ACC - flanker attack

[candor]

Ixion the AA is falsely accused - they may not have helped (small picture) but this plot has MUCH deeper roots in Chews lane (NZTA performance indicator research team).

Point 1 - the blowout is mainly due to car occupant serious injuries
Point 2 - hopefully you all made subs re this to safer journeys and that aint over till the fat lady sings.

From the AA submission.

0.1 Overview
The New Zealand Automobile Association objects to the artificially short time-table for the development of the 2020 Road Safety Strategy. The Automobile Association does not believe that a sustainable safety strategy which improves on the 2010 Road Safety Strategycan be developed in the time the Government has allocated to the task. The AA requests that the Government adopt the original timeframe of publishing a new strategy by June 2010 rather than December 2009. Nothing is gained by rushing the development of such an important and lasting document.

Fundamentally the Road Safety Strategy 2010 failed to deliver any appreciable safety benefits in terms of social-cost per kilometre travelled. This calls into question the paradigm on which it was founded and the continuation of this paradigm to the 2020 Strategy.

Road Police are known to be integrating their policing function with general policing but no statistics are available to assess whether this approach is effective at reducing road or other forms of crime

There are two main approaches to road safety. One is to treat all potential causes of crashes as a criminal activity and turn all road safety concerns over to Police. The other is to treat road safety as a complex interaction of road-users, vehicles and environments and take action to minimise injury regardless of cause.

0.1.1 Paradigm Shift
The enforcement paradigm to road-safety is simple. Parliament passes laws against things, the Police enforce these laws and the judiciary imposes sanctions on the lawbreakers who are caught. Currently New Zealand Police and Courts issue penalties totalling about $150 million per year of which $100 million is typically recovered. Police are funded to almost $300 million from road user taxes. Traffic offences are roughly a third of all District Court offences. This is essentially the business-as-usual road-safety approach used in New Zealand.
There has been however little evidence that the marginal cost of increased enforcement achieves marginal safety benefits. Reviews conducted in 2004 as part of the 2010 Strategy found no connection between enforcement hours and crash occurrence. There is also no clear evidence that the rate of infringement notices issued has any bearing on mean speeds or road trauma social costs.

The popular accusation that road policing only serves to provide the Government with revenue is difficult to dispute in the absence of evidence that variation in enforcement effort has no concomitant effect on road safety outcomes

AA recommendations

Once effective messages are found, ensure the public (whether drivers, pedestrians, cyclists or motorcyclists) is made aware through widespread education campaigns that inattention is the single highest risk factor.

AA Opposed Policy Responses:
A. Continued suppression of the importance of inattention as an issue; misleading comments about speed and alcohol being the top causes.
B. Emphasis on safety messages delivered through legitimising Police enforcement

The Automobile Association believes as a first principle that motorists do not set out to be involved in crashes. But because serious crashes are rare events in a person’s life it is human nature to think “It won’t happen to me.” Further, psychologists assert that successful incident free trips reinforce less than perfect behaviours, even with drink-driving.
This is exacerbated when the majority of road safety messages are geared to legitimise enforcement, and viewers see themselves as law-abiding and think road safety is nothing to do with their own behaviours, which are not mentioned in the messaging. When a high proportion of crashes involve “poor observation” such messaging does little to alert drivers to the true causes of crashes.

Point 3 - the blame lies squarely with Clarks lot for submiting us to human experimentation and Candor, Akilla and others have gathered enough evidence to sling certain bureaucrats arses in to jail for the mass murder on the roads that bikers are now asked to quit their hobby for.

Point 4 - the attack on MCs was predictable. National road safety committee meeting minutes of which I ploughed through 10,000 pages in my own inquiry in recent weeks revealed they see that getting people to quit bikes is a fast track to meet the targets for reduced deaths/injuries that their quota based computer program failed to do all on its own. FATALITY Targets must be met by 2010 or the marketability of the program written at LTSA to the 2nd/3rd world comes in to question. Hence the irrational discrimination.

Saying you guys have 18 x the risk of harm is irrelevant - death is cheap to ACC - its survival that's not, and it is car drivers who survive as veges more often than MCs.

Point 5 - best strategy here is to attack the cause - the foundation - join with the AA and many other road safety groups doing this now.

Bikers should not pay for high level strategy mistakes - address the cause not the symptom, back a royal commission of inquiry to the resource allocation model - the policy of greatest enforceable risk - and the fraudulent goings on at MoT, NZTA of falsifying statistics until the lid got blown off by the ACC debacle. They have been falsifying important records , hiding things, we have caught them in lies, and we have evidence of the bad faith misleading of high level public figures for personal profit by ex high level civil servants.

IT IS VERY LIKELY THE STATS THEY USE TO SAY BIKERS CARRY MORE BLAME ARE COOKED - A TEAM AT NZTA IS SPECIFICALLY HIRED TO COOK BOOKS - THEY "JUDGE" WHAT CONTENT SHOULD ENTER PROGRESS REPORTS AND THEN PUT THE CONTENT THROUGH OMPUTER PROGRAMS WHICH INCREASE THE ROLE OF SPEED/ALCOHOL & ROAD RULE BREACHES VERSUS SAY THE FACT 90% OF NORTHLAND CRASHES ARE TRULT DUE TO SLIPPERY ROADS WHICH INFO TYPES IS FILTERED OUT. THATS THE KIND OF DIVORCE LAWYER YOU NEED IN THE STATES THAT INSCRUTABLE TWISTING COMPUTER FACT SCRAMBLER, IT'S A COP SUPPORTING FIBBER PAID FOR WITH TAX DOLLARS!

