Bikers at fault in majority of serious crashes
Discussion
I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in Biker Banter but as it's an Australian article I decided to post here.
This article is from the Perthnow.com.au wesbsite.
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/...
I'm a biker and I would agree that I probably take more risks on my bike than I would in the car but the really surprising bit of that article is the number of riders who have drugs or alcohol in their system or who are unlicensed.
I would never ride under the influence and I always wear my boots, gloves, helmet and jacket. I check my tyre pressures weekly - basically all the sensible stuff to minimise that risk of a serious 'off'.
Looks like the police are going to respond by cracking down on unsafe bikers. Let's hope they don't just target lane splitting and speed.
This article is from the Perthnow.com.au wesbsite.
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/...
I'm a biker and I would agree that I probably take more risks on my bike than I would in the car but the really surprising bit of that article is the number of riders who have drugs or alcohol in their system or who are unlicensed.
I would never ride under the influence and I always wear my boots, gloves, helmet and jacket. I check my tyre pressures weekly - basically all the sensible stuff to minimise that risk of a serious 'off'.
Looks like the police are going to respond by cracking down on unsafe bikers. Let's hope they don't just target lane splitting and speed.
I would say people don't look out for bikes here. I see terrible driving all the time. It's not surprising. I don't think that bikers are worse than drivers here, just the general standard of driving is poor. Having driven all over Europe you notice these things. Italy = mad and bad, France ok apart from quite a few nutters around Paris. German = good, Swiss good, Belgian = good. UK = Good, Portugal = rubbish....Australia is somewhere between poor and just ok. Most of the accidents I have seen have mostly been due to lack of paying attention.
With bikers here what I have noticed, I see lots of bikers wearing shorts/t-shirts etc, I suppose because of the weather. With the roads around Sydney as poor as they are, concrete, bad tarmac etc, I would have thought more people would be properly protected. Back in the UK I would see lots of people wearing full racing leathers or atleast goretex kevlar jackets etc, perhaps mostly just to be fashionable / all-the-gear. But actually I think its quite sensible.
Maybe its just the weather... I would not wear shorts / t-shirt on a bike ever. I wonder if this article would apply in the UK too.
With bikers here what I have noticed, I see lots of bikers wearing shorts/t-shirts etc, I suppose because of the weather. With the roads around Sydney as poor as they are, concrete, bad tarmac etc, I would have thought more people would be properly protected. Back in the UK I would see lots of people wearing full racing leathers or atleast goretex kevlar jackets etc, perhaps mostly just to be fashionable / all-the-gear. But actually I think its quite sensible.
Maybe its just the weather... I would not wear shorts / t-shirt on a bike ever. I wonder if this article would apply in the UK too.
Strange that it's from Perth as I think the bikers here ride a LOT safer than the UK.
They tend not to filter to the front at lights, they tend not to overtake, they rarely speed, they rarely accelerate fast (all the reasons that I'd get a bike really).
What the article is telling me is that it's the non-bikers (unlicenced), who then go out for a ride when drunk/high who are having crashes.
They tend not to filter to the front at lights, they tend not to overtake, they rarely speed, they rarely accelerate fast (all the reasons that I'd get a bike really).
What the article is telling me is that it's the non-bikers (unlicenced), who then go out for a ride when drunk/high who are having crashes.
PerthNow said:
In addition, half the 30 bike fatalities in WA between January 2012 and April this year involved riders on an unlicensed bike, or a bike that had been in their possession less than three months.
I live out of town, on the weekend car club, biker circuit from Brisbane/Gold Coast. We get a lot of both, & it makes weekends more interesting. The roads are reasonable good these days, & the traffic only light to moderate.
We have a biker hang out café about 20Km up the road, & get hundreds there, which I think brings heavy law presence with it. It also causes the locals no trouble at all.
We do hear many bikes winding out through the gears late at night, on some of the flat straighter roads near by. With the length of time on "full noise", I reckon most must be well up to a couple of hundred Km/H. That is probably why we regularly have the local fire brigade scraping bits of biker & bike out of the scenery on regular basis. They drag a few cars out too.
However in 22 years here I have never been inconvenienced by a biker & that is all that matters to residents. I'm all for people enjoying themselves in their own way, as long as they don't involve the innocent bystander.
We have a biker hang out café about 20Km up the road, & get hundreds there, which I think brings heavy law presence with it. It also causes the locals no trouble at all.
We do hear many bikes winding out through the gears late at night, on some of the flat straighter roads near by. With the length of time on "full noise", I reckon most must be well up to a couple of hundred Km/H. That is probably why we regularly have the local fire brigade scraping bits of biker & bike out of the scenery on regular basis. They drag a few cars out too.
However in 22 years here I have never been inconvenienced by a biker & that is all that matters to residents. I'm all for people enjoying themselves in their own way, as long as they don't involve the innocent bystander.
Bibbs said:
Strange that it's from Perth as I think the bikers here ride a LOT safer than the UK.
They tend not to filter to the front at lights, they tend not to overtake, they rarely speed, they rarely accelerate fast (all the reasons that I'd get a bike really).
