Remind me – what is everyone protesting against?

[jeffs]

I would be happy to do so. I must confess it hasn't been easy to get the mentioned figures. Everyone tells me the figures are everywhere, but almost no-one has pointed the way. And my searching has been frustrating.

I must warn you that I do not take a side then find the facts to match. I hope to spend a week looking through the data and then coming to my own conclusion. If it suggests that the protesters are justified, I will provide time and energy to backing your cause. If I find they are not, I will provide time and energy trying to persuade BRONZ that the cause is invalid.

I just wish that people here would be more willing to provide information rather than criticism if they really believed they had the facts on their side.

But being optimistic, apparently when I made my first post my opinion was not valid. Now that I'm up to 20 in this thread, does that mean I'm more knowledgeable? ;-)

Reflex as a statistician you are looking at numbers, because that is what you do
( not meaning to question you, but understand this is the internet and you could be a butcher for all we know ).

Yes under the changes to the funding process the numbers do not stack up on the side of bikers.

But if you can take your statisticians hat off ( and that you may find hard or impossible to do ) and look at the justification beyond the numbers, you will understand what bikers are really up in arms about.

Because its easy by the use of some simple calculations to project future costs using historical figures, ACC are are trying to make a single section of the public ( bikers ) be self funded ( or as near as they can ). The other sections of the public, who are not so easily segmented are not being hit at this time. This is almost a test case to see what the back lash would be if they started to separate out other high cost/risk groups.

Using these calculations ACC are saying. " What are you complaining about ? The real issue is not that we are raising you levies so high, its that we let you get away with such low ones for such a long time, you should not be complaining you have had a free ride for too long"

We are saying " ACC was never set up to charge one group more that others. It was meant to create a level playing field so we did not end up like America, suing people to get cover for injury"

Please by all means crunch the numbers

But I will make a prediction.

If you are a statistician, you will come up with the same numbers as ACC. Why because you will have been trained to interpret the numbers in the same way the Authors of the reports have.

Please don't take this as an insult, it is not intended to be.
As impartial as you say you are, you by definition are not, and that is such a shame , because NZ bikers need someone who can crunch the numbers and is NOT impartial, but falls on their side.

If after crunching numbers for the good of bikers, and you come down on the side of ACC. Be smart enough to understand the ridicule you will receive. Kiwibiker.co.nz is not a please for the faint hearted.

[wingrider]

I would be happy to do so. I must confess it hasn't been easy to get the mentioned figures. Everyone tells me the figures are everywhere, but almost no-one has pointed the way. And my searching has been frustrating.

I must warn you that I do not take a side then find the facts to match. I hope to spend a week looking through the data and then coming to my own conclusion. If it suggests that the protesters are justified, I will provide time and energy to backing your cause. If I find they are not, I will provide time and energy trying to persuade BRONZ that the cause is invalid.

I just wish that people here would be more willing to provide information rather than criticism if they really believed they had the facts on their side.

)

Well I have followed this post with interest. At first I thought that someone was challenging our comments and getting us to sit back and look hard at ourselves and the way in which we have arrived at our conclusions.
Have we put in the hard yards? Justification of staying up late at night pouring through screes of papers and figures to justify our claims. Calling on expert people who have the ability to mentor our findings and advise if we are correct or not.
This post has reaffirmed my conclusion that "INDEED WE HAVE".

Reflex,
Right from the outset you have carefully structured your queries and replies that suggests you like National and ACC have your own agenda. I respect your right to your own opinion.
What I wont tolerate is your continual Holier than thou attitude.
Your mentality is no less than the spoilt child in the candy store who wants the sweet at the bottom of the jar just because it's brighter and possibly bigger than all the others.

You have repeatedly asked for links to research material that we have spent hours locating.
Every person replying to your requests has posted not only those links, but numerous other links as well. Yet you still claim that no-one has shown you the way.

You have repeatedly been given the opportunity to contact those with a greater knowledge than us, but consider this below your projected capabilities.

You "warn" us that you dont take sides and then find the facts to match.

