It Won't Happen To Me, I don't need to change.

[Ocean1]

Just a wee bit of a rant, as I've heard so much about how everything is someone else's fault. Police's fault, gubbermits fault, foreign tourists fault, white-van-man's fault. It seems everything is someone else's fault. The discussion about fault means nothing to your broken arm, broken leg or ruptured spleen. Fault means little when you are the victim of someone else's mistake, let alone your own.

See, for me the focus on other people's contributions to the road toll is fuck all to do with any supposed recency bias or avoidance of personal responsibility. Quite the opposite. I think it's driven by the simple fact that whatever we do as individuals to manage our risk is affected not a jot by reciting popular safety dogma, whereas most of the other significant potential contributors are seemingly oblivious to their effect.

Not that LTNZ, (to pick one of the more prominent contributors) spend a lot of time researching motorcyclist's opinions on KB, or in fact would be likely to absorb any potential lessons from it if they did. Nonetheless, I reckon there's at least as much potential for improving the safety of motorcyclists among non-motorcylists as there is among riders. Maybe more. They're just not as motivated in achieving those improvements.

[Ocean1]

There's a whole field of psychology dedicated to trying to understand traffic behaviour.

It dips into Freud's identity theory, and it's fascinating.

Reinforcing errant behaviour by not having adverse outcomes is one such fascination.

I have thought far too much about behaviour management via psychological messaging. I hurts my head.

I didn't get paid by the Police to think about things, I got paid to do things. But I jacked it in as the things I was expected to do didn't tally with the things I thought would work. There's only so much personal conflict a lad can deal with.

How does the theory of risk homeostasis fit with your professional observations of traffic behaviour?

Ony, if there's any weight there, (and research suggests there is) then "improving" safety could only be achieved by both increasing apparent risk while reducing actual risk.

[Ocean1]

My wife didn't like motorcycles. A couple days ago there was an article about a person here in Canterbury who was involved in a big motorcycle accident. He was someone we knew close to our family.

She now hates motorcycles!

I married an ED nurse.

She grounded me for 15 years.

[GazzaH]

Getting back to the original point, we humans do have a problem with low probability but extremely severe/high impact risks. There are loads of things that can kill us but most are very unlikely ... which leads us to dismiss or ignore them out of hand, rather than even attempt to consider, let alone deal with them.

It works the other way too: when very low probability but extremely severe incidents occur, we are "shocked" ... which is the emotional effect of re-evaluating the risks. Severe incidents that are gory are all the more shocking and newsworthy, which skews our assessment of the risk even more.

As a consequence, our perceptions and fears differ markedly from the ACTUAL causes of serious injury and death, as determined and recorded systematically for eons. We are petrified of extreme violence and crashes, yet we tolerate heart disease, strokes, cancer, obesity, diabetes, suicide and various other diseases and events far more likely to cause our demise. We're more worried about being eaten by great white sharks than drowning! Home invasion - that's "scary", but domestic violence is "overblown". We believe in ATGATT, yet smoke, drink and eat to excess.

[GazzaH]

I married an ED nurse.

She grounded me for 15 years.

There are nurses for that? I thought the blue pills solved it.

[pritch]

Don't look down. Hear the phone ringing, indicate and pull over then look at it!

There is a major international company in town here has a rule, "Ignition on, cell phone off".

Mind you, their cars tended to be driven in a less than umm impressive(?) manner, so they removed the corporate logos.

[eldog]

My new bike arrives next week and the missus already wants me to sell it

Well once yourve sold her, you can go for a ride on the new bike anytime you want.
whats to worry about that?

[rastuscat]

Getting back to the original point, we humans do have a problem with low probability but extremely severe/high impact risks. There are loads of things that can kill us but most are very unlikely ... which leads us to dismiss or ignore them out of hand, rather than even attempt to consider, let alone deal with them.

