Safer journeys document - safer for motorcyclists - or not? Thoughts please

[Ocean1]

...you've become quite obnoxious.

I blame decades of attempts at "managing" my behaviour by fucking near every political lobby group in the country. To a man they lie, like sausages in fat.

Your posts don't seem to actually have a point, other than to waggle the finger of derision at those who actually have feelings and sensibilities re the standard of driving/riding that feeds the road toll.

It’s not obvious? My posts attempt to argue against a pervasive culture of blame. That’s it. I’m just sick of it all being the fault of the average Kiwi driver/rider. A view enlightened by the numbers above, rather than vague feelings of indignation, (reinforced no doubt by the vastly morbid press sensationally swooping on every shock-horror morsel) against a purely contrived "evel" might be that there’s a natural limit to how “careful” a human can continually be, and that downright repeatedly dangerous behaviour is relatively rare. It must be, the enforcement focus is all on those 5% outside the law.

Although I must admit I was given some slight benefit of the doubt by a constable of the female persuasion the other day, a very cute person who merely castigated me for careening up the road at 55k. I suspect that if she’d noticed the non legal knobby on the back of the KTM things might have very well turned out far darker.

[MSTRS:Me]

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-sto...-climbs-to-11/

A 48-year-old motorcyclist who died after a collision with another rider has been named by police as the holiday road toll rises to 11.

Mark Gerard Egbers, 48, of Auckland, was killed when his Honda motorcycle collided with a Suzuki motorcycle about 12.55pm yesterday on the winding SH25 which crosses the Coromandel Peninsula.

The police serious crash unit was still investigating but it appeared the Suzuki, ridden by a 31-year-old Auckland man, crossed the centre line on a corner, hitting Mr Egbers head-on, Waikato police communications manager Andrew McAlley said.

The Suzuki rider was flown to Auckland's Starship Hospital in a critical condition.

This is what we're talking about. Roaduser behaviour that kills others.
And yes, blaming the rider who crossed the centreline is appropriate...who else was controlling his riding?

[Spearfish]

http://www.kiwirap.co.nz/

Thanks for the link it cleared up a few things.
At least there is a limit to how far a road can be "fixed" its not perpetual.

Bikes are different to other vehicles and require higher standards of skill and personal responsibility therefore more training in what ever form that takes.
I might be a bit over the top but riding it probably on par with pilots.

If I just rely on the roads being "fixed", other road users being "fixed" them I'm not going to last long on my dream re-run of mondo enduro.

[p.dath]

It’s not obvious? My posts attempt to argue against a pervasive culture of blame. That’s it. I’m just sick of it all being the fault of the average Kiwi driver/rider. A view enlightened by the numbers above, rather than vague feelings, (reinforced no doubt by the vastly morbid press sensationally swooping on every shock-horror morsel) of indignation against a purely contrived evel might be that there’s a natural limit to how “careful” a human can continually be, and that downright repeatedly dangerous behaviour is relatively rare. It must be, the enforcement focus is all on those 5% outside the law.

I think myself, MSTRS and Katman are going to have to agree to disagree with you on this one [we believe that drivers/riders need to take personal responsibility and blame for the incidents they get themselves into].

Apart from that, your view is not that far apart from mine.

I will agree with you to the extent that I personally believe that humans will make mistakes, and we need to try and develop a [roading] system that doesn't kill those who do make mistakes - but our view diverges because I think that the roading network itself is a secondary focus, and the primary focus needs to be on improving drivers/riders so they don't make as many mistakes in the first place. Treat the cause, not the symptom.

I personally agree with you that the enforcement focus, that being primarily of speed, is mis-directed.

[Ocean1]

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-sto...-climbs-to-11/

This is what we're talking about. Roaduser behaviour that kills others.
And yes, blaming the rider who crossed the centreline is appropriate...who else was controlling his riding?

I know exactly what you're talking about, repeating it ad nausium doesn't make it any clearer.

Keeping it in proportion: Most of our population used a vehicle today, over 10 million kilometres worth. One of them fucked up.

The whole holiday road toll thing seems to me to be a gratuitous, ghoulish irrelevancy. The fatalities are statistically pretty much the same as the rest of the year.

[Ocean1]

we believe that drivers/riders need to take personal responsibility and blame for the incidents they get themselves into.

As do I. I just don’t think that all the “education”, ranting and blame in the world will reduce the number of incidences.

I will agree with you to the extent that I personally believe that humans will make mistakes, and we need to try and develop a [roading] system that doesn't kill those who do make mistakes - but our view diverges because I think that the roading network itself is a secondary focus, and the primary focus needs to be on improving drivers/riders so they don't make as many mistakes in the first place. Treat the cause, not the symptom.

We’ve done this before. You can teach skills, (and please, do), but only experience teaches good judgement.

As for roading? You don’t need much budget, (and not many clues either) to not put fucking barriers where motorcyclists might need an escape route.

[MSTRS:Me]

...You don’t need much budget, (and not many clues either) to not put fucking barriers where motorcyclists might need an escape route.

Amen to that. We can agree on something afterall...

Trouble is, TPTB apparently firmly believe that WRB save lives. Maybe that's so, but it doesn't stop StupidShit TM.
Motorists do StupidShit TM ALL the time. Usually they get away with it. Sometimes they get pinged for it. Every now and then, they have a little whoopsy because of it. And quite rarely (in the scheme of things, as you point out) they or someone-else pays a heavy price for it.
Since they USUALLY get away with it, and so many apply the 'no harm - no foul' theory IF they actually process/think about whatever StupidShit TM they just did, then where is the incentive for those drongos to lift their game?
TPTB play right into perpetuating this bullshit by 'improving the roads'.