You have obviously found many of the stats provided but then go to great lengths to disprove or display confussion to them when even an 8 year old with a calculator can not come up with the conclusions as made by the Minister nor from the boffins from ACC. Your findings of the facts are as inconclusive as theirs.

You enquire :Am I more Knowledgeable?"
Your ignorance and subtle arrogance gives a definitive NO.

I am left with one conclusion.
You are one of the people, charged with providing the initial information that the ACC and the Minister have released to the public to justify meeting their needs.
You are now facing a bullet because the salespitch didn't work.

You are manipulating your replies to entice a response that will allow you to run back to your superiors ( opps, forgot you wish to be the most superior) to show we got it wrong.
Now you are in the throes of a panic attack because you are unable to refute our statements of fact.

Just for once, go back to the figures provided from ACC ( the links have been provided) Recharge the batteries in your calculator and decide if you can get your calculations to exactly match theirs. Take a week if you have to, (it's the time frame you have set yourself).
If you can then post your findings here with all the relevant data and spreadsheets.
If you can't, then also come back here and have the balls to admit WE DID HAVE IT RIGHT.

[Reflex]

A side point, here, but either the motorcyclist was travelling at about twice the legal open-road limit through the traffic (unlikely), or you simply failed to maintain situational awareness before commencing a maneuver.

I've driven plenty of miles in cars around Auckland's motorways over the last decade, have been passed by plenty of filtering motorcycles, and have never had it come as a surprise when I was 'starting to change lanes'.

Come now, jrandom. You need to pick your debating skills up a bit here. If you're going to try to find flaws with the opponent's argument, you need to present a feasible interpretation. Your approach of picking on a point, distorting it until it is no longer accurate, and then criticising it is called the straw man technique. You'll find it most commonly used in political debates. You should be better than than :-\

I can't see any logic to your assumptions so it makes your whole argument look weak.

As it actually happened, the traffic was probably doing about 50kph in an 80 zone, and the biker lane split at probably 20kph above the traffic speed.

Situational awareness has little to do with it as I'm not going to sit looking in one particular rear vision mirror just in case a bike comes down that side. I was aware of my immediate surroundings – just the bike wasn't part of them 3 seconds earlier.

And it if weren't for my vehicle skills, that rider (and myself) would now be a recipient of the ACC payments you're refusing to pay.

[Jantar]

In the PDF called Key Points - MV (let me know if you can't find it and I'll see if I can trace where I got it from) the last line of the table says that for 601+cc motorcycles, the levies if calculated according to claim would be $3770 per bike. The proposal was for levies of $781. That's a difference of $2989. It also come close to the next two columns if you were to divide the total cross subsidy ($163 million) by the number of vehicles (54 thousand) – $3020 with rounding.

Where were your figures from? It will help me to compare the numbers to form a good argument – possibly even for the protest.

Honestly, I've seen so many figures quoted around the place my head's spinning. So the closer to source material the better. I'm not comfortable using numbers which are from sources who are trying to persuade rather than educate.

Yes, so you are just quoting the ACC proaganda and haven't actually calculated any data of your own.

I have searched for this data so many times already, so here it all is with references, in my submission to the ACC. http://www.southernrider.co.nz/forum...=9640&start=60
(about halfway down the page).

[James Deuce]

Well he certainly hasn't PMed me his email address so I can send on Dr Lamb's speech.

Oh well.

Not worth getting bent out of shape about lads and ladies.

[Badjelly]

Uh, that 170K is the number of vehicles that were registered in 2008. As in, for the first time.

It did seem a little low

[Kiwi Graham:Me]

As it actually happened, the traffic was probably doing about 50kph in an 80 zone, and the biker lane split at probably 20kph above the traffic speed.

Situational awareness has little to do with it as I'm not going to sit looking in one particular rear vision mirror just in case a bike comes down that side. I was aware of my immediate surroundings – just the bike wasn't part of them 3 seconds earlier.

And it if weren't for my vehicle skills, that rider (and myself) would now be a recipient of the ACC payments you're refusing to pay.

You Young man have made it to the catagory know as 'self righteous tosser' its not an insult it's a catagory and you fall into it.

