only ride it 952 miles a year I don't know why you keep it.

 

Didn't use it for many years due to working away from home and family commitments, really pleased I didn't sell it.

I'm back on it now whenever the weathers good and loving it!

 

I think that works on the principle of 'sex with a cheerleader one weekend a year is better than no sex with no cheerleader every year'.

And it sounds like he's getting out more than one weekend a year.

Which reminds me of a story about a flamenco dancer (... but you can probably file that under "once in a life" being enough.)

 

I don't think I've ever had sex with a cheerleader.
Nor did I ever want to.
The ones I knew were stuck up and too involved with doing the football team.
I'm not good with sharing.

 

I hope y'all have many happy miles together.
You got a lot of catching up to do!!!!!!!!!

 

I broke over 110 riding through Texas back in 88 on my FXR. I felt the front end getting unstable so I backed off.
I would often hit 100 on the 5 south between San Onofre and Oceanside during my commute back in those days.

Mine was an 89 bone stock when I broke 110