The AA are lying about us.

[BoristheBiter]

Sure - it isn't your fault if:
you are travelling at less than 30kph
its is daylight
no sunstrike
road surface ok
you are fully alert
you are as visible as possible (lane position / hi-vis gear / lights on etc...).
you know how to emergency stop and apply your brakes to just before the point of tucking the front
you wear the best protective gear
your bike and tyres are wof compliant

I just think someone ticking all the above boxes in a u-turn incident is highly,highly unlikely. Either I am a bit naive and haven't had anyone do this to me, or I have pre-empted the situatoin... usually by slowing right down or avoiding known streets / times of day where there is a high fuck up rate.

If you are are not riding to protect your life - that in itself is a failure / fault.

The law doesn't keep me safe. The law is an arse. I do that job (the keeping safe bit, not being an arse).

What a pile of crap. if i am traveling along a road and someone fails to give way and pulls out in front of me and i hit them it their fault end of story.
Saying i am at someways resposable is just wrong, saying could i have avoided said crash is a completely different argument.
Like i said we are talking about fault not defensive driving.

[Pixie]

Bollocks. Accept some responsibility for your lack of ability to read the road conditions. When I was a teenager the roads were way worse and we learned to ride to the conditions.

Again, I despair at the "It's my right to have everything given to me on a plate" and "It's not my fault if I fuck up" mentality.

Welcome to Riffer's NZ:the land where the legal concept of negligence does not exist,but you can't sue for satisfaction either.

Local and national governments would love us all to be like you.

I had a tale of a biker's wife who crashed,after encountering car parts scattered though Hunua gorge,recounted to me the other day.
I guess in Riffer's NZ it's 90% her fault she crashed,even though she was a learner?

[shrub]

Give me till lunchtime and I will post the 2009 fatal stats myself.

Cheers, that would be great.

[BoristheBiter]

An example...

I was splitting down Ngauranga gorge about a year ago.

I was in the right lane (just to the left of the right lane traffic). I was going about 60kph, cars about 30kph a gap in traffic to the left. A Subaru driver suddenly changed lane to take the gap (no indicating). I was next to her. HEr wing mirror caught my right handlebar, I moved over to the left with her. God knows how I stayed upright, luckily my bar didn't "lock" into the wing mirror / door.

She was totally at fault - right? Well
I was speeding
I didn't notice the gap
I wasn't confident enough to swerve / evasive maneouvres
I was oblivious to Subaru legacy / impreza drivers
I probably wasn't concentrating as hard as I should have been

I now am very weary of gaps. I use a car as a shadow / buffer until the gap is filled. I've become much better at swerving to avoid obstacles in the road or evasive changes. I haven't been caught in a similar situatoin but have "read" it before it happened numerous times since.

I took the responsibility / blame. I'm now better off for it.

If you want to go down of the lines of areas that need addressing instead of fault then by that stats in the document posted at the begininning of ths thread we should stop anyone driving in the rain, take out all corners and not have anyone aged between 19 and 25 driving.

[Banditbandit]

If your answer is " I'm a speed god and immortal" Then you will never change, no matter what anyone does or says and you will always be immortal right up to the time you die of a bike crash or old age.

I don't believe I'm a Speed God (plenty on the road are faster than me ...) and I don't believe I'm immortal .... yes I ride pretty fast ... will I stop? NO. I thought I would slow down when I got older - I got way past 50 and I've just got faster ...

If I crash and burn - I don't give a fuck ... I never expected to live to be this old ... every day is a bonus ...

I know the risks - who gives a shit ?

[Katman]

I don't believe I'm a Speed God (plenty on the road are faster than me ...) and I don't believe I'm immortal .... yes I ride pretty fast ... will I stop? NO. I thought I would slow down when I got older - I got way past 50 and I've just got faster ...

If I crash and burn - I don't give a fuck ... I never expected to live to be this old ... every day is a bonus ...

I know the risks - who gives a shit ?

And clearly you don't give a shit whether you drag motorcycling down with you.

Some of us have more respect for it.

[MSTRS:Me]

Bikes crash, cars crash, airplanes crash, that is why AA insurance exists.

What defines the death rate is the level of protection.

If you hit an immovable object at 100kmh it makes no difference what that object is made of.

In a car you may survive, on a bike you are less likely too.

2% of the population and 10% of the deaths is not always about bad driving, its about hard stopping, and being made up of nothing more that skin and bone.

Reducing the number of crashes may get the death rate down, but not all, if the remaining crashes are at 100kmh.

And this is it, in a nutshell.

Motorcycle crash = high chance of injury
Car crash = low chance of injury

Yet despite the low chance of injury (and even lower chance of death) in a car crash, 125% of car drivers were at fault in a fatal (100% driver deaths, 25% motorcyclist deaths). And they say that bikers are bad...

Aren't stats wonderful?

[shrub]

The issue I wanted to raise was that the AA felt they could communicate a message that I am convinced is erroneous: namely that the overwhelming majority of motorcycle fatalities aren solely the fault of the rider, and that only 9% were the fault of car drivers.

