[SVTEAL]

Well, it was great reading all these posts...

It is amazing how the level of fear tolerance changes according to the situations...

Coming from one of the poorest country of the word, I can tell you the motorcycle experience is completely differently... And yes, there are some fatal accidents, but it is also a great deal of fun growing up in such enviroment.

Here a motorcycle is a toy, a very expensive one, I could buy 4 tires for my geo with the price of a rear tire of some bikes here. In the island is different, people ride motorcycle because they are a lot more inexpensive and most people is the only thing they can affort for transportation...

So, what do you do as the head of house hold, recently wed and with a new child... Well, you take your whole family where ever you need to go on your only method of transportation, your motorcycle.

The wife, wearing skirts sits on the back side ways, if the baby is too young she would hold it between the two of you, and if child is old enough that he can sit and hold himself, the he would ride on the gas tank. Of course, I am talking about standard bikes, where the seat and the tank are a flat line, this setup would be impossilbe on a GXR with that ackward shape gas tank...

No body wears any gear, including glasses, roads are very dusty, and people do not obey road sign, and there are no road lighting during night, and the lights on these old motorcycles are very poor... So one must have 150% concentration at all times, but it is daily living, nothing out of the norm...

I started riding my brother motorcycles when I was still too short to reach the floor while one the bike, so everything I had to stop, I had to plan the stop so that it would be next to a side walk so that I could make use of the much needed help in height.

So, coming from such a culture, I absolutely had no fear in giving my son his first rides... When he was only a few months old, I took him for a ride on the scooter Zuma that we had. I can't say that he enjoyed because he didn't know how to express it, but he didnt show disconfort either...

Now that he is 3, it is very normal for him to hop on thank and go for rides around the block with me, no fear and no worries from either party except that if I ever get caught by a cop, I could loose the custody of my own child in the name of having fun together...

The same goes for people who come from very small town, when they arrive in the city they are all paranoid about everything... People who live in the city are num, the can't feel any fear, the city environment is all normal...

It all depends on where you are and the situation...

My dad tells me that, when he married my mom, he only had a bycycle, then when they had their first baby, they use to commute all three in the bycicle... which had a rear grill as a seat for my mom who would hold the baby while my dad sweated on pedaling... It is all fun... I think!