If you want to ride a motorcycle, you’ll probably enjoy it very much. Motorcycles are a way to experience the open road and its thrills that cars or trucks can seldom match. That’s because nothing but air surrounds you, and you can feel the wind as it flies by your face.

There’s also the flip side of motorcycles, though, which is that they’re pretty dangerous. The stats regarding motorcycle wrecks are enough to get your attention, and they might dissuade you from riding at all.

If you are going to ride, you should do all you can to remain safe. There are some particular actions on your part that make it much more likely you’ll get home in one piece every time you go out for a ride. We’ll cover some of those in this article.

Take Safety Classes

The Jacoby and Meyers website notes that motorcycle accidents “have a higher death rate than auto accidents” in America. That’s consistently the case with each passing year. You can prevent many such accidents if you take classes and learn how to conduct yourself while riding a motorcycle.

You can look around where you live and find an entity that teaches motorcycle safety. Different ones often conduct classes very similar to what you would take if you were trying to pass your driver’s license test.

During these classes, you’ll learn about following traffic laws, but also about general motorcycle safety. If you’re only starting to get into motorcycle riding, this is one of the critical things you can do if you want to avoid injuries.

Wear a Helmet and Pads

Wearing a helmet is absolutely essential if you want to ride your motorcycle regularly. You should make sure to find one that a reputable brand makes. You also must make sure it fits your head comfortably.

You also might consider wearing some additional pads. You can get them for your elbows, knees, and other body parts as well in some instances.

You can look into what the helmet laws are like in your state. Remember that the helmet laws are not the same in every state, and in some, they vary dramatically. Some states don’t require that you wear a helmet in any circumstance, while others want you to wear one if you’re a young, inexperienced rider.

Don’t Let Anything Distract You While Riding

You have probably seen people in cars behave inappropriately sometimes. Some of the most egregious driver behaviors involve individuals texting on their smartphones or talking on them while they should be paying attention to the road ahead of them. These drivers endanger themselves, their passengers, and the drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists around them.

If these behaviors are bad in cars, you can imagine how much worse they are if you’re guilty of them while riding a motorcycle. If you try to text or talk on the phone while riding a motorcycle, causing a wreck is nearly unavoidable.

You should also not let anything else distract you, like billboards, the scenery, weather conditions, and so forth. When you’re on a motorcycle, taking your eyes away from the road directly ahead of you for only a second or two can be all the time you need to hit an object or person.

Don’t Speed or Drive Too Slowly

You should also obey all traffic laws, but in particular, pay attention to your speed when you’re out on your motorcycle. You might want to speed and see how fast it can go, especially if you’re on a long, straight highway stretch with no one else in sight.

If you’re going much faster than you should be, losing control for just a split second can cause you to crash. If you hit some gravel or a rough patch at a high rate of speed, you can fly off your motorcycle and hit your head or break one of your limbs. If that happens, you might never be the same again, even if you’re wearing padding.

While riding too fast is dangerous, so is going too slowly. If you do that, you hold up the traffic behind you, and you’re probably going to have a lot of drivers angry at you. They might just honk at you, but if you don’t ride at an acceptable speed rate, you could trigger a road rage incident.

Road rage incidents can be every bit as dangerous as wrecking your motorcycle. If you get in a shouting match with someone, you don’t know if they have a gun, knife, bat, or some other weapon. Avoid these scenarios by keeping to the speed limit.

Always Have a Smartphone with You

One final thing you can do to make sure you stay safe while riding your motorcycle is to always have a smartphone on you. That way, if you do wreck your motorcycle or injure yourself, you can call 911 and get the police and an ambulance to arrive as quickly as possible.

You might need that phone for other things as well. For instance, maybe you come across an accident, or you see one happen right in front of you. If you’re out there on the highway all the time, that sort of thing is definitely possible.

You can use the phone to call for help if the wreck injured anyone. You can also use the phone to call for assistance if your motorcycle is having a mechanical issue and you’re stranded far from home.

Those who ride motorcycles know they’re inherently dangerous, but they can also be a lot of fun, and that’s a worthwhile trade-off for some people. If you have a family, though, they might tell you at some point that they’d prefer you no longer ride or that you don’t do it as frequently.

If that happens, you’ll have to decide whether you’ve finished your riding days. In the meantime, if you follow our tips, your family should at least feel a little better.