If you just got your license, your risk profile is not average — it's the worst it will ever be. Most new-rider crashes cluster around four errors, and none of them require bad luck.

1. Target fixation. You look at the pothole, the gravel, the car door. The bike goes where your eyes go. Fix: force your eyes to the exit of the turn, the escape path, the gap. Practice it consciously until it stops being conscious.

2. Entering corners too hot. New riders brake mid-corner, stand the bike up, and run wide into oncoming traffic. Fix: slow in, fast out. All your braking happens before the turn-in point. Roll on smoothly through the apex.

3. Living in blind spots. Riding at the same speed as a car, half a lane behind their mirror, is how you get merged into. Fix: pick a lane position where you can see the driver's face in their mirror. If you can't see them, they can't see you.

4. Trusting the left turn. The single most common car-vs-bike crash is a car turning left across your path. They look, they don't register a motorcycle, they turn. Fix: cover the brakes at every intersection, and watch the front wheel of the waiting car — the wheel starts moving before the car does.

One more thing that isn't a riding skill: gear. Helmet, gloves, jacket, boots — all four, every ride, including the five-minute one. Most riders who get hurt badly were on a short trip they'd done a hundred times.

I pulled the safety information new riders actually need out of the dozens of scattered sources it's normally buried in, and put it in one guide. It's on my page if you want it. Either way — ride like you're invisible.