Living on the edge

I've been on physioterapy as of late, recovering from a (minor) footbal injury. The clinic is organized into 4 or 5 small private rooms, then a larger one which holds the gym and where several patients can work out at the same time. It's funny to see how long-term patients tend to get connected to each other, simply by being at the same place at the same time over and over again. Kinda like what happens with hospitalized people.

Anyway, today was my last session and I was at the gym with 3 other patients when I realized something odd: they were all injured due to accidents involving motorbikes. I found it even more curious that, despite the reason being the injury being the same, everything else was different. There was this man in his forties, with some sort of back injury, an older one (~ 60), with a shoulder injury and, finally, a young woman in his early twenties whose surgery scar was clearly visible in her knee. Both sexes, three different age groups, three different injuries, one common cause. It does make you feel like it can happen to anyone.

While they were chatting about their accidents the physioterapists also realized this coincidence and mentioned that, in other clinics directed to more serious injuries, sometimes more than 50% of the patients are there due to motorbike accidents. Everyone made some comments on how nasty motorbikes were, but just 15minutes after that the patients were already talking about the newest models, which ones were prettiers and which ones they were going to buy. Apparently they were all going to buy new ones, since their previous ones were destroyed in the respective crashes.

One can't help but wonder what leads so many people to love motorbikes so much that they'll stick with one after a life threatening accident, which in all probably wouldn't be more than an inconvenient bump if they were driving a car. Is it adrenaline of speeding with the wind on your face? The joy of going around traffic jams? Is it because they're simpler to park? Or perhaps just because their cheaper? Whatever the answer may be, a more important question still seems to linger.
Is it worth it?