Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

From the MCCoNSW

Government site, obviously...!

Browbeating motorcyclists.

http://www.motorbikesafety.qld.gov.au:80/

You dont know the half of it mate. Just got a LOVELY letter from Qld Main Roads with some VERY dubious statistics that obviously take into account all the farm accidents including quads and the like and dickhead farmers not wearing helmets and such.
The first "fact" is taken from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau Monograph 2008.
I take monograph to mean totally one sided bullshit. The rest are not identified as coming from there so I think it is safe to assume were made up by the work experience kid in his lunch break. My empahsis in blue. And comments in green.

The average motorcyclist is 30 times more likey to be killed in a crash than any other vehicle drivers.
Say what ? This sounds like bullshit of the HIGHEST order, I must go and check out this monograph to see how they managed to twist it so high, even with farm accidents, stolen vehicles and other general fillers.

About half of fatal motorcycle crashes dont involve other vehicles.
I suppose its a bit hard to ask a dead person if another vehicle was involved eh? Lets assume there wasnt.

In over 83% of fatal motorcycle crashes between 2003 & 2007 the rider was considered at fault.
See above, bit hard to say it was the other guy if you're dead. Makes it less paperwork too I guess, and what does CONSIDERED mean exactly

Speed was a contributing factor in 25% of fatal motorcycle crashes last year.
Two things, whose speed ?? The car that hit him ? And now we have moved to last year, what happened to 03-07 ? Guess the figure wasnt dramatic enough eh ?

Rider inattention was a factor in 25% of fatal motorcycle crashes last year.
Yep, didnt notice that fuktard talking on his mobile coming through the Stop sign in time. ANd why is not a CONTRIBUTING factor this time eh.

Illegal manoeuveres contributed to 24% of fatal motorcycle crashes last year.
What freakin illegal manoeuvers, didnt you just tell us 41% involved speeding, you fucken retards Glad to find out speeding apparently isnt illegal. Hold on maybe they mean people doing U-Turns in friggen cars Maybe thats why its not a FACTOR ??

Alchohol of drugs contributed to 23% of fatal motorcycle crashes last year.
No sorry guys you lost me on the last piece of BS, I am having a REAL problem taking ANY of this seriously now. I assume as above that it was the driver of the car/truck that was pissed then can I??

At the bottom it says the statistics come from Qld Police and Qld Transport Data, suitably massaged to agree with the agenda of couse
It does admit that in fatal smashes there is more than one contributing factor so if some cockhead t-boned a bike through a stop sign and the driver was pissed, HEY we have a fatal bike smash involving alchohol These figures are so far away from ANY other report I have ever read that I cant help but be TOTALLY cycnical. Thank you Qld Government for being so fucking concerned about me, you mob of fucking arseholes. Why not tell the truth you caaaaarrnts, your stupid fucking laws regarding Q-Ride and giving a young dickhead an open licence because he drove a fucken CAR for two years sucks the BIG red one.

DAMN I am so freaking pissed I'm, I'm, I'm...going to write a letter.

Pointless ? Yep so much so I think I will videotape myself, pissed, stoned, doing 200k one handed on the back wheel whilst doing a cross word just to prove them wrong.

Thanks for the link to the propoganda Goebels would be proud of, but they should have just called it "I hate bikes" and be done with it
.

A lot of bike accidents ARE caused by riders, and a lot of accidents do involve mistakes/inappropriate speed/illegal manouvres... as a whole bikers are much better than car drivers but a lot of us are in denial that we do create a lot of our own accidents.

My problem is that:

#1 those figures are a gross misrepresentation and twisted to the nth degree to make them sound as bad as possible while clinging loosely to the thread of truth they are based on
#2 money spent on a bullshit pamphlet won't do a thing, and neither will blind concentration on speed enforcement or anti-motorcycle policing (front numberplates, fender eliminators, loud exhausts, booking me because I moved my bike in a carpark without a helmet on, etc).

We need proper training of both drivers & riders, a better licensing system, transparent statistics and record-keeping, appropriate road-safety devices & road quality, and more frequent & affordable skills training & motorsport events, NOT less tracks and more expensive events. GST on your entry fees. GST & Stamp Duty on the Public Liability insurance for racetracks & training facilities, that are included in your entry fees, and in turn charged GST on....

If the government really got serious about the issue, rather than targeting things that aren't dangerous and making off-road events, we could make a real difference to the road toll AND get them off our backs.

I got that thing, too.

Pretty insulting, actually. My driving record is perfect and I've never had an accident on the road in any vehicle in over 500,000km with me at the wheel/bars. But apparently I still have to "wake up to the facts", some of which are pretty dubious in the first place. Apparently I'm not smart enough to evaluate risks by myself. I need the Gumbyment to tell me, "Ooh, don't do stupid things on bikes, you'll die."

No kidding. Never would have picked up on that all by myself. I'm inclined to have a bit of a chuckle and pass it off as a bad joke. Seriously, are those in the most at-risk section of the motorcycling world going to take any notice of this? I think not.