You sir are one of the many that could benefit from the further training ACC have hinted at looking to provide to keep the rest of the motoring population safe. You belive your driving prowess is of such a standard that it is down to you that people dont have an accident ffs.

Over this thread........I conclude you are either fukin stupid or have been deliberatly instructed to talk rubbish to cloud the issues we are dealing with.

[firefighter]

I'm doing my best here to respond to your posting with some respect. And it is respect due to courtesy. You have not earned any through your postings. You behave like I suggested your parents weren't very well acquainted.

Well dipshit, have a look at that red square under your post count, then look at my blue. That's the respect iv'e earnt through my posts on here. Yours are all negative.

Who has not earnt any respect? It's all there for everyone to see......

And by the way, saying: "doing my best here to respond to your posting with some respect" and then writing "You behave like I suggested your parents weren't very well acquainted." does not make you look clever, it just shows you go back on your own word in a single post.

If you do ride, I wish you did'nt. The last thing we need right now is a bike rider who's not on our side, complaining about bikers probably with your cager mates. Fueling anger towards us over something you obviously have little knowledge of;

They dress themselves up in leather to feel safe, but split lanes on the motorway,.

So?!!! Should we just sit in line breathing in exhaust fumes?.....kinda pointless having a bike don't you think?

Try lanesplitting one day (again if you actually do ride) and you will see it's actually relatively safe if you are smart about it, much better than sitting there breathing in exhaust fumes.......

Also, as for your flawed argument;

Remember: riding a motorcycle is a choice you made. It's not a right and it's not something which was forced upon you.
.

......this is an old hack argument, it is well and truely my right......"oh! how could it possibly be your right?!" you snort.....

Well, newsflash, I pay for the right, that's right I pay for it. Through rates, Tax, Levys....etc. I pay for the right. I don't want to hear semantics on this.....it is well and truly my right to ride a motorcycle, because I pay for the priviledge.

[mashman]

Well, I don't know where to start with that one :-o

So let's start with saying yep, statisticians don't know the future. Only weather people know that :-P

ha ha ha, yeah they get it right all the time... nothing to see but sun tomorrow, whoosh have some rain... it's best guess, i.e. Probability!

However, what they do in an attempt to cover up their inadequacies is to say "from past experience, I'm predicting that over the next year we shall witness n number of accidents. Of these accidents, x% will be of type a. And from past experience, a type accidents have resulted in $y of costs. So to predict the costs for the next year, we just multiply n by the sum of all our (x% times $y) to get the total figure.

There will be variations in the number and breakdowns of accident, and a distribution of claim costs for each type. But over the years the goal is to have them all balance out.

Thanks for the clarification. I don't have a problem with the past experience thing, but if your base data is wrong (it's only a suspicion because we can't get the base data, but some are concerened like me) you're making calculations based on an incorrect data.

Also, if you change the number of accidents against a static variance, say add 100 bikes on to the stats, you get more $$$. If it was me and i wanted to generate cash, i'd also have to change the variance as there's more motorcycles on the road. So you have a higher Variance x a higher number of motorcycles a rise of 100% plus something... 200% plus something... until your books balance?????? What books, the ACC account, or the economic books of NZ, where is my money going if THEY are making a profit? Sounds to me like the ACC system is being used to bail out an economy...

If your base data is wrong, you're not just calculating the wrong financial value, you're seriously fucking off your population by trying to tax them out of existence, off the road, from not being able to buy a TV (depending on your financial situation) all because the data is wrong and you can't admit it and ask the people for help!!!!!!! Seriously, follow it through logically, make up some numbers, you don't need the real ones to get an idea for this scenario and then run your actuary calculations. I would be very interested to see your results!

And I've only ever witnessed a few bike-car accidents. Each time the driver was distressing over the rider lying on the road in front of them. And their plastic lid and animal skin armour wasn't much competition for a steel cage or tarmac surface. I think in at least two of the cases, it happened while a rider was travelling down the left side of a queue of cars which had stopped to let another car turn. But perhaps this is the exception.

