Where do the papers get this crap?

[tyreshredder]

Here's a classic example of Tasmanian media at its best. This has to be one of the most predudiced, ignorant and biased articles i have ever seen:

http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0, ... 62,00.html


I particularly love the quote:

''"Speed is a significant contributing factor to the majority of motorcycle deaths," Sgt Dine said.''


Well for the benefit of people fortunate enough not to live in tassie, the 5 fatalites included:

1. A drunk motorcyclist who decide to run from the cops, and once the cops had broken off chasing him he crashed. Nothing to do with excess speed, he was way over the limit and shouldn't have been riding.

2. A rider on a ducati who got hit on the huon highway at night by a car who crossed into his lane. Neither was speeding, the rider was riding completely legally, the driver was at fault.

3. Two morons on dirtbikes decide to hit the tracks/ streets without helmets, and crashed killing both of them. Quite simply this was completly the riders' fault, no offence to anyone but if you dont wear a helmet, you're asking for trouble. Excess speed wasn't a factor.

4. Don't know much about this one but a rider managed to hit a sign, cause was undetermined, alothough excess speed wasn't considered a factor.


But none of this holds a candle to the fact that they rant on about how motorcyclists are in the wrong and that we should watch out all the time (like we dont already), but they dont ONCE mention that car/bus/taxi/trucks should watch out for riders................what a load of BS

Personally ive only been riding for 6 months, so any opnions/tips on this would be greatly appriciated


Oh btw, whos owns a green ZX-9R that i keep seeing in newtown in hobart

[aardvark]

Speed is a factor in 95% of accidents. Maybe more.

If it wasn't, then all accidents would involve bikes at standstill.

[Stereo]

only 95%?

[jewjew]

Even if in all accidents speed wasn't a factor (stationary bikes) the accidents would still happen because useless, di##head cagers still manage to hit stationary bikes, at the lights or parked.

PS i have a confession, i'm a weekend cager and i hate myself 2 days a week

I just read the article....

Road Safety Taskforce chairman Paul Hogan

No wonder road safety is such a joke and the cops down there keep quoting the same crap....eg speed is a contributing factor and

"There is a direct correlation between energy and damage -- the more energy you have, the more damage you'll do.

This is also the same in cars for anyone not able to understand extremely basic physics If you roll into a wall at 10 kmph it would not be as bad as hitting the same wall at 300 kmph

[FrogZ]

Buts it really semantics isnt Aardy? I mean if you had an accident obviously you were going too fast for conditions or you wouldnt have had it. Whether it was your "fault", conditions etc. doesnt really come into it and doesnt mean you were breaking any laws or anything. By that reasoning 100% of ppl that break that die in road accidents were breathing oxygen so its really breathings fault , should be able to pick up some nice revenue on that one eh
Didnt Shredder point out that none (possibly one) of these ppl were "speeding"??
The sarge could just as easily have said if you sit in the corner shaking for the rest of your life you wont get hurt. Merely walking outside the house puts you at risk, and most accidnts happen in the home, DAMN just living makes you liable to break the law, better get Judge Death (from Judge Dredd) in to kill all those potential villians !!!

Dont get me wrong, I have been around long enough to remember when we used to get up and walk away from most accidents, prob due to the fact we couldnt do Warp Factor 10, lord knows we werent wearing the safety gear you can get now and were probably half charged too.
How we ever survived is beyond me....
I seriously respect your opinion Aardy, but to simplify it (and indeed demonise it) like that story did is pure BS and you know it. Especially if the facts are as Shredder described them.
I would think with amount of bikes that "do" Tassies lovely swervery there would have been a much higher count... whilst agreeing one is too many of course. I would bet that most of them would be speeding too so how they are not all dead is beyond me
Im not promoting flying through schools zones at 100k but a bit of balanced reporting wouldnt go astray either.

