"mechanical sympathy"
There was a time when you simply didn't get away with riding a Bike without at least some mechanical sympathy, or at least awareness.
There were many reasons - financial for one, but sheer mechanical crudeness for another, that meant you HAD to be able to fix the bugger yourself a lot of the time - perhaps at the side of the road.
But now there are riders who put no thought or work into that aspect of riding a Bike.
Some don't even grasp basic physics as applied to a Bike.
E.G: they fling their Bike into a hedge halfway around a bend - and then blame the 'involuntary loss of traction' on the severity of the brakes as the cause / not their own ham fisted non appreciation of how much throttle or brake they applied at the time.
Add ABS / TCS / slipper clutches / 'modes' to select / self aware 'tilt' sensors / eCall ....
There's a whole load of people out there that seriously have no clue.
At the other end, as protection from them - what we got? The MOT Test.
(and it's a test i don't agree should be necessary because most riders DO take care of the Bike - it's in their self preservation interest to do so!
And before i'm attacked for that, it's a matter i have studied and FWIW the stats agree with me that it makes little or no difference whether a country has an "MOT" or not - the crash stats remain the same - e.g; Sweden has no MOT, Finland and Norway do. Crash stats about the same; approx 1% of crashes are due to mechanical failure.)
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