Accident report

[Titanium]

One thing I do is "Keep my eyes looking up the road".
Target fixation on the objects on the side of the road is never good.

I ride watching the car in front of the car in front of the car infront of you ...... cause that is the one that is going to fcuk you up, or the intersection / lights / side road / pedestrian infront of the one you are coming up to.

[Paul in NZ]

Then our mates would think we new how to ride as well .......!

Ah well - I don't have any mates....

(most of em died in motorcycle accidents)

[jrandom]

It usually goes one of two ways. Road riding takes a back seat altogether, or arrogant disdain for other snail-like road users while riding on the road at warp speed.

Both are possibilities, of course, but I can't say I identify with either.

I just have little desire to do a particular sort of riding on the road.

But the gravel roads call out to me, and I've always wanted an FXDWG, too, come to think of it.

[BMWST?]

Bullshit. How many riders have run wide into the other lane on a left hand corner and thought "thank christ there wasn't a car coming the other way!"

You don't get let off as easily if you run wide on a right hand corner.

thtas exactly what he said

...... so it stands to reason there is more potential to fuck up on a right hander than on a left hander......

[Fatjim]

First of all. Paul, welcome back, you weren't gone nearly as long as I expected, and its good to see you again. Is there a touch of irony in what brought you back?

Second, Mark, funfuckintastic to see you're still with us mate.

Now to the stats. I browsed the document and although it seems exhaustive in its stats gathering I was disappointed about the interpretation throughout. The summation at the beginning is fairly spot on, but the apparent haphazard partizan highlighting throughout does nothing for me.

eg.s
1. 45% of accidents involved drugs/speed or alcohol. That means the majjority didn't have anything to do with those. I think thats far to high and those reasons need addressing fast.
2. 83% of injuries are to males. 17% to therefor to females and those of indetermind sex. Thats the worrying stat for me, what percentage of riders/pillions are women?


Lets be blunt and lets face it, speed, recklessness and stupidity have a lot to do with a lot (not all) of crashes.

But the reasons the stats are so bad is not just because of that but because a motorcycle offers "a much lower level of occupant protection than is provided by a car." Many of the fallen would still be here if they had been in a car.

[dipshit]

thtas exactly what he said

Obviously you have a selective reading problem...

The thing you need to consider here is that right handers are off camber due to the crown in the road - so it stands to reason there is more potential to fuck up on a right hander than on a left hander. Also there is probably just as often a car coming the other way as there is an solid object on the side of the road in your crash path, and a car covers more ground than stationery object does.

[scumdog]

Because if you run wide on a right hand corner you will hit gravel/ditch/fence. If you run wide on a left hand corner you have the other side of the road to use and you will only be unlucky if a vehicle is coming the other way at the time.

Generally I seem to cut through a left-hand bend a whole lot faster andeasier than a right-hand one.

Mybe it's the subconscious thought that if I over-cook a left-hander I still have a bit of road to 'play with' unlike a right-hander???

[quickbuck]

.... going bbbrrrrm, waaaah, bbrrrrrm in my helmet in between mangling old queen songs that I can only remember some of the words to....

Beelzebub has a devil for a side board for me?

[Jiminy]

I'm still surprised that there are so many "bad time bad place" crashes. I was expecting a higher percentage of crashes where the rider's responsibility is clearly identified. It's quite scary to think that there are so many cases that are mostly out of your control.

But the reasons the stats are so bad is not just because of that but because a motorcycle offers "a much lower level of occupant protection than is provided by a car." Many of the fallen would still be here if they had been in a car.

Yep, but that ain't gonna change tomorrow (although I like the idea of the airbag vest), so we still have to compensate by being better riders than drivers. And the recent trend doesn't seem to go in the right direction.

[FROSTY:Me]

Yeah but when your mate follows a bike at less the 40 feet, in his car, and you have to shout out a warning as the blissfully unaware biker is about to disappear under the front of the car. You know what I'm saying right? Or those guys that just ride right into the back of things repeatedly? Or stop in the middle of intersections all the time. I'm not talking about normal human eyesight I'm talking about people who put their hand out to shake and accidentally hit you in the chest.

Those people have other er issues.
Interestingly enough my depth perception was all outa whack just after my last er incident.The eyesight was fine but i'd knock glasses or cups n stuff off of tables wonder if the people concerned have what I had on a permanent basis?

[James Deuce]

Those people have other er issues.

No they don;t they have the issue I' was talking about. No depth perception and awareness of their lack of depth perception because they've never had it.

[MSTRS:Me]

... No depth perception and awareness of their lack of depth perception because they've never had it.

Sure about that? I know what you mean, but isn't it more likely that this is a condition they have developed 'later' in life?
We all learned to interpret what we were seeing and adjusted our 'input' as we discovered what worked/didn't work (tripping over things etc). If you had monocular vision from the very start, you'd know no different and by the time you reached adulthood, you'd have it under control. YT does. But if something changes in your (stereo)vision as an adult, you would have big problems, since the brain doesn't rewire itself readily.

[Jantar]

There are lies, damn lies, and there are statistics.

The data and facts presented on motorcycle accidents are absolutely correct. Its a pity they don't tell the rest of the story.

Notice how the number of fatalities increased through the early 1980s until 1986 then took a sudden downturn. The question we should be focusing on is "What happened in 1986 that caused this sudden improvement in safety, and can we repeat it?"

The statistics by age make it appear that the over 25s are the most dangerous age group. So how about breaking that into 5 year groups like the rest. Show them as 25 - 29, 30 - 34, 35 - 39, etc. Then make the comparison.

Look at the accidents by size. The over 750s are not getting ang worse, but most of the others are. Why? The accident rate for 250 - 749 is dropping. Good, can we repeat it for the other classes? or is it because of the demise of the 400 class?

Fault in crashes should be broken into two groups, single vehicle and multi vehicle crashes. By combining them they hide the effect of the SMIDSY type crash.

Then speed, that so called major cause: Speed alone is the cause in 22% and a contributing factor in a further 15%. But look at the definition of speed. Its "Too fast for the conditions". It is not "Exceeding the speed limit". Lets now go back to that very first graph and repeat the question "What happened in 1986 that caused this sudden improvement in safety, and can we repeat it?" What happened was that the speed limit was raised from from 50 mph (80 kmh) to 100 kmh and open road accidents immediately dropped.

The report is interesting, but I would like it to present the missing data as well.

[Katman]

Notice how the number of fatalities increased through the early 1980s until 1986 then took a sudden downturn. The question we should be focusing on is "What happened in 1986 that caused this sudden improvement in safety, and can we repeat it?"

The country was flooded with cheap Jap imports.

[dipshit]

BUT these figures are not good and are receiving both official and media attention and this is going to cost us all in lost friends and in the pocket through ACC payments, insurance and increased attention from the HP...

...Please don’t start banging on about freedom of choice or big brother as I don’t give a shit – yes, you are free to kill yourself in all kinds of creative fashions but that freedom seems to be impinging on my freedoms and costing me money

Exactly the point i try to raise on occasions. It isn't the "safety Nazis" or Helen Clark that may cause us to lose any freedoms we enjoy now. If anything it will be those blow-hards that say things like... "it's my life"... "I can ride how the fuck I want"... "what do you think I pay my ACC levies for"

Look at all the new tough laws and police powers to combat boy-racers for example. First you have boy-racers causing trouble on the roads then you have legislation to help curb the problem. It doesn't happen the other way around.

It is usually in the best interest of smaller minority groups to stay under the trouble radar as much as possible.