I've been in a head on before, Bike v Land Rover... I would go as far as to say i was lucky, single track road in Scotland, come around a corner, 20 feet away there's a bright yellow land rover, bank to the left of me, Stone wall to the right, and them, sitting in the middle of the road with people looking at the beautiful coastline. I never died, well at least i don't think i did... Knocked me out for a while, broke a rib, fucked up my bike and i was so dazed i told the fella, no worries she'll be right and headed off to get the bike fixed!!!!!!!!!! I paid, wasn't his fault, i was well within the speed limit and not riding erratically, it was a CHANCE occurrence, but then again isn't everything?????????

Let's just say that if i had given you that scenario, what would have been my chances of survival? CHANCE 50 - 50... Probability would get it wrong and noone seems to care that Probability for calculating risk is LOGICALLY impossible...

As for "The Probability of Chance is 50 - 50!!!" – I've still got no idea of what to do with that. No idea what it's supposed to mean?

Bit cryptic i suppose without a context wrapped around it!

Scenario: I'm surrounded by six big hairy bikers because i have slept with their wives (and damn i was a stallion), i have no combat training, other than finishing tekken on the sega saturn once upon a time, and they're all carrying weapons. Probability says i'm going to die, Chance, to me, says i still have a 50%, well chance, of living, because anything can happen! You can't calculate the Probability of Chance!!!!! Yet you think you can calculate the probability of everything else. HIGHLY ILLOGICAL

And what's with the PERIOD thing? This isn't America. We say FULL STOP over here!

Fair point, it was freudian, my wife is on the rag!!!

[James Deuce]

Come now, jrandom. You need to pick your debating skills up a bit here. If you're going to try to find flaws with the opponent's argument, you need to present a feasible interpretation. Your approach of picking on a point, distorting it until it is no longer accurate, and then criticising it is called the straw man technique. You'll find it most commonly used in political debates. You should be better than than :-\

I can't see any logic to your assumptions so it makes your whole argument look weak.

As it actually happened, the traffic was probably doing about 50kph in an 80 zone, and the biker lane split at probably 20kph above the traffic speed.

Situational awareness has little to do with it as I'm not going to sit looking in one particular rear vision mirror just in case a bike comes down that side. I was aware of my immediate surroundings – just the bike wasn't part of them 3 seconds earlier.

And it if weren't for my vehicle skills, that rider (and myself) would now be a recipient of the ACC payments you're refusing to pay.

No Jrandom's point is valid. You shouldn't recieve surprises in traffic. I was overtaken on the left by a motorcar on Murphy St this morning but had picked the chap out of the clutter in my mirrors and was already on the footpath/driveway entry to New World before he came close to hitting me.

I still don't think all car drivers are terrible and deserve the 60% ACC levy increase coming their way though. Accusing Jrandom of a strawman argument when your argument is based on limited sampling and base generalisations without understanding the legality of the situation is a bit of a giggle.

[Ixion]

In case it makes any difference to the validity of my opinion, I have never owned a car. My main forms of transport are motorcycle (750 & 1000cc) and bicycle

Numerous times have I been travelling along the motorway – either in a car or on a bike – and I have started to change lanes only to have a motorcyclist thunder past me at speed

Hm

But since it's not an issue for me, I work for a small company providing consulting services to other small to medium-sized companies

A small company that employs actuaries? rarav avis in terra , methinks

And an actuary who claims to be bewildered by figures , and can't find the data he needs ? Wouldn't stay in a job long I think.

Your approach of picking on a point, distorting it until it is no longer accurate, and then criticising it is called the straw man technique

I remember another gentleman who loves quoting that 'strawman' phrase

A biker , in Auckland, who claims to ride a KTM990 , has never owned a car, and doesn't lane split . Ever. Tui, good beer.

My bullshitometer is off scale

This guy's a plant.

His objective is to be able to say "Look, the bikers provided my with their own figures. And they're wrong!'

Which they will be of course because he has swallowed the entire ACC argument (" we are an insurance company" ) as his starting point.

He's trying to do to us, what we are doing to ACC

Close him down.

