The ACC saga - a new approach.

[fossil]

http://www.acc.co.nz/news/WPC087752

What the hell is Scotty Wilkins advertising in my post for?
Few he's gone

[Katman]

http://www.acc.co.nz/news/WPC087752

Sounds promising.

[mashman]

Sounds promising.

That it is... I look forwards to finding out a more detail... shame none of it can be released in a political style leak

[R-Soul]

If I'm riding around town (Wellington) for uni and groceries etc, I don't put on my full gear. A regular leather jacket, helmet and gloves is all that I need in my opinion, for going max 50km/h.

Sure, because your skin wont come off in large meaty strips at 50km/hr...

[bogan]

Sure, because your skin wont come off in large meaty strips at 50km/hr...

In my experience it didn't, jeans and sneakers for a 50kmhr off is fine. Though due to some offroad experience I bailed off the bike pretty good

[R-Soul]

One way of doing it would be to reduce rego costs if you can show you have been on one of the recommended courses.

Govt has $23m in their budget spend on reducing accidents.

so set up decent subsidised bike riding courses, and insist that everyone attend them before getting a license. It wont stop teh idiots that currently have lcenses from doing dumb things, butyou have o start somewhere.

Also, a change n mindset must start with us patrolling our own idea of whet is right. its kind of like drink driving - nobody is for it in principle, but when cometh the hour to stand up and be counted, and stop your mate from driving home, it becomes all *nudge nudge, wink wink, dont let the Popo find you*.

People boasting about their bad habits on the road (like speeding or stunting, etc) should not be laughed with - they should be met with stony cold silence.
EVEN if they are experienced and good at riding (hell, even safe) because they encourage others to do dumb things.

[Ocean1]

One way of doing it would be to reduce rego costs

Your dreaming.

The reason they took your money away from you was so they could spend it on stuff you wouldn't have. They'll be using all of it to preach at us, you wait and see.

Arseholes.

[Berries]

To the second part, I wonder how many bike crashes are caused by people racing on the roads ? I deal with crashes on a daily basis and to be honest it is very very rare that I see a bike crash where someone was grossly exceeding the speed limit. Racing on the roads may not go down well with the people who see it but I am not convinced it has much bearing on crashes, certainly nowhere near the level that plain old poor decision making or non defensive riding contribute.

It’s going back a couple of weeks now, but I thought I’d answer my own question. Only one crash last year has specifically been coded as racing, with a calculated speed well in excess of 140km/h. This one however does not make it in to the speed related crashes for some reason. Of all the crashes last year where speed of some kind was recorded against a bike only two were above 120km/h. One an admitted 130 while affected by alcohol, and the fastest being in excess of 150 in a 50km/h area while being pursued by the Police. In one other crash witnesses said the bike could have been doing 150, but who knows.

So racing on the roads doesn’t really feature in the crash stats. Doing 90 in to a 65k corner isn’t what I would call racing, it’s riding.

Found a few interesting things while trawling through the 140 ‘speed’ related crash reports. I don’t think they will add much to the thread but I’ve wasted my time looking at them so you can waste your time reading it.

In total the national database shows 1083 injury crashes last year involving bikes, with 149 having speed coded as a factor. Removing those where it was actually a different vehicle speeding leaves 140 crashes. Speed is not always easy to determine after a crash. Yes you can examine the skidmarks and crash damage and do some calculations relating to the coefficient of friction of that type of road surface etc etc, but that kind of in-depth analysis only really happens for the more serious crashes. In 58 of the 140 crashes there is no speed entered on to the crash report, just an assumption that because the rider crashed he must have been travelling too fast, which in many cases may well be true. I state this so you know to question speed related crash stats when they get thrown around. In the majority of cases it is informed guesswork. Take for instance a couple of quotes from crashes that have subsequently been recorded as speed related – “Likely riding too fast but no evidence" and “No evidence to suggest excessive speed".

But anyway, the interesting stuff. 140 riders, only four of them were women. Average age was 36. Only 68 of the riders had a full bike licence. Average age for learners was 30, with half of them riding bikes larger than 600cc. 31 riders had no bike licence at all.

Average engine size was 697cc of those 111 where it was recorded. Half of those unrecorded were Harleys so the true figure will be higher. The majority of crashes, 92, just involved the bike. The rest involved another vehicle, often a head on after drifting wide on a corner or even failing to give way to a car at an intersection. SMIDNSY works both ways apparently.

I looked at all the factors but won’t bore you with that. My own ‘twat’ factor was used quite often. I apologise if you are one of the statistics or know someone who was, but, being frank and at the risk of sounding like Katman, some of these people deserved to crash. But then again many didn’t. To use the technical term, they just fucked up.

Some of the things I learned were –

1) If you are going to get involved in a Police pursuit, put your helmet on first.
2) If you are going to do a wheelie make sure nobody is turning in front of you or about to pull out of a parking space.
3) If you have got a Harley, best stick to the straight bits.
4) Don’t ride MX bikes on the road.
5) Riding pissed can get messy.
6) Don’t stamp on the back brake when you get in to a corner too hot.

Most of these crashes were avoidable. Inexperience was a big factor for those learners who crashed, particularly when cornering, but basic mistakes and poor riding skills were the major factors in my opinion. To bring it back on topic, one of the most telling numbers above when it comes to possible interventions is that more than half the riders did not have a full bike licence. How the $30 can be targeted at them I don’t know. But then I have to ask, why should my $30 be targeted at people who are riding outside of the law anyway ? Actually, seeing as I am starting to rant, I don’t see why I should be paying an additional 30 bucks in the first place. Money grabbing bastards.

