The most famous member of America’s most famous outlaw biker gang has become an advocate for highway safety, said Susan Carpenter in the Los Angeles Times. Sonny Barger, who helped found the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels in 1957, still rides his own bike 25,000 miles a year, but the ex-con sees so many wannabes out there that it worries him. Nationwide, he notes, motorcycle fatalities have risen for 11 consecutive years. “Everybody wants to be a motorcycle rider today, and they’re getting killed,” he says. So though the Angels have never been known as law-abiders themselves, Barger’s new book, Let’s Ride, is a how-to guide loaded with road rules. Among them: Don’t ever ride when angry, don’t ever ride drunk, and don’t ever believe another driver’s turn signals.
Barger isn’t so naïve as to think that his good safety record is due entirely to following such rules. “No matter how good you are,” he says, “you can be sitting at a stoplight when a truck comes up behind you and runs you over. It’s all luck.” As careful as he is in some areas, he also takes risks that wannabes would want no part of. On a typical weekend ride, he expects everybody else in his pack to ride behind him in tight formation, and to follow his lead when he veers across a double yellow line to pass a car in the face of oncoming traffic. At 71, Barger still regularly cruises right atop the roadway’s center line—“as if to say, ‘I own this.’”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'US tests ties with Israelis'Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
-
Marc Quinn's Light into Life: an 'al fresco treasure-hunt' of sculpture at KewThe Week Recommends Massive metallic sculptures dotted across the gardens explore 'links between nature and humanity'
-
Natalie Elphicke: the Tory defector facing a backlash from both sidesSpeed Read MP for Dover's hawkish stance on immigration and defence of sex offender ex-husband raises eyebrows among her new colleagues
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”