[Kiwi Graham:Me]

I remember another gentleman who loves quoting that 'strawman' phrase

A biker , in Auckland, who claims to ride a KTM990 , has never owned a car, and doesn't lane split . Ever. Tui, good beer.

My bullshitometer is off scale

This guy's a plant.

His objective is to be able to say "Look, the bikers provided my with their own figures. And they're wrong!'

Which they will be of course because he has swallowed the entire ACC argument (" we are an insurance company" ) as his starting point.

He's trying to do to us, what we are doing to ACC

Close him down.

Totally agree, someone claiming to be smart playing at being this dumb. Who's he/she kidding.

[vtec]

In the PDF called Key Points - MV (let me know if you can't find it and I'll see if I can trace where I got it from) the last line of the table says that for 601+cc motorcycles, the levies if calculated according to claim would be $3770 per bike. The proposal was for levies of $781. That's a difference of $2989. It also come close to the next two columns if you were to divide the total cross subsidy ($163 million) by the number of vehicles (54 thousand) – $3020 with rounding.

Where were your figures from? It will help me to compare the numbers to form a good argument – possibly even for the protest.

Honestly, I've seen so many figures quoted around the place my head's spinning. So the closer to source material the better. I'm not comfortable using numbers which are from sources who are trying to persuade rather than educate.

This is part of the blatantly false data that ACC have put out that we have made formal complaints about.

From ACC's own data motorcyclists cost $62million dollars last year. Yet somehow they are claiming that there is a cross subsidy from car drivers of $77 per car.

Now this has been pointed out many times, even on TV by Les Mason (Ixion) that 2.5 million approx cars multiplied by $77 = $192,500,000, which is far in excess of what motorcyclists have been paid out in the last year.

We are not battling on a level field unfortunately, we have to work with the selective and manipulated data that ACC have provided us, and still we find massive lies.

62 mill / 130,000 approx motorcycles = $477 is the cost that ACC says that we cost them per annum, now if you take into account our fuel levy's aswell as our rego top ups, we very easily cover that, I was paying $2000 per annum approximately as my income levy working as a bicycle courier, ACC pretty much made it not worth working. Then you take into account the fact that nearly all of us register a car aswell, but are less likely to be injured in our cars because we spend time on bikes aswell, then we most definitely cover our costs. Also, take into account the off road motorcycles that have been stuck on our tab. IT'S ALL BULLSHIT. I know that most of Hondas sales are actually of farm bikes and motorcross bikes.

We cannot work out where they got the 4 significant figure levy's from. In other words it's statistical and business cost manipulated bullshit. The cross checks that we have done to work this out have been extremely simple. I think the biggest problem with ACC is that they get PwC to work over their numbers for them to get the results that they are looking for instead of representing the facts.

Here is a link to a vid. So you can see what we are up against. They feed bullcrap and we have to break it done using their bullcrap to do it. http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/angry-bik...-3089877/video
Meet Les Mason

[Jantar]

...Let's just say that if i had given you that scenario, what would have been my chances of survival? CHANCE 50 - 50... Probability would get it wrong and noone seems to care that Probability for calculating risk is LOGICALLY impossible...



Bit cryptic i suppose without a context wrapped around it!

Scenario: I'm surrounded by six big hairy bikers because i have slept with their wives (and damn i was a stallion), i have no combat training, other than finishing tekken on the sega saturn once upon a time, and they're all carrying weapons. Probability says i'm going to die, Chance, to me, says i still have a 50%, well chance, of living, because anything can happen! ......

Sorry, I'm with Reflex on this one. Probablity and chance are effectively the same thing. Toss a die and the probability of getting a six is 1/6. The cahnce of getting a six is 1/6. There is no difference between probability and chance.

[Mr Merde]

....

A biker , in Auckland, who claims to ride a KTM990 , has never owned a car, and doesn't lane split . Ever. .....

I am a biker, I live in Auckland, I ride a 1200 Suzuki, I have never owned a car or held a car licence (I am 53 yo) unfortunately I cant say that I have never lane split.

In fact when living in the UK I went for a UK licence and failed the first one because I didnt lane split. They said I was too timid on the road