What the article is telling me is that it's the non-bikers (unlicenced), who then go out for a ride when drunk/high who are having crashes.
Its a crap story, crap journalism and a crap website. They tend not to filter to the front at lights, they tend not to overtake, they rarely speed, they rarely accelerate fast (all the reasons that I'd get a bike really).
What the article is telling me is that it's the non-bikers (unlicenced), who then go out for a ride when drunk/high who are having crashes.
PerthNow said:
In addition, half the 30 bike fatalities in WA between January 2012 and April this year involved riders on an unlicensed bike, or a bike that had been in their possession less than three months.
Ben, riding to the letter of the law is NOT the same as riding safely.
I got my bike license in Perth 14 years ago. That time has been neatly split in half between riding in the UK & Europe and riding here.
I'll address your examples from the point of the view of the safe (but law breaking) rider:
Filtering to the front at the lights. I always, always, always do it. The 17 yr old writing a text as she drives up to the back of the queue at the lights, will never crash into me, as a result. Neither will the guy who didn't leave enough braking room in the wet etc etc
Overtake: Not always, but on a single carriage way highway with an 80+ limit, more often than not. The reason is this: if I don't overtake, I will be overtaken. On a bike, you never, never want to be subject to other people's will, state of mind, physical condition. exuberance etc. The risks are too great if there is an accident or miscalculation. Every car or conflict area on the road is a situation with a variety of potential outcomes. By always approaching a situation on your terms, you subject the situation to your state of mind, physical condition, will, etc and therefore can dictate the outcome. So by overtaking, no-ones overtakes me (ever!).
Speeding (Excessive, naughty, irresponsible speeding aside): always. For the same reason as above. When you're going faster the flow of traffic, you never ever have to worry about what is approaching you from your most vulnerable area which is behind you. No-one approaches me with not enough to room to brake, no one changes lanes into me, no makes unsafe overtaking manouvers on me, because I'm never static in a road space. But you have to be mindful of the speed differential. I mean 10-15% faster than the flow of traffic. 50% faster is pretty silly, especially when filtering.
Accelerate fast: If you mean off the lights - always. As I'm always on the front (because I filtered there), I have to be away very sharply. If I'm not, I'm going to be sat between two cars accelerating either side of me, driven by people who may have stopped paying attention during the red light, turned the wheel slightly, have become angry at me, might be in a hurry, might want to race etc etc So only filter if you're ready to get away smartly, otherwise you've created as big a risk as you eliminated by filtering there.
You're right though, typically (and from the look of the statistics) it is non-licensed bikes or scooters (that importantly are unable to do the things listed above and are therefore a greater risk to their rider) that have the issues.
Scooterists are rarely breaking the speed limit (often way under it, which is the problem) and moto-x muppets are are not usually on main highways. So the crack-down will be on everyday riders like me, on licensed, paid-up bikes riding safely, but not to the letter of the law. But this is WA, home of the "one size fits all" legislation-solves-everything mentality.
The sooner I get an enduro and get off the highways and away from stupid initiatives like this, the better.
Fair point on the safety not being the same as legal. 
My comments were in relation to the "bikers fault accidents" which I'd assume are the SMIDSY type, which are the biker putting themselves into danger (so overtaking, filtering, etc). We all know how bad observation is here when on the roads. If it's not 3 foot infront of their bonnet they'll not see it.
I'll admit, I don't really notice the bikers outside the city, and most the ones I see are the cruiser type (too big to filter, to slow to accelerate?).
The stats do seem to say it's the non-experienced guys coming off worse.
I'd also recon a percentage will be the mid-life crysis types who had a bike when they were young, hopping straight onto a R1 after 30 years and straight into a tree.
My comments were in relation to the "bikers fault accidents" which I'd assume are the SMIDSY type, which are the biker putting themselves into danger (so overtaking, filtering, etc). We all know how bad observation is here when on the roads. If it's not 3 foot infront of their bonnet they'll not see it.
I'll admit, I don't really notice the bikers outside the city, and most the ones I see are the cruiser type (too big to filter, to slow to accelerate?).
The stats do seem to say it's the non-experienced guys coming off worse.
I'd also recon a percentage will be the mid-life crysis types who had a bike when they were young, hopping straight onto a R1 after 30 years and straight into a tree.
Reardy Mister said:
Overtake: Not always, but on a single carriage way highway with an 80+ limit, more often than not. The reason is this: if I don't overtake, I will be overtaken. On a bike, you never, never want to be subject to other people's will, state of mind, physical condition. exuberance etc. The risks are too great if there is an accident or miscalculation. Every car or conflict area on the road is a situation with a variety of potential outcomes. By always approaching a situation on your terms, you subject the situation to your state of mind, physical condition, will, etc and therefore can dictate the outcome. So by overtaking, no-ones overtakes me (ever!).
