Top cop says bikers are incompetant and pissed

[Ixion]

One problem with statistics about motorcycles, is that (as the Neptunic gentleman intimates) it is very difficult to know what proportion of the total an injury or fatality figure represents. That is, if say 100 motorcyclists of a certain age are killed or injured is that a big or small percentage of the total number of that riding.

The reason it is hard is because so many older people still have a Class 6 on their licence but haven't ridden for years. With cars one can reasonably assume that someone with a licence drives at least sometimes . But that doesn't work with bikes. People got a class 6 when they were 16 and are now 60, still have the class 6 but haven't been on a bike since they were 18 and got a car. So we don't actually know how many, say, 40 to 50 year old riders there are in total.

Also, what IS a Born Again Biker. I know what it means, but what are the criteria, How many years do you have to be non-riding before you qualify as a BAB? And how many years riding again before you are no longer one?

I strongly suspect that Mr Tooman is calssifying ANY biker in the 40 to 60 year old age group as a BAB.

[jtzzr]

Get rid of the ...........old .......guys.........




they...


take up




Speaking of peanuts.....


I remember......



No I do`nt


Where`s the Coromandhole again?

[TonyB]

Mr Tooman is also worried about ....

Its probably just a misquote- something he added later in conversation as a general comment

[jtzzr]

Get the crazy hooligans of the Coro , Damn so noboby can organise a ride then? Should we get Leo Booman to come along on his godimafuckwit250?

[candor]

I fail to grasp your point....
Is it not possible that a reading of less than 31 is attributable to something other than an alcoholic beverage?

I personally know one of those riders and he didnt have anything to drink . that makes it 27 out of 34. sounds far fetched, or very disturbing.

"27 of the 35 riders killed in 2006 had alcohol." That was the finding of the Police. That doesn’t conflict with your friend not drinking. Because if 27 out of 35 had alcohol, then by my math 8 did not. Yes disturbing - & ODD! Sorry about your friend too.

Maybe some who were under 31 BAC tested positive due to cough mixture or something, It's still a high number at those levels. I'm not suggesting they had dak too -I'm more thinking the results from the Polices drug driving study for that year, and the one before give a strong foundation for such speculation.

Oops I didn't make at all clear the factual basis of the line of thought in prior post - wasn’t thinking..
Polices drink and drugged driver control study shows a trend exists for the dead to have THC plus low alcohol combo, tho there’s no breakdowns by road user type as yet.

Way more dead drivers (includes riders) in NZ with low BAC had recent use (shown by over 10ng of active THC) than had smoked with a high BAC in a 2004-5 result analyses.. The low BAC/Dak association was reported by Carolina Troncoso Vergara at Waikato Uni. Her thesis re this is on the net.

One beer (on known risks) should not be putting people at risk for death in those numbers. Unless bikers are cheap drunks! Either many of these riders had some other common risk factor (NZ Police study + Dr Philip Swanns research and that of Ramaekers suggests THC)…. or 90% of bikers on the road have just had a beer - making the figures in the daed ones just a reflection of a common behaviour (scratches head).

Jafar - NOT of benefit, looks dodgy to me.

[Ixion]

Get the crazy hooligans of the Coro , Damn so noboby can organise a ride then? Should we get Leo Booman to come along on his godimafuckwit250?

Well, he probably has a class 6 licence, cos he's an ex-snake, and they all did.

[Bass]

Lets not forget that 75% of Motorcyclist accidents are caused by Motorists.

I am sorry, but this is not correct.
I am thunderstruck by what you have gone through and I stand in awe at how you have coped and what you have accomplished since, but this needs to be corrected.

http://www.rideforever.co.nz/community/crash_data.html

I had always believed that about 75% of car vs bike accidents have the car driver at fault but this thread says otherwise. It says less than half (49%) are the car driver's fault and this is at odds with what I have always thought.
It also implies that about 27% of bike accidents are single vehicle events and I believed it to be higher.
Even so, in a single vehicle accident, unless there has been some mechanical failure, then the rider was at fault. I see the "ride to the conditions" adage derided in here often, but the fact remains that if you do so, it may save your arse. It is also my understanding that people returning to biking after many years away (born again bikers if you will) are over represented in the single vehicle numbers. I personally fall into this category and yes, I appear in those numbers. I do concede however that most of the evidence for these numbers appears to be anecdotal at best.
Ixion is correct about licence hangovers from way back and he describes my circumstances exactly. I even still have all the truck and trailer categories but haven't driven a truck in decades.
However, if some allowance is made for journalese and the need to sell newspapers, then there may well be more than a modicum of truth in what Mr Tooman has said.
Lastly, if you do the arithmetic on the numbers in the thread I have quoted (27% + (.51 x 73%)) = 64.2% of all motorcycle accidents have the rider at fault.

