Relative risk as a basis for setting levies

[swbarnett]

I've been thinking about what Mrs Myth was saying at the Tamaki meeting last night. In particular, he stated that:

"Motorcyclists are 16 time more likely to have an accident than a car on a PER KILOMETRE basis".

This is being used as a selling point of the M/C levy increases to car drivers.

Ignoring the truth of the number for a moment, this is saying to the public at large that our levy should really be 16 times that of a car and we're getting off easy. But, hang on a minute, how are ACC levies charged? Not per kilometre, but per vehicle! Any engineer (especially a PhD) should know that you can't quote numbers in one unit (per km) and then apply those numbers to an equation with a completely different unit (per vehicle).

If we are going to be separated at all from cars in the vehicle fleet then the risk compaison has to be per registered vehicle in the same way that the ACC levies are charged.

[rainman]

"Motorcyclists are 16 time more likely to have an accident than a car on a PER KILOMETRE basis".

Sounds like a good argument for ACC levies to be on fuel, doncha think?

[MSTRS]

If we are going to be separated at all from cars in the vehicle fleet then the risk compaison has to be per registered vehicle in the same way that the ACC levies are charged.

If I understand that, you mean motorcycles become a separate fund and must be levied on that basis?
Assuming full years rego on all 2 wheeled vehicles, just to cover last year's payout, the levy would be $476 each. Not to mention what future funding would add to that.
Dangerous ground.

EDIT: - of course, we would need to factor in the almost 50% of injury accidents as being car driver's fault, so any levy rate will be halved....

[pzkpfw]

Risk isn't used to set fees.

They try to estimate how much money they need (which in the fully funded model means all the future costs of the current accidents) and then they set the levies to try to get that money off us*. (This is where they get that "we actually need $3,000 off you people each year" claim).

[
So it doesn't matter how they try to get the fees off us, we'd still (under the segregation model) have to pay the same amount. e.g. If the levy was all from fuel, for example, it just means the fees would be distributed more to the high-km riders and less to the low-km riders. The high-km riders would be paying shit loads. (Which might be quite unfair, as they may be the more experienced riders who crash less than the "weekend warriors" anyway!)

The only benefit (to us) here (fee based on fuel) would be that cars and bikes would pay the same per litre. And if they (Govt + ACC) would accept that they'd accept a flat fee under the current system anyway.
]

Where the "risk" has come into it, is their use of it to justify segregation. i.e. making motorcycles a separate funding pool, in exactly the way they don't split off black cars from white cars (or any number of other ways one could find to say "high" versus "low" risk among the population).


I hate that "16 x" claim. I'm sure many drivers think that actually menas that for every car crash there are 16 bikes crashing.


(* and don't forget they need to "catch up" for the years prior to "fully-funding". So we get screwed for money 4 ways.)

[swbarnett]

Risk isn't used to set fees.
You are so right!

But the decision to separate us in to our own risk group depends on it. We might be less likely to be split out from cars if we were seen as only twice as likely instead of 16 times. Something of this nature may be the case if the per vehicle risk is considered instead of the per kilometer risk.

It just seems incredulous to me that they can use one model to set levies and a completely different model to define the risk groups.

[NONONO]

I am statistically untenable, just like the bumble bee.
30 years riding, no accidents requiring hospital admissions or ACC claims.
Ride every day, no Rossi but no Nana.
X2 hospital admissions work related, with x1 accident requiring ACC claim.
Fuck I'm LIVING PROOF that Nicks a twat.