Speeding (Excessive, naughty, irresponsible speeding aside): always. For the same reason as above. When you're going faster the flow of traffic, you never ever have to worry about what is approaching you from your most vulnerable area which is behind you. No-one approaches me with not enough to room to brake, no one changes lanes into me, no makes unsafe overtaking manouvers on me, because I'm never static in a road space. But you have to be mindful of the speed differential. I mean 10-15% faster than the flow of traffic. 50% faster is pretty silly, especially when filtering.
Accelerate fast: If you mean off the lights - always. As I'm always on the front (because I filtered there), I have to be away very sharply. If I'm not, I'm going to be sat between two cars accelerating either side of me, driven by people who may have stopped paying attention during the red light, turned the wheel slightly, have become angry at me, might be in a hurry, might want to race etc etc So only filter if you're ready to get away smartly, otherwise you've created as big a risk as you eliminated by filtering there.
I do most of the above (specific bike references apart) when driving a car - motoring on my terms makes me feel safer. Speeding (Excessive, naughty, irresponsible speeding aside): always. For the same reason as above. When you're going faster the flow of traffic, you never ever have to worry about what is approaching you from your most vulnerable area which is behind you. No-one approaches me with not enough to room to brake, no one changes lanes into me, no makes unsafe overtaking manouvers on me, because I'm never static in a road space. But you have to be mindful of the speed differential. I mean 10-15% faster than the flow of traffic. 50% faster is pretty silly, especially when filtering.
Accelerate fast: If you mean off the lights - always. As I'm always on the front (because I filtered there), I have to be away very sharply. If I'm not, I'm going to be sat between two cars accelerating either side of me, driven by people who may have stopped paying attention during the red light, turned the wheel slightly, have become angry at me, might be in a hurry, might want to race etc etc So only filter if you're ready to get away smartly, otherwise you've created as big a risk as you eliminated by filtering there.
Reardy Mister said:
Bibbs said:
Strange that it's from Perth as I think the bikers here ride a LOT safer than the UK.
They tend not to filter to the front at lights, they tend not to overtake, they rarely speed, they rarely accelerate fast (all the reasons that I'd get a bike really).
What the article is telling me is that it's the non-bikers (unlicenced), who then go out for a ride when drunk/high who are having crashes.
Its a crap story, crap journalism and a crap website. They tend not to filter to the front at lights, they tend not to overtake, they rarely speed, they rarely accelerate fast (all the reasons that I'd get a bike really).
What the article is telling me is that it's the non-bikers (unlicenced), who then go out for a ride when drunk/high who are having crashes.
PerthNow said:
In addition, half the 30 bike fatalities in WA between January 2012 and April this year involved riders on an unlicensed bike, or a bike that had been in their possession less than three months.
Ben, riding to the letter of the law is NOT the same as riding safely.
I got my bike license in Perth 14 years ago. That time has been neatly split in half between riding in the UK & Europe and riding here.
I'll address your examples from the point of the view of the safe (but law breaking) rider:
Filtering to the front at the lights. I always, always, always do it. The 17 yr old writing a text as she drives up to the back of the queue at the lights, will never crash into me, as a result. Neither will the guy who didn't leave enough braking room in the wet etc etc
Overtake: Not always, but on a single carriage way highway with an 80+ limit, more often than not. The reason is this: if I don't overtake, I will be overtaken. On a bike, you never, never want to be subject to other people's will, state of mind, physical condition. exuberance etc. The risks are too great if there is an accident or miscalculation. Every car or conflict area on the road is a situation with a variety of potential outcomes. By always approaching a situation on your terms, you subject the situation to your state of mind, physical condition, will, etc and therefore can dictate the outcome. So by overtaking, no-ones overtakes me (ever!).
Speeding (Excessive, naughty, irresponsible speeding aside): always. For the same reason as above. When you're going faster the flow of traffic, you never ever have to worry about what is approaching you from your most vulnerable area which is behind you. No-one approaches me with not enough to room to brake, no one changes lanes into me, no makes unsafe overtaking manouvers on me, because I'm never static in a road space. But you have to be mindful of the speed differential. I mean 10-15% faster than the flow of traffic. 50% faster is pretty silly, especially when filtering.
Accelerate fast: If you mean off the lights - always. As I'm always on the front (because I filtered there), I have to be away very sharply. If I'm not, I'm going to be sat between two cars accelerating either side of me, driven by people who may have stopped paying attention during the red light, turned the wheel slightly, have become angry at me, might be in a hurry, might want to race etc etc So only filter if you're ready to get away smartly, otherwise you've created as big a risk as you eliminated by filtering there.
You're right though, typically (and from the look of the statistics) it is non-licensed bikes or scooters (that importantly are unable to do the things listed above and are therefore a greater risk to their rider) that have the issues.
Scooterists are rarely breaking the speed limit (often way under it, which is the problem) and moto-x muppets are are not usually on main highways. So the crack-down will be on everyday riders like me, on licensed, paid-up bikes riding safely, but not to the letter of the law. But this is WA, home of the "one size fits all" legislation-solves-everything mentality.
The sooner I get an enduro and get off the highways and away from stupid initiatives like this, the better.
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