[Big Dave]

Well, that's good. The exercise will help you lose weight. I'll send you my invoice, I'm cheaper than Jenny Craig (and better looking) .

.......now.

[Genestho]

The ACC resource site (that was another resource open to me via ACC if I was interested in following up Motorcycling Safety but I wasnt interested in those figures - havent chased them down either as again theyre not the figures or issues I address and I dont need to open those issues up, Im the only one on my Team until I open up memebership to BADD and theres alot to do.)

Perhaps I should stick to the figures I DO know and not quote from unreliable media Heee. (Blush)

(Lesson number 5022 in the aftermath of Leons death and inception of BADD)

Cheers for posting the link to something I shouldve resourced before
spouting!!

Hey soOOoooo in that case is there a local KB'er with personality that would like to do an interview on behalf on the Biking Community representing BADD, as to what your biggest concerns are as Motorcyclists around Motorists, I can think of a few myself, but anything other than the obvious - check your mirrors often, be aware that Motorcyclists are quicker than you think when doing a U'ey, gently move left so Motorcyclists can see the road ahead, using indicators to let Motorcyclists know what your doing
and the old favourite please dont pass in front of an oncoming Motorcycle!?

Ixion will you post the reply from Leo here?
Cheers

[Pixie]

Got to shift the media's attention away from why revenue based road policing isn't reducing the road toll

[Ocean1]

One problem with statistics about motorcycles, is that (as the Neptunic gentleman intimates) it is very difficult to know what proportion of the total an injury or fatality figure represents.

So, if a clever person were to set up a poll on KB, asking for actual hard numbers, what would be a good data set to get? I can't think of a more concise measurement than prangs per Km. To that end I guess you'd need a classification of rider and kilometers per bin. Even better might be a complete individual history with total Ks/bin and provision for "NA" (no bike) periods. Bit hard to do with the tools available I suspect, unless someone were to knock up a questionnaire.

Either way the data required should allow an accurate assessment of experience and perhaps define categories of "bin" from "I felled over" to serious injury, (bit unreasonable to expect the dead dudes to contribute though).

Such data could be politically useful, a valid counter to the more seriously tweaked surveys used by some lobbyists and institutions. Not to mention instructive on a personal level.

Any of you lot really really bored?

[terbang]

If we are such a bunch of silly old drunken farts then it is education, not legislation that we need. But any high ranking cop should be able to figure that one out. Right..?

[The Pastor]

Such generalised coments, if not refuted, very quickly enter the corpus of received wisdom, the things "that everybody knows", and all too frequently lead to quite particular regulations and restrictions.

PETROL STATIONS AND CELLPHONES FOR INSTANCE?

[Ocean1]

If we are such a bunch of silly old drunken farts then it is education, not legislation that we need. But any high ranking cop should be able to figure that one out. Right..?

Dude the various authorities and special interest groups have spent millions over the last few years "educating" us, and to be perfectly frank I don't feel much enlightened. Maybe that's because I'm a higerant bastard, but I suspect it's more to do with the sales pitch and the reliability of the source data. Even the more pliant and compliant among us must be getting somewhat blasé with the sheer volume of Orwellian oratory. Me? I'm just sick of being preached at.

As for legislation? If it ain’t based on cold hard un-tweaked facts it’s useless in controlling behaviour. Whether it’s prudent and clearly understood or not if it’s not enforced it’s worthless, and potentially dangerous.

[SlashWylde]

You bunch of cry babies seem to have an uncanny ability to take what is obviously a generalised comment very personally.

Aggreed.

Moreover it has been reported in the last few years that some older riders getting back into biking have had crashes due to the rider not realising that their skill level is what it once was, and that modern bikes are more powerful and accelerate faster than bikes of previous generations.

As for the beer, "stopping at the odd cafe to enjoy a beer, can be a recipe for disaster". Drinking and driving is a bad idea, no matter what vehicle you are piloting.

His comments are valid, what's the big deal?