Tasmanian Motorcycle Safety Campaign

[Spock]

I'm not terribly impressed with the Tasmanian approach to motorcycle safety... It seems to absolve people texting on their phones while driving from any responsibility....

Having said that, it is better than WA's motorcycle safety campaign - NO safety campaign.

Drive on motorcycle toll | Mercury - The Voice of Tasmania

[Scoundrel]

Jesus what a bunch of arseholes. I can just see WA pulling some shit out just like that. Blame riders for everything.

[Fastgirl]

Im speechless...

[Captain Starfish]

Where's the drama?

Hell yeah, we'd love it if everyone was watching out for bikes every second.

But it ain't so.

WE TELL EVERYONE that when you're on the bike you're so very vulnerable, and you've got to watch out for every other twit on the road.

What is the problem with the officials recognising the popular line, exactly???

[FJ Steve]

Cap'n...."You are on your own"

[Captain Starfish]

I find it amusing that we continually whine and bleat about the powers-that-be having no grip on reality, of having totally irrelevant policies which are completely out of touch with the vox populi; now when an official statement is made that corresponds almost word for word with what we tell new and old riders regarding their personal safety on the road, what are we doing?

Celebrating that they finally got it right?

Of course not.

We're whining and bleating. again.

It's up to you as a motorcyclist to keep yourself safe. Period. Relying on a government to do it for you is just dumb. Why? Because the simplest way to keep all motorcyclists safe is to remove the motorcycles.

Steve, I'm happy to fly solo with my opinion. I'm sick to the back teeth of people who bitch and moan about rope barriers, about police policy, about daylight saving and Christ knows what the fuck else. You want to ride, you accept the inherent risk and get on with it. You don't expect anyone to hold your hand and make the world nice and safe for you. You don't expect officialdom to blame everyone else but you for accidents and to stop everyone else from allowing you to put yourself in harm's way.

[taint]

With the amount of deaths this year I am pretty sure most of us recognize the dangers of riding and accept it as an inherent risk of what we love to do,

I rant against removing driver responsibility. How long before you can claim "the motorcyclist wasn't watching our for me when I ran the red" and the judge will take pity on them because of articles like this.

If you get on the road you should be focused, attentive and competent no matter what you drive/ride

[Turfie]

I was in Sydney last week and there are a bunch of banners (Three lanes wide) hanging from tunnel entry’s and flyovers, Saying "Watch out for Motorcyclists" and sponsored by the RTA or equivalent. Not great but it's a good start.

[Spock]

I agree that we need to look after ourselves and ride as if every other road user was trying to kill us.

However, given the number of riders killed by innattentive car drivers, I can't see why the government can't spend a few million bucks on a "Look Bike" campaign like this one:
http://www.cmh-moto.org/Video/howclose.mpg

[Darkbyte]

However, given the number of riders killed by innattentive car drivers, I can't see why the government can't spend a few million bucks on a "Look Bike" campaign like this one:
http://www.cmh-moto.org/Video/howclose.mpg

When I was taught to drive a car, I was told to look left, right and then left again before pulling out (to use the example from the vid), not because of motorcycles, but because of absolutely anything whether it be a pedestrian or a bus.

IMO the government should spend money on teaching ppl to drive properly, not just to look for bikes.

[Captain Starfish]

Someone ran a quick survey, interesting to see that for by far and away the largest number of those who bothered to respond, the accident was a rider at fault SVA - NOT from an inattentive cage.

Does anyone have "official" study results showing the percentage of accidents caused by or contributed to by inattentive cagers?

[Spock]

Someone ran a quick survey, interesting to see that for by far and away the largest number of those who bothered to respond, the accident was a rider at fault SVA - NOT from an inattentive cage.

Does anyone have "official" study results showing the percentage of accidents caused by or contributed to by inattentive cagers?

A variety of European, US and even a recent Queensland study all have approx the following stats:

2/3 of all motorcycle FATALITIES are in 2 vehicle accidents.
roughly 2/3 of those were the fault of the cage driver.

I also read that in fatal accidents where the cage was at fault:
27% were right turns across the path of the bike
21% were from cars pulling out from the left
16% were rear ends

[Captain Starfish]

Thanks, Spock.

[Scoundrel]

Someone ran a quick survey, interesting to see that for by far and away the largest number of those who bothered to respond, the accident was a rider at fault SVA - NOT from an inattentive cage.

Does anyone have "official" study results showing the percentage of accidents caused by or contributed to by inattentive cagers?

Quoted from what I posted in an old thread

The UK Department for Transport in its Road Safety Research Report No. 54 - In-Depth study of Motorcycle Accidents (2004) said:

"A way must be found of targeting the other parties who so frequently cause motorcycle collisions. Drivers have to be made aware of the numerous ways that they can fail to perceive a motorcycle in the typical ROWV (Right Of Way Vehicle) accidents that are most frequently not the fault of the rider involved. Our results suggest that interventions should be focussed on (but not exclusively confined to) older drivers"


The Motorcycle Safety Council of New South Wales, in its report Positioned for Safety - Road Safety Strategic Plan 2002-2005 said:

"Brooks and Guppy (1990) found evidence that driver lack of technical and social awareness of motorcycles is associated with driver error when interacting with motorcycles. Their findings suggest that programs to increase driver awareness of motorcycle operating characteristics and vulnerability in the traffic stream could have great potential for motorcycle accident prevention. In another study of motorcycle accidents, Hurt found that drivers who didn’t also ride a motorcycle or didn’t know anyone who rode a motorcycle, were over represented in car-motorcycle collisions. The converse, that drivers who rode motorcycles were underrepresented in car-motorcycle collisions, suggests that motorcycle avoidance can be learned."


The Monash University, in its report titled Hazard perception and response in car drivers and motorcyclists said:

"Studies in the United States, Great Britain, Victoria and New South Wales have found that the other vehicle is at fault in about 60-75% of motorcycle multi-vehicle motorcycle crashes (Hurt, Ouellet & Thom, 1981; de Rome, Stanford and Wood, 2002; Booth, 1989, cited in ROSPA, 2001). A TRL analysis of fatal crashes involving motorcycles that occurred between 1986 and 1995 (Lynam, Broughton, Minton and Tunbridge, 2001) found that ‘Failed to give way’ and ‘poor turn/manoeuvre’ were common in crashes for which the non-rider was largely responsible and were associated with failure to observe satisfactorily, careless, thoughtless or reckless behaviour, or failure to judge the rider’s path or speed."


The South Australian Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure in its Motorcycling Road Safety Strategy 2005-2010 said:

"The trend in fatalities suggests that motorcycling safety is lagging behind improvements for other road users. And compared with overseas countries, Australia’s motorcycle safety record is poor – we have nearly twice the fatality rate of other OECD countries...55% of serious casualty crashes involve another vehicle and in 57% of these crashes the motorcyclist was not at fault"


The Tasmanian Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources in its Motorcycle Safety Strategy 2005-2006 said:

“The level of trauma amongst motorcycle riders continued to rise in 2003. During 2003 a total of 11 motorcycle riders were killed – representing 27 percent of the State road toll. While the issue of who is at fault is always debatable, the facts of the matter are: when motorcycle riders are involved in a crash they are much more likely to be seriously injured and the costs – in both human and financial terms – are high.”


VicRoads in its Motorcycle Road Safety Strategy 2002-2007 said:

“In most right turn crashes involving motorcycles a car driver fails to give way to the rider…drivers turn across riders in the majority of cases.”

[Moorby]

fuck me.. "ur on ur own" good to see they care bout riders! A bike awareness campaign needs to be done... not look after urself riders... we already know that!