One of my bug bears is the crosses and flowers you see on roadside furniture and trees and the like.
WTF are the things still doing there
They have already killed someone, chop the barstard down, move the furniture, make a run off area... I am not talking just bikes here but the general public.
Seems pretty simple to me, it would save lives as much as speed demonisation we cop now. But I guess it COSTS money and doesnt generate it eh? *gets down off soap box* sigh (sorry Aardy )


So Shredder did you write a letter to the editor or just take their propaganda with out replying?

[tyreshredder]

Speed is a factor in 95% of accidents. Maybe more.

If it wasn't, then all accidents would involve bikes at standstill.

Cmon Aard, we all greatly respect your opnion but that dosn't really explain your point or argument.

To understand my point on speed not being a factor, you have to understand that speed is ONLY a factor when you are exceeding the speed limits or the conditions of the road. The accidents we have had this year were cause mainly by a drunk rider, innatentive driver and people without proper safety equipment. Now this is only my personal opnion but none of the accidents except the last one as described above had anything to do with excessive speed, and even that last one was unlikely.

I just read the article....

Road Safety Taskforce chairman Paul Hogan

No wonder road safety is such a joke and the cops down there keep quoting the same crap....eg speed is a contributing factor and

"There is a direct correlation between energy and damage -- the more energy you have, the more damage you'll do.

This is also the same in cars for anyone not able to understand extremely basic physics If you roll into a wall at 10 kmph it would not be as bad as hitting the same wall at 300 kmph

Yeah i had alot of trouble understanding that bit, because it was pretending as if physics only applied to bikes and not cars and trucks.........
its a bit insulting that the papers think Tassie people are too stupid to understand that the higher the speed the more damage it wil cause if you crash.

Buts it really semantics isnt Aardy? I mean if you had an accident obviously you were going too fast for conditions or you wouldnt have had it. Whether it was your "fault", conditions etc. doesnt really come into it and doesnt mean you were breaking any laws or anything. By that reasoning 100% of ppl that break that die in road accidents were breathing oxygen so its really breathings fault , should be able to pick up some nice revenue on that one eh
Didnt Shredder point out that none (possibly one) of these ppl were "speeding"??
The sarge could just as easily have said if you sit in the corner shaking for the rest of your life you wont get hurt. Merely walking outside the house puts you at risk, and most accidnts happen in the home, DAMN just living makes you liable to break the law, better get Judge Death (from Judge Dredd) in to kill all those potential villians !!!

Dont get me wrong, I have been around long enough to remember when we used to get up and walk away from most accidents, prob due to the fact we couldnt do Warp Factor 10, lord knows we werent wearing the safety gear you can get now and were probably half charged too.
How we ever survived is beyond me....
I seriously respect your opinion Aardy, but to simplify it (and indeed demonise it) like that story did is pure BS and you know it. Especially if the facts are as Shredder described them.
I would think with amount of bikes that "do" Tassies lovely swervery there would have been a much higher count... whilst agreeing one is too many of course. I would bet that most of them would be speeding too so how they are not all dead is beyond me
Im not promoting flying through schools zones at 100k but a bit of balanced reporting wouldnt go astray either.

One of my bug bears is the crosses and flowers you see on roadside furniture and trees and the like.
WTF are the things still doing there
They have already killed someone, chop the barstard down, move the furniture, make a run off area... I am not talking just bikes here but the general public.
Seems pretty simple to me, it would save lives as much as speed demonisation we cop now. But I guess it COSTS money and doesnt generate it eh? *gets down off soap box* sigh (sorry Aardy )


So Shredder did you write a letter to the editor or just take their propaganda with out replying?

FrogZ you put that much more eloquently then i did

I agree completely with what you say. Tasmanias police force and cage driving public has had so much BS propaganda with all the ''Just like that'', ''Speeding kills'', ''Wipe off 5'' adverstisments that all accidents are associated with excessive speed. Guilty unless proven innocent i suppose Also there are alot more of these ''speed kills'' adds rather than 'drink driving kills' or ''mobile phones kill'' adds.

