One of the fundamental elements for a healthy life on our two wheels is safety. Safety is in part delegated to the professionals who guarantee the putting on the road of the vehicle, from the house that produces it to the services that perform for our coupons, checks, repairs and maintenance, ordinary and extraordinary. Safety is also, in part, delegated to the road itself with the people on the road and the conditions of the environment in which we are driving.
We can certainly say that safety is also linked to our psycho-physical condition and the subject is not of minor importance. Because of its particularity, driving in motion is affected in an amplified way by any imbalance, whether it concerns our person or our mind.
We are certainly clear now how many factors contribute to ensuring the highest level of safety on the road on our motorcycle.
The motorcycle safety kit for a safe start
So we are about to jump on the saddle once again and for a moment before we put on our rider’s clothes we must, out of responsibility and love for ourselves and the rest of the world, take on the role of motorcycle doctor and make a quick check for the health of the vehicle and the person. Not only that, we must always anticipate (and it certainly does not mean bringing bad luck to ourselves) that the unexpected, of all kinds and severity, can be around the corner.
An unexpected event is not only an accident and not only an accident can compromise our health. Even going out without papers, thinking that we are just taking the scooter to the supermarket because the milk is gone and that the papers are not needed, can be an element of risk to safety. We are unpredictably stopped by the carabinieri, or we bump into a car when it is parked, or we have a slight illness and we find ourselves in a completely different and unexpected situation from what we thought it was: 3 minutes to go and buy milk at the supermarket.
Having said this, and therefore taking note of the duty to ourselves to check that every time you jump in the saddle you have to do it completely by the regulations, we can come to our security kit. The security kit can be more or less elaborate and vary from situation to situation and that’s why my advice is that it is not related to the bike, but the person. This allows us to think of it as part of our backpack, for example, and does not force us in size thinking that it must necessarily enter the compartment under the saddle along with other things. Whether you are of the kind sex or mighty males a backpack is a great companion for the two wheels and my advice is that it is a backpack with a double bottom. The double bottom is enough to avoid the omnipresent task of having both the rainproof kit and the security kit.
Minimum safety kit
Although the term “security kit” immediately brings to mind a screwdriver and wrench, it is not this type of element that your desire for security needs. It’s obvious that having them is an added value but under almost no circumstances (for the average scooterist or the average motorcyclist) will you be asked to intervene on your vehicle, leave it to the professionals who can guarantee for you, the task and the responsibility of touching the structure of your vehicle. In any case, if you want to bring with your tools of this type, are just those that you can stay in a small compartment or container to be stored under the saddle as thinking and, certainly, never requested.
Here, then, is the list of the first elements of the security kit could surprise you:
- Business card of your reference mechanic
- 24-hour night rescue business card
- A sheet (better if laminated or laminated) with all your personal information + info on the person to call in case you are not able to do so
- A pencil
- A pen
- a notepad
- a power bank + cable for charging your mobile phone
- 2 CID (the first is always wrong)
- a small bottle of liquid to wash your hands
- a rechargeable flashlight
- a hazard warning device
- a padlocked chain (it can be attached to the tools under the saddle because of its size and weight)
- plasters
- a medical gauze
- some tears of house paper well folded and pressed to reduce the encumbrance
- a multipurpose knife (allowed by the size reader) with at least a knife and scissors inside.
- 2 energy bars
- two clean soft cloths
- adhesive tape
- insulating tape
- a change of linen
- reserve money (one hundred euros in paper money)
The dimensions of the safety kit
Thanks to this list, you now understand why there is the talk of a compartment at the bottom of your backpack. These are mostly everyday objects and can be useful in many situations even outside the context of motorcycling. You will discover how the objects listed are extremely comfortable in many situations and how all this helps to improve the quality of your actions in situations of alteration of the normal flow of events.
The objects listed (except for the chain and padlock that we have placed on our vehicle) no longer steal the space of a good “War and Peace” by Tolstoy and weigh even less. In some cases, together with the security kit, in the bottom of the backpack, there can also be the main kit and both will not steal more space from you than a pair of spare shoes for the gym, if your backpack is large enough there will be room for some shopping and daily activities.
Not only the most obvious security
Many of you are wondering how these elements contribute to our security. There is a lot to talk about almost for each of these elements and behind each of these elements, there is a story. I am not a Sunday biker, my habit is not to take the bike and go for a ride a week in the summer. I’m on the saddle every day, between the city and out of town, between work and out of the region to visit part of my family and I found myself involved in almost every kind of unexpected event on two wheels: from a sudden storm on the Apennines to a serious accident on the Grande Raccordo Anulare, from finding oneself with a scooter stuck in a parking lot to waking up in the hospital after an accident and but my safety was linked to a wrench as much as it was to the sheet that summarized my data and the person to call the time that, due to an accident, I lost consciousness. And a mobile phone with billions of info inside is useless when it is blocked by a pin or broken on the ground. Nothing replaces a small sheet the size of a business card full of personal data and laminated to protect water and fire.
So we are not talking about motorcycle safety for riders who embark to go across Africa, in that case, we would be talking about a safety kit that includes the satellite, the serums and all the tools to repair our vehicle. We are talking about staying dry, being able to return home without discomfort, being able to help others involved in our unforeseen and better manage a road accident.
The context of safety is extremely wide and other articles in this section will go into the merits of contextualizing each element of the previous list so that it makes sense and can be properly used. Other articles will extend that first list to make it perfect for variations on our outputs.
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