[dipshit]

It’s going back a couple of weeks now, but I thought I’d answer my own question....

... Some of the things I learned were –

1) If you are going to get involved in a Police pursuit, put your helmet on first.
2) If you are going to do a wheelie make sure nobody is turning in front of you or about to pull out of a parking space.
3) If you have got a Harley, best stick to the straight bits.
4) Don’t ride MX bikes on the road.
5) Riding pissed can get messy.
6) Don’t stamp on the back brake when you get in to a corner too hot.

Thanks for sharing. Makes some interesting reading.

Bloody car drivers. When is the government going to do something about improving the standard of car drivers in this country...???

[shrub]

In total the national database shows 1083 injury crashes last year involving bikes, with 149 having speed coded as a factor. Removing those where it was actually a different vehicle speeding leaves 140 crashes.

That is very different from what Our Masters tell us - if we were to listen to them even travelling 6 kmh over the speed limit almost guarantees killing innocent widows and children.

It was also interesting to see how many were caused by lack of skill and by unlicensed riders - I had no idea the number was so high. I'm also curious what percentage were caused by other road users - do you have that data readily available?

[Berries]

That is very different from what Our Masters tell us - if we were to listen to them even travelling 6 kmh over the speed limit almost guarantees killing innocent widows and children.

I think many people on KB and in real life would say that the focus on speed has gone too far, possibly to the detriment of safe driving practices within the speed limit. The science is obvious, if you crash then the slower you are going the more survivable the crash is going to be, but then driving sober and within the speed limit as we are constantly told to do does not make you immune from wrapping yourself around a power pole. Poor driving has been forgotten about.

It was also interesting to see how many were caused by lack of skill and by unlicensed riders - I had no idea the number was so high. I'm also curious what percentage were caused by other road users - do you have that data readily available?

No. I was only looking at crashes where the bike was travelling ‘too fast for the conditions’ which does imply that it was the riders fault. Note that these crashes only make up 14% of all bike crashes last year, so there is a huge amount of info missing.

[shrub]

I think many people on KB and in real life would say that the focus on speed has gone too far, possibly to the detriment of safe driving practices within the speed limit. The science is obvious, if you crash then the slower you are going the more survivable the crash is going to be, but then driving sober and within the speed limit as we are constantly told to do does not make you immune from wrapping yourself around a power pole. Poor driving has been forgotten about. No. I was only looking at crashes where the bike was travelling ‘too fast for the conditions’ which does imply that it was the riders fault. Note that these crashes only make up 14% of all bike crashes last year, so there is a huge amount of info missing.

I still maintain that if we're serious about the road toll we should return to having a man walking in front of all horseless carriages holding a red flag. The only problem is a lot of men with red flags would be run over when the driver fell asleep.

Talking to Charley Lamb and he commented that where engine size was given in the database, the mode was 250 and that a very high percentage of bike crashes were due to stomping on the back brake and either sliding into other traffic or off the road, and I believe that suggests incompetence to the point where the rider should not be allowed to ride - maybe learner bikes should have the back brake disconnected? My guess is that would cut accident rates.

The figures you cite and what I have seen also discounts the argument of katman et al that most motorcycle accidents are caused by people riding aggressively and stupidly; and in fact suggest that simple inability to handle a bike is the problem. I reckon that riding a bike is a very highly skilled pursuit, and it took me several years to learn enough to stop falling off - my first few years were punctuated by regular crashes. It is certainly much harder than driving a car sufficiently well not to crash, and the licensing process bears no relationship to the skill required.

[Berries]

Talking to Charley Lamb and he commented that where engine size was given in the database, the mode was 250 and that a very high percentage of bike crashes were due to stomping on the back brake and either sliding into other traffic or off the road, and I believe that suggests incompetence to the point where the rider should not be allowed to ride - maybe learner bikes should have the back brake disconnected? My guess is that would cut accident rates.

Not sure about incompetence, but a lack of experience/knowledge/training definitely. Even some full licence holders did that. One thing not available on the crash reports is actual riding experience. You can ride only on sunny summer weekends and still be inexperienced, so it isn’t just learners.

[Katman]

and at the risk of sounding like Katman,

Steady on, you make it sound like it's a bad thing.

The figures you cite and what I have seen also discounts the argument of katman et al that most motorcycle accidents are caused by people riding aggressively and stupidly;

I've always believed that the majority of motorcycle accidents have been the result of bravado or incompetence. Berries post suggests I'm bang on money.

[shrub]

Not sure about incompetence, but a lack of experience/knowledge/training definitely. Even some full licence holders did that. One thing not available on the crash reports is actual riding experience. You can ride only on sunny summer weekends and still be inexperienced, so it isn’t just learners.

Yeah, that's certainly true. I'd be interested to do some research on relationships between amount of riding done and crash rates. Using the WOF data it would be possible to get reasonably reliable data if we operate with the hypothesis that most people do the vast majority of riding on bikes that belong to them. If Johnny Bonneville's WOF records show that he rides 1500 km a year, then it could be reliably assumed that is pretty well all the riding he does, whereas Mike Ninja's records show 15000 kms we could assume that is his riding experience. I would say that the hypothesis that the more one rides the less likely one is to have an accident would be supported.

I know for me, my bike is in bits getting some cosmetic loving and when I put her back on the road I'll be riding very, very carefully because my head has switched to cage mode and I need to get back to thinking like a biker before I can engage in any spirited riding.

Oh for access to the data and the time while I have SPSS on my laptop.