Point 5 - the group to target that controls MoT etc is a puppetmaster for world bank research ON US that failed and put us in the top youth tolls and the worst countries for serious injuries.

Point 6 - this is what noone in power wants to admit as at world bank behest the HQ for an International quota funded Police agency "Road Pol" has just been set up in Welly, led by Rob Robinson (creaming it) job is to teach the third world to milk motorists with speed cams and breathalysers bought with world banlk loans. The catch - world bank controls world police.

I believe HC gave the World Bank man (ex LTSA boss/Treasury econoterrorist)the handshake mid last year after he had a meeting with MFAT. MFAT declined to include Candors complaint about the experiment killing kids in its regular report on human rights to the UN. I guess it mighta put HC in a bad light.

So why not - DIVERT TO THE REAL ISSUE
Support the boycott of the 2020 policy and also say this decision TARGETING OLDER WHITE MEN when better options exist (like training them) can not be taken until the fundaments of what is broken in road safety are identified. Don't punish the policy victims - punish the policy makers via a full comm of inquiry. If this happend road safety may be salvaged - reducing future demand on ACC and projections of funding needs.

Even if it only holds them at current levels it needs to be done, or on the current trend trajectory they will again double premiums in another 5 years.

[candor]

3.3 Improving the safety of motorcyclists
AA Recommended Policy Responses:
1. We support improving rider training and licensing and incentivising riders to undertake advanced riding courses.
2. We support a specific programme for treating motorcycle blackspots.
3. We support mandatory ABS for sport or touring ‘bikes.
4. We support promoting high visibility and protective clothing, including the uptake of ‘air bag’ jackets.
5. We support investigating development of a differential ACC levy system that recognises risk due to type of ‘bike or rider profile.
6. We would support moped riders obtaining a motorcycle licence but are unconvinced of the merits of requiring mopeds to undergo a Warrant of Fitness.

Discussion

Improve rider training and licensing
The NZAA wholly supports improving rider training skills, not only whilst obtaining a motorcycle licence, but also refresher courses for experienced riders. We commend initiatives offered by some motorcycle groups, like Ulysses, and retailers, to offer instructional courses, and believe these should be incentivised further. Options are to seek the insurance industry’s
support to lower premiums for customers who have undergone advanced training, and likewise for ACC levies to recognise rider skill levels and risk. Advanced riding courses should also be mandatory for riders issued with speed infringements or other riding offences, with the incentive that the fine be waived if the course is completed.
Similarly, we believe there is some merit in requiring moped riders to obtain a Class 6 motorcycle licence rather than the Class 1 default as present, which currently is one of the low-cost attractions of owning a moped. We believe there are particular handling and observation skills that can only be learnt from motorcycle courses, and not from inside a car.
The NZAA also supports revising the Driver Licensing Rule to replace the 250cc engine restriction for Learner riders with a power-to-weight ratio limit.
Require all new large motorbikes to have ABS by 2015
As with ESC for light vehicles, the AA would support making ABS mandatory for certain new motorbikes, although instead of the proposed 600cc threshold, perhaps this requirement could be based on a minimum power-to-weight ratio, or alternatively all sports or touring ‘bikes.

Introduce a differential levy system based on engine size

The current ACC levy only differentiates between mopeds and motorbikes, and in the case of the latter, the motorcyclists ACC levy is subsidised by light passenger vehicles to the tune of about $1200 a year, and does not reflect the true cost of motorcycle crashes on the health system. A major risk group appears to be European men over the age of 40, particularly those on powerful machines, and so a differential ACC regime recognising such ‘bikes and/or rider profile would be supported, although may not act as much of a deterrent for this group who have no shortage of cash for their new-found hobby. But a higher ACC levy closer to the actual cost sends an important signal to motorcyclists about the risk they face riding. This may cause pause for thought for new or returning riders.
However, instead of being based on engine size, a power-to-weight ratio may be a better tool to distinguish from older ‘bikes with large engines but relatively modest power output and which are not over-represented in motorcycle accidents.
In support of differential ACC levies there should be advertising campaigns illustrating the risk and motorcyclists contribution to the road toll, who are in denial of their level of fault.
According to the Crash Analysis System, there were 34 fatal crashes in 2008 involving a motorcycle at fault, and only 9 where they were innocent victims. In 21 of the 34 at fault crashes it was a single vehicle crash.

Licence moped riders and require WoF tests

While the AA would support requiring moped riders to pass a basic practical and theory motorcycle test, we are not convinced that mandatory WoF checks for mopeds are warranted.
A review of CAS shows there were 19 moped injury and fatality accidents during 2003-08 in which a mechanical fault was identified as a cause, or 0.08% of the 24,553 registered mopeds on the road (2007). This is a fraction of the 163 motorbike accidents (0.18%) with a mechanical cause in the same period, and although the rate of mechanical failures is even lower for light passenger vehicles (0.04%), the sheer volume (240 a year) may suggest a WoF check is warranted, whereas it may be harder to justify imposing the time and financial cost of 6- or 12-monthly WoF checks on 25,553 moped owners to avoid 4 potential accidents a year.
However, we do believe there are some unsafe mopeds on the roads, as well as motorbikes incorrectly registered as mopeds and thus avoiding WoF checks. Hence we support the revision in the Road User Rule to strengthen the definition of a moped to reduce incorrect registrations, and call for stricter measures to ensure mopeds and motorbikes are correctly
registered at the time of entry to the fleet. Thus, instead of considering an in-service WoF, we would propose that all mopeds (including electric scooters) pass an entry certification (including issuance of a VIN) to verify that they do in fact meet the minimum safety standards for mopeds and are correctly registered as such, or registered as motorbikes if the inspection
verifies that their kilowatt rating and maximum speed exceed that of the moped