Hell For Leather recently posted an article entitled, "Michigan State Police objectively prove Harley's Suck".
I have to give them points for an attention-grabbing headline. But that's really all it was.
The Hell For Leather article summarizes the findings of the Michigan State Police vehicle evaluation for police motorcycles. Their summary pulled a few statistics into a table, and concluded that Harley's suck, apparently based on their 0-100 mph performance compared to other bikes.
So, by what subjective criteria did Hell For Leather determine that "suckiness" equated to "lackluster acceleration at speeds above 80 mph".
If this were truly an objective analysis on HFL's part, the selection criteria of the bike would be established in the article. Without knowing what the criteria were for the test, we can't choose a winner.
For example, the Harley's beat all competitors in the zero-to-30 mph acceleration test.
How do we know, and how does HFL know, that acceleration 0-30 is more important than acceleration 80-100 mph, in which the Harley's drew dead last. Which is more important? Which do police bikes do most often? Do police motorcycles really get involved in high speed chases?
What do we really know about the selection criteria for police motorcycles?
Don't mistake this for a defense of Harley Davidson. That's not my point. What really at stake here is the definition of "objectivity", and the concept of fairness and accuracy in reporting.
Included in the HFL article is an unrelated, but probably similar, evaluation report from the LAPD.
The Los Angleles Police Department article makes for an interesting read. In fact, if you have time for reading only one more article, skip HFL, and jump right to the report...
That attachment is the Los Angeles Police depts. report. HFL mentioned that this was a similar test. LA are the ones that tested the ST. I read through that. Good stuff. Both LA and Michigan proved that there are better motorcycles on which to be a cop than Harleys. Your right, they don't suck. I wouldn't want to be doing high speed chases on a bike that touches floorboards and FRAMES. Touching down a frame hard in an high speed turn can be a disaster.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's kind of embarrassing, and kind of undermines my whole rant.
ReplyDeleteI still disapprove of their premise -- they haven't objectively proven anything until they've objectively identified the criteria.
I always heard that Harley's were chosen for their low speed handling. I don't know if that's true.