What is wrong with this is it tells the world that it's our own silly fault and if we want to stop dying we should stop riding. It means there is no need for driver education or improving roads for motorcycle safety because they're an insignificant part of the problem.

Yes, we are ultimately responsible for our own safety and we need to ride intelligently and defensively, but it's a two way street and we need the authorities to consider motorcyclists when they build and repair roads, and car drivers need to change the way they drive. If us motorcyclists wake up and grow up, and the authorities take our safety seriously; then motorcycle crash and fatality numbers would plummet, but as long as idiotic comments like the one I quoted are the stated opinion of an influential organisation like the AA, we're on our own.

[dipshit]

Yet despite the low chance of injury (and even lower chance of death) in a car crash, 125% of car drivers were at fault in a fatal (100% driver deaths, 25% motorcyclist deaths). And they say that bikers are bad...

Aren't stats wonderful?

It also shows your average motorcyclist is as thick as pig shit when it comes to understanding statistics. Jesus Christ.

[Katman]

The issue I wanted to raise was that the AA felt they could communicate a message that I am convinced is erroneous: namely that the overwhelming majority of motorcycle fatalities aren solely the fault of the rider, and that only 9% were the fault of car drivers.

What is wrong with this is it tells the world that it's our own silly fault and if we want to stop dying we should stop riding. It means there is no need for driver education or improving roads for motorcycle safety because they're an insignificant part of the problem.

Yes, we are ultimately responsible for our own safety and we need to ride intelligently and defensively, but it's a two way street and we need the authorities to consider motorcyclists when they build and repair roads, and car drivers need to change the way they drive. If us motorcyclists wake up and grow up, and the authorities take our safety seriously; then motorcycle crash and fatality numbers would plummet, but as long as idiotic comments like the one I quoted are the stated opinion of an influential organisation like the AA, we're on our own.

I've just read the article and apart from not giving the exact number of motorcyclist fatalities I can't see anything obviously incorrect with what the article is saying.

I think it high time that hard hitting facts were made plainly obvious to us. Maybe that way we'll start pulling our heads out of the sand.

[MSTRS:Me]

It also shows your average motorcyclist is as thick as pig shit when it comes to understanding statistics. Jesus Christ.

And just how is that different from claiming 75% of rider deaths are rider fault?
It's a sweeping statement that ignores many other factors. And yet, maybe still true. Just like my tongue-in-cheek post.

[dipshit]

The issue I wanted to raise was that the AA felt they could communicate a message that I am convinced is erroneous: namely that the overwhelming majority of motorcycle fatalities aren solely the fault of the rider, and that only 9% were the fault of car drivers.

Which just happens to be closer to the truth though.

What is wrong with this is it tells the world that it's our own silly fault and if we want to stop dying we should stop riding. It means there is no need for driver education or improving roads for motorcycle safety because they're an insignificant part of the problem.

We need to look at our own riding habits and attitudes. Thinking our shit doesn't stink and car drivers need better education isn't going to address the vast majority of motorcycle fatalities.

[MSTRS:Me]

I think it high time that hard hitting facts were made plainly obvious to us. Maybe that way we'll start pulling our heads out of the sand.

I agree. BUT when the 'hard-hitting facts' isolate one type of vehicle/crash, without including the other, equally bad, vehicle/crash types, it is hard to take them seriously.
Besides, as motorcyclists, we know that single bike crashes 'may' be the rider's responsibility, but not necessarily fault. there is a difference, and probably only a biker can understand that. But to the car-driving reader, there is no such distinction = bikers are bad.

[shrub]

Which just happens to be closer to the truth though. We need to look at our own riding habits and attitudes. Thinking our shit doesn't stink and car drivers need better education isn't going to address the vast majority of motorcycle fatalities.

I very much doubt it's anywhere near the truth if I look at the MOT stats for accidents that you found (thank you), 39% of crashes were multi-vehicle and no rider fault, 3% were single vehicle no rider fault. In other words 42% of crashes were NOT the rider's fault. The AA claim that 82% of fatalities were the rider's fault, and I find that very hard to believe.

I agree, we need to change the way we ride, but if the people building and maintaining the roads do nothing about the factors that make roads specifically dangerous to bikes, AND if there is absolutely no attention given to the fact that car drivers need to change the way they drive, we're fighting an uphill battle. If we use the MOT stats, then we are responsible for 58% of crashes, so the best we can possibly do is cut the crash rate by 58%.

I reiterate: we do need to accept responsibility for our own safety, but we're riding on roads other people design and build, and we're sharing those roads with other road users. Their role in motorcycle crash rates cannot be ignored.

[Banditbandit]

Some of us have more respect for it.

Oh Oh Oh .. early choked on my coffee reading that one ... Respect for it ???? Jeez mate, respect for a bunch of disreputable leather-clad hoons? You sound like the AMA ... "the trouble is caused by 1% .."

Katman, you're just way too predictable ...