Post a copy of your submission here. Please read terms first!

**FastBikeGear** · 9th November 2009, 21:58

You are invited to place a copy of your submission to the ACC in this thread.

1. Please only post your submission in this thread if you are happy for others to cut and paste (copy bits) of your submission into their submission. Please note that by placing a copy of your submission in this thread you are expressly giving others permission to borrow from your submission. If you are not happy for people to borrow from your submission do not post it in this thread!

2. Please do not clutter up this thread with comments on submissions posted in this thread. This thread is for submissions only!

In this way anyone wanting to put in a last submission or finalise theirs can borrow stuff from submissions in this thread.

Mods if this thread is meritous could you please consider making it sticky.

**Sidewinder** · 9th November 2009, 22:05

i dont have a bike so could you please make all the bikers pay for my acc levys please, thanx

**FastBikeGear** · 10th November 2009, 05:30

Here is the preliminary of my submission.

I think my proposal for a SFRAL must win the award for the most novel sloution so far.

Please note I have borrowed from the BRONZ and SMC submissions as well as from discussions adn comments from other KBers.

Please do not clutter up this thread with comments on submissions posted in this thread. This thread is for submissions only!

Suggestions and comments are requested but can you please PM them to me or put them in another thread so this thread doesn't get cluttered up.

One interesting comment that I included that I have not seen a focus on previously is...

Assuming third party debt: The ACC funding model changed in 1999 to being a fully funded model. My understanding is that the ACC act requires the bills from pre-1999 to be paid by 2014. It would seem that we are asking riders like myself who have obtained a motor cycle license in the last couple of years who are in no way associated with this debt to fund the costs of claims and liabilities for accidents that occurred previous to them gaining a motorcycle license. This is ridiculously unfair. An analogy would be asking the new owner of a house to assume any debts on other houses in the same street.

**Blackbird** · 10th November 2009, 06:05

Dear Sirs/Mesdames,

I’m writing to express my views with respect to the above-mentioned topic and hope that I may get a response specific to the points I’m making rather than the standard “statistics” answer which is used ad nauseum in the press.

Firstly, you may be surprised that I’m not against some degree of increase as I accept that ACC does need to balance its books. I do, however, object to motorcyclists being singled out when there are clearly other groups of road users who should also receive attention. I suppose it’s easier to pick one group off at a time from your perspective. I believe that the often-quoted motorcycle accident statistics are misleading but even if they were not, to impose a blanket surcharge on all motorcyclists discriminates against those (including me) who have an excellent driving/riding record. I care deeply about my standard of driving and believe that you never stop learning. That’s why I have taken both advanced car and motorcycle courses and will continue to seek areas for improvement at my expense.

Improving driving/riding standards is of course, the only means of addressing the ROOT CAUSES of motoring accidents apart from improving road conditions. I’m deeply disappointed that in your announcements, there has been absolutely no discussion about raising driving standards and simply to pay more without addressing the root causes shows a “cost plus” mentality; almost literally the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. It is also an irresponsible way of managing taxpayer funds.

Whilst other government departments and quangos would need to be involved, a concerted plan to raise driving standards through the acquisition of higher skills is the only approach which makes sense. It is not as difficult as you might think. Part of my advanced driving courses concentrated on “situational awareness”, i.e. literally being more aware of what is going on around you. There are some simple tools for improving situational awareness which should be taught at basic license acquisition level. To give you an excellent example of how situational awareness is applied by an experienced road user, look at the superb road safety video: http://www.public.tv/channel.php?gro...9MF4-C6GO-YVU5. This approach has kept me safe over many years.

What I would hope to see is an acknowledgement that raising license fees does nothing to address the major root cause of road accidents, it is simply balancing books. The best acknowledgement I could hope for is that mechanisms will be put in place for raising overall driving standards if we are indeed serious about keeping people safe and reducing costs at the same time. However, if you believe that my thinking is flawed, I would like to know that too.

With kind regards,

Geoffrey James,

Coromandel Town

**Southern man** · 10th November 2009, 07:28

Dear Sir, Madam

I am writing this submission to vent our disgust at the proposed levy hikes imposed on a small vulnerable section of the community ie motorcyclists. Acc was set up as a no blame system and as such it is blatantly unfair and unethical to target one group of New Zealanders due to their use of a certain type of vehicle. If this levy increase is approved it opens the door to numerous other groups being targeted because of their lifestyle or choice to partake in certain higher risk sports. Do we target older people due to the fact that they have more fall related accidents and the cost involved are higher due to longer healing times.

The statistic and data that have been used in this process are highly skewed and inaccurate. Basic knowledge of mathematics shows that if every car/vehicle registered was subsidising motorcyclist to the sum of $70-00 as stated by ACC, ACC would be receiving in excess of $231,625,100.00. Based on 3,308,930 registered vehicles (Source : http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/statistics/m.../docs/2008.pdf). This is just one so called fact be used by ACC in an attempt to justify this outrageous levy hike. I could go on and supply a rafter of numerous other statistics and facts used by acc in this campaign each easily refuted.