It works the other way too: when very low probability but extremely severe incidents occur, we are "shocked" ... which is the emotional effect of re-evaluating the risks. Severe incidents that are gory are all the more shocking and newsworthy, which skews our assessment of the risk even more.

As a consequence, our perceptions and fears differ markedly from the ACTUAL causes of serious injury and death, as determined and recorded systematically for eons. We are petrified of extreme violence and crashes, yet we tolerate heart disease, strokes, cancer, obesity, diabetes, suicide and various other diseases and events far more likely to cause our demise. We're more worried about being eaten by great white sharks than drowning! Home invasion - that's "scary", but domestic violence is "overblown". We believe in ATGATT, yet smoke, drink and eat to excess.

You and I are similarly inclined.

[rastuscat]

How does the theory of risk homeostasis fit with your professional observations of traffic behaviour?

Ony, if there's any weight there, (and research suggests there is) then "improving" safety could only be achieved by both increasing apparent risk while reducing actual risk.

The spike in the middle of the steering column would increase the perceived risk. If it were a 3D hologram, which people actually thought was real, it would increase the perceived risk while actually not increasing the actual risk.

[Voltaire]

Over Xmas been doing some house maintenance and my wife can't stand BFM and I dislike the endless add infested Simon

Cowell drivel she likes so compromised on " The Coast" songs from the 60's 70's and 80's

They have been playing an add for motorcyclists along the lines of " motorcycles are hard to see compared to cars, look

once....look twice"

Works for cars too, " look once for distracted phone twiddling,make up applying, chatting to passenger moron, look twice"

After hearing Phil fucking Collins too many times I turned over to Hauraki...sad reflection of its former self.

I ride my old Vespa into the city some days, leather jacket and gloves.... feel a tad over ATGATT'ed compared to most.

[Ocean1]

There are nurses for that? I thought the blue pills solved it.

What use is one without the other?

[Ocean1]

The spike in the middle of the steering column would increase the perceived risk. If it were a 3D hologram, which people actually thought was real, it would increase the perceived risk while actually not increasing the actual risk.

People have an amazing ability to adapt to their environment, by the time they turned out of their driveway they'd have completely assimilated the extra perceived risk.

Honestly, there's fuck all you can do to change it. NZ do a good line in scaring the crap out of people, but you don't generally see people queuing up for their 3rd bungy jump off some bridge.

You'd do far better accepting that the species will continue to fuck up at the same rate they have done for millennia and concentrate on making the environment as benign as possible. I may have mentioned the concept previously.

[RDJ]

om work, my phone sitting face up on the passengers seat. The phone rings, I look down, and there on the screen of the phone is a picture of my wife peering back at me. It's my wife calling. Several things go through my mind; if I answer that, I might get a ticket, I might kill someone (the ads say so), I might run over a child. All adverse outcomes. Then I realise that not answering a call from my wife carries a greater adverse outcome, so answer

Shorter version: scared of his wife.

[HenryDorsetCase]

Over Xmas been doing some house maintenance and my wife can't stand BFM and I dislike the endless add infested Simon

Cowell drivel she likes so compromised on " The Coast" songs from the 60's 70's and 80's

They have been playing an add for motorcyclists along the lines of " motorcycles are hard to see compared to cars, look

once....look twice"

Works for cars too, " look once for distracted phone twiddling,make up applying, chatting to passenger moron, look twice"

After hearing Phil fucking Collins too many times I turned over to Hauraki...sad reflection of its former self.

I ride my old Vespa into the city some days, leather jacket and gloves.... feel a tad over ATGATT'ed compared to most.

commercial radio sucks donkey balls. Radio New Zealand FTW (do yourself a favour and tune in this afternoon), and failing that, Pandora or Spotify, or one of the myriad internet radio stations. Its the same as TV: you only hear advertising and witless "bentah" because you want to - there is no need for you to in 2019.

[eldog]

Hauraki...sad reflection of its former self.



How true. Tuned in a while back lasted 1 hour.

Maybe our tastes have changed as we get older?