I didn't even think of writing a letter to the editor, thanks for the sugestion i think ill do that.

I mean shit i got pulled over the other night because a rider ran away from the cops, and they pulled me over just because i was a rider. He then proceeded to check my licence, bitch at my rego which was to run out in 5 days, interogate me on what my bike was and what size, then told me to go on my merry way without even appogizing for the inconvenice. I wouldn't have cared in the slightest if they didn't treat me like a walking hoon/ menace to society. i have alot of repect for police officers, but not for the attitude some of them have towards the riding comunity, but thats not the issue at hand. Don't see them pulling every pos commodore they see over every time the hoons are in glenorchy.

[Daisy]

I didn't even think of writing a letter to the editor, thanks for the sugestion i think ill do that.

Good luck with that. I've tried writing to them and i never get published. If you read the letters regularly you will see the same writers week after week, so unless your name is among those - "or Dorothy Dix", you've got buckleys of seeing yourself in print.

[zzzak]

I mean shit i got pulled over the other night because a rider ran away from the cops, and they pulled me over just because i was a rider. He then proceeded to check my licence, bitch at my rego which was to run out in 5 days, interogate me on what my bike was and what size, then told me to go on my merry way without even appogizing for the inconvenice. I wouldn't have cared in the slightest if they didn't treat me like a walking hoon/ menace to society. i have alot of repect for police officers, but not for the attitude some of them have towards the riding comunity, but thats not the issue at hand. Don't see them pulling every pos commodore they see over every time the hoons are in glenorchy.

If you get anymore shit like that ask for the cops badge number and indicate that you plan on filing a complaint against him for lack of professionalism or any other subjective thing that you can think of such as smugness,arrogance etc.

According to my tame retired sergeant they'll cack themselves because two complaints, even if they don't result in any disciplinary action, will end any chance of promotion for the remainder of their career.

Fight back with the weapons at your disposal,the same goes for speed camera operators who magically appear on 4 lane divided highways and stick their paws in your wallet.

[HemiDuty]

Um, guys, Aardy was joking there. He didn't say excessive speed.

There are a few threads around with page upon page about the whole speeding thing, if you want a serious discussion about it, it is just a topic search away.

Just to save us going through all this again...

[Nanna10r]

Bikes speed ....... Tell him he's dreamin'.

[jewjew]

Didn't anybody else notice that the Road Safety Chairman is "Paul Hogan"

[roadrider82]

I think the cops have a good point there is a lot of fools on bikes going to farst for the roads I had a bike overtake me at 120kmh with a truck comeing the other way and nealy side swipe my bike. they need to slow down a bit and enjoy the ride that sort of thing is for the track

[Gosling1]

Speed is a factor in 95% of accidents. Maybe more.

If it wasn't, then all accidents would involve bikes at standstill.

sorry to laugh, but this is so true. Once you are moving, well, that involves speed eh ?? some sort of speed.........maybe excessive, maybe not..........maybe shitty road conditions, maybe not....

The Tas copper said in the 'majority' of accidents, not 'all' accidents....

*shrugs* this has just been done to death so many times, my advice is just ride like every car/bus/truck driver wants to kill you, and you will probably be riding a long time......note the use of the word 'probably', which doesn't mean 'definitely'.....

[MiG]

Aardvarks comment isn't blaming us, it's saying how stupid it is to carry on about speed being a factor.
It's as silly as saying "lack of invincibility was a factor".

[aardvark]

Um, guys, Aardy was joking there. He didn't say excessive speed.

You're right. I was. I don't bother getting involved in these arguments any more. I've seen what excessive speed does and it isn't pretty.

We can all argue until we are blue in the face about the effects of being only a couple of kays over, but the line has been drawn in the sand and the speed limits set.

Whether or not the current speed limits are appropriate is a contentious issue and a much bigger picture than most of us can claim to know about.