Having said that, I have no real suggestions as to how one could reach those who ride like idiots. I reckon the current crop's pretty much a lost cause - attitude is taught early. If he or she has not got a good attitude towards road craft already, 9 times out of 10 a current rider's not going to change in my opinion. One could try actually teaching people to ride instead of just signing a slip to say they didn't fall off in a 2 hour Q-Ride session. Nah, too obvious.

Rusty wrote:Having said that, I have no real suggestions as to how one could reach those who ride like idiots.

More realistic laws, policed in a reasonable way, with greater visible police presence, plus:

Shifty wrote:We need proper training of both drivers & riders, a better licensing system, transparent statistics and record-keeping, appropriate road-safety devices & road quality, and more frequent & affordable skills training & motorsport events, NOT less tracks and more expensive events. GST on your entry fees. GST & Stamp Duty on the Public Liability insurance for racetracks & training facilities, that are included in your entry fees, and in turn charged GST on....

frog wrote:You dont know the half of it mate. Just got a LOVELY letter from Qld Main Roads with some VERY dubious statistics that obviously take into account all the farm accidents including quads and the like and dickhead farmers not wearing helmets and such.
.

Just got the letter myself and spent the afternoon cursing!

It must have been sent to all QLD riders with either a registered bike or an bike license.

More ostrasising......

Q-ride is administered by people who don't ride or have bike licences, with the exception of two staff who have licences but don't own bikes. It's quite obvious that the 'safety' website is written by someone without the first idea about motorcycles. A system where motorcycle shops can grant licences, same day that riding begins for a learner. High resultant accident rate with underprepared but licenced riders. Where does this leave experienced motorcyclists?

Yup got the same letter My little protest will be cross out the address and put return to sender
So they have to pay the postage twice
But I'm just waiting for the front page headlines "QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT SENDS FORM LETTER TO WIDOW CLASS ACTION FOLLOWS"

Let's see how long it takes the NSW government to follow suit?

At the end of the day though, do we need a letter to tell us all of these things?

I'm not sure about you guys but every single person I meet that doesn't ride and knows that I do always has to tell me how dangerous it is and that I am more likely to be killed while riding than driving a car.

I'm sure that is really the best possible thing you could be thinking about while riding home.

I should be thankful for one thing though. Apparently riding a motorbike is more dangerous than smoking because everyone that says riding is sooo dangerous, never mentions that the cigarettes are going to kill me any more.

mgvette57 wrote:Let's see how long it takes the NSW government to follow suit?

We already received a "Safe Motorcycling" thingy in the mail a while back...

As far as QLD goes, i thought it was loud pipes and incorrect swingarm to mudguard angles that killed people.

red_dave wrote:

mgvette57 wrote:Let's see how long it takes the NSW government to follow suit?

We already received a "Safe Motorcycling" thingy in the mail a while back...

As far as QLD goes, i thought it was loud pipes and incorrect swingarm to mudguard angles that killed people.

Actually it is road level to rear fender angle from axle center at 45 degrees from uranus to the sun dial and then onto to venus pulling on mars

Apparently it does kill!
According to one (mounted or Mt.) "glorious officer" with the home engineered set square made of AS90001 timber and was always QA'ed to AS9000? to ensure its accuracy, yes!

He didn't like being challenged on the engineering side from a certain bike rider at the time, but as much as he tried he found nothing to write me up for. I really detest officers thinking they are automotive engineers.

Some of those figures are probably not too far from the truth when you consider the following -

Motorcycles make up only 3% of registered vehicles in NSW (for assumption sake lets say this is true across Australia)

Now depending on who does the study (read who lies about how often they ride) motorcycle trips make up between .1% and .5% of all road trips, so statistically 15 motorcyclist only has to die for every 100 car deaths to be 30 times more likely to die in an accident.

Some of these figures are taken from a university study done about 10 years ago. It was from a Victorian UNI that I can not find the link for (Monash?).

However if you click on RTA.nsw.gov.au they have annual reports and statistics for all road deaths, they even had it regions as I was able to prove to some other num nuts that the Old Road North of Sydney had not had the number of deaths people were saying.

Nick

Q-ride is administered by people who don't ride or have bike licences, with the exception of two staff who have licences but don't own bikes. It's quite obvious that the 'safety' website is written by someone without the first idea about motorcycles. A system where motorcycle shops can grant licences, same day that riding begins for a learner. High resultant accident rate with underprepared but licenced riders. Where does this leave experienced motorcyclists?

All jokes aside... when I sold my VTR1000 to a Q-Rider I had to show him how to START the bike before he could ride it off all wobbly-like.

But speed kills...

Exactly shifty, can all Qld Riders similarly incensed as myself PLEASE take the time to email your local, state and federal member ??

red_dave wrote:

mgvette57 wrote:Let's see how long it takes the NSW government to follow suit?

We already received a "Safe Motorcycling" thingy in the mail a while back...

As far as QLD goes, i thought it was loud pipes and incorrect swingarm to mudguard angles that killed people.

If that's the bit of paraphernalia I'm thinking about, then it only made it out of the plastic wrapper so it wouldn't jam up my crosscut shredder. I think i read it for 5 seconds, tops.