The reasoning behind different levels of ACC levy dependent upon the size of the motorcycle ridden is clearly flawed. There are some 600cc bikes that are capable of far greater speeds than numerous 750-1000cc bikes. Whether you ride a 600cc bike or 1200cc bike an accident at 100kph has the same effect and costs.
To target small moped and scooters seems to be contrary to the government’s efforts and Kyoto protocol to reduce green house gases. If the proposed increases are adopted there will be a large number of riders of these vehicle who will go back to driving cars thus increasing emissions and traffic.

If funding needs to be increased perhaps ACC should look at the influx of tourists that enter this country and subsequently have accidents that are paid for by the New Zealand tax payer. The number of climbing accidents where overseas visitors are searched for ,recued, flown off the mountain and then treated all compliments of the tax payer. This is just one area where savings could be made.
We as New Zealander are required to ensure that we have travel insurance when travelling overseas, why do we not require it for visitors to this country.

In conclusion I would like to point out that we as motorcyclist also pay acc levies in numerous other ways. A large proportion of motorcyclist also own cars and other vehicles on which we pay acc levies. We use fuel in all vehicles which contains an acc component, we all either pay acc via paye or self employed levies.
This softening up exercise by ACC to justify any increase is immoral and highly offensive. THERE SHOULD BE NO ACC LEVY INCREASE WITHOUT TRUE JUSTIFICATION.

Yours sincerely
Craig Rowley
President
March Hare Motorcycle Club

**buellbabe** · 10th November 2009, 11:33

Well I am not gonna post my entire submission cos its 10 pages long and alot of it is about stats and facts and figurs and truths and lies bla bla bla, a great deal of which I have copied from other sources and then just added my own 2 c but what I am posting is my take on the 'social /community responsibility' aspect and how pricing the ownership of motorcycles out of people reach is going to have far reaching social consequences... I don't care if people think thisn't relevant...ask those charities who benefit from poker runs etc...

Here goes... (oh BTW the first little bit was borrowe from The Greens)

ACC is supposed to be a ‘no blame’ scheme. When ACC came into being New Zealanders effectively gave up ‘the right to sue for damages/injury’ so how can ACC justify going against its own governing principals by unfairly and unjustly singling out one sector of the community? And YES! No matter what ACC says we ARE being singled out as no other group is being targeted with such a enormous levy increase, nearly 300%! And the newspaper ads taken out by ACC further prove that they ARE targeting us. The ads reeked of the intention to turn public opinion against motorcyclists. I was disgusted.

Further to the social responsibility side of things. In an age where the government is actively encouraging everyone to be clean and green and reduce carbon footprints surely making it virtually impossible to afford to ride a motorbike is in direct opposition to that Goverment policy???!

In fact increased use of motorcycles where practicable has environmental benefits as single driver car usage is consequently reduced, since the greenhouse gas emissions generated by a motorcycles is significantly less than from cars and the fuel used per kilometre of travel is significantly less for a motorcycle than a car. I also own a car but I choose to commute on my motorbike as I am VERY conscious of doing my bit to reduce congestion on our motorways AND my bike doesn’t need a car parking space. Take all the commuter motorcycles off the roads and there will be trouble… That’s a LOT of extra car parks that will be needed and as for the increased greenhouse gas emissions? Do the math.

Another socially responsible thing that motorcyclists are very involved with is charity and fundraising work. Who raises money every year for the Westpac Trust Rescue helicopter every year? Who does toy runs at Xmas time to sick children in hospitals all over New Zealand? Who makes time to take dying kids for a ride on the back of their motorbike, an event that is undoubtedly the HIGHLIGHT of the poor childs tragically short life?????? WE DO! MOTORCYCLISTS! We are always putting our hands in our pockets and giving to needy charities. The numerous rides that we do to raise money for worthy causes will just cease to happen because ACC seems determined to make motorcycling as a pastime or lifestyle choice a thing of the past.

On Sunday night November 8th there was a story on TV1s ‘Sunday’ documentary show about sick children needing to travel overseas for last resort expensive medical treatment. One case stood out as a shining example of motorcyclists doing charity rides and that was the case of young Jade. The local motorcycle club raised $47,000 to send her to Mexico.Well done motorcyclists! But what will happen if ACC levies price bike ownership out of most peoples reach? Goodbye charity runs.

A very important point for ACC to consider is this: if this levy increase does happen then ACC are GUARANTEED to LOSE money. Motorcyclists simply will not register their bikes. I own 2 bikes, that does not mean I am wealthy and can afford anything. That means I have scrimped and saved and worked my backside off to be able to keep my OLD bike and still have a relatively modern (cheaper to service) one as well. Since this whole debacle started I have already put one bikes rego on hold and am waiting to see what happens before I decide whether I can afford to register my other bike. Rest assured that the scenario will be the repeated in motorcyclist households the length and breadth of the country. And if worse comes to worse I will have NONE of them registered because I would rather pay a fine to the Justice Department than see one single extra cent go to ACC.

Congratulations on alienating a huge section of New Zealands populace.

One final point I would like to make is that ANY political party that supports this will never EVER get my vote. It would be fair to say that pretty much every motorcyclist in the country shares this view as do our families and friends…that’s a LOT of votes.