Friday Night Rants?

[Maha]

This is where BRONZ could / should get involved and advocate for the WRBs to be made safer.

The research has been done as to what is required to improve their safety. If NZTA and ACC were truly interested in reducing the costs of road accidents then they could get a university engineering department involved with it - perhaps a PhD for someone and practical results for all concerned.

In 2007 Qusai/Draco and Zapf kicked off the WRB campaign via Kiwibiker and over a year or two collected around 8,000 signatures (I stand to be corrected on that figure) but they lost interest in the whole thing soon after.. because everyone else lost interest. It went nowhere, the petition papers were not delivered, they were handed on to another group (AAG) in an attempt to pump some life back into it. Never really got going to be honest. AAG morphed into MAG and the petition papers basically sat in a cupboard for the next few years, they were offered back to the reformed MAG but were not wanted and in early 2014 they were dumped into a 9mt skip.

A BRONZ post from 2007. Nine years ago! and what has happened? many many more kilometers of WRB's have gone up.

BRONZ has concerns about road barriers and in particular 'Brifen' wire rope barriers. BRONZ intends to take the opportunity to meet with Transit to discuss these concerns.

We would like to see:

- A review of the deployment of barriers and wire rope barriers in particular
- No further deployment of wire rope barriers until that review is complete.
- An immediate action plan by Transit to make existing barriers safer for motorcyclists.

[mashman]

You know what PhD means?






Piled higher and Deeper

bwaaaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa... more useful than the piece of paper eh.

[Madness]

MAG obviously didn't occupy quite enough Ponsonby car parks to get the message across

[eldog]

PhD it doesn't take 4 years of research to work out that if we make wrb safer then we should. That's just a delaying tactic.

Once you've done the post and structural install then adding more covers to the lower section isn't that hard. It's just roll formed sections FFS. There's a few roll forming companies here in NZ should be a piece of cake.

Wrb and brick walls are meant to absorb sliding or glancing impacts not head on.

Minimising injury's and entanglement damages is what we should be pushing

Notice how often webs are right next to dodgy road surfaces like ranguriri

If ACC was really concerned they would lobby nzta (whatever new name they are hiding behind) to do something. Obviously we NEED to get our people into the right places. Tackle people like P Goff who also ride. Make it a non party issue.

[sidecar bob]

Notice how often webs are right next to dodgy road surfaces like ranguriri

.

Yes, I did when I rode past them recently. I also noticed that I rode accordingly at that point, which would have occurred weather barriers were installed at that location or not.

[dangerous]

Well the Wrb protest ride footage on channel three news tonight was a total embarrassment to motorcyclists everywhere.
Cheers guys, thanks for making us all look like uninformed knob ends with incredibly poor dress sense.

yeahhhhhhhhhh well... just seen the news clip, not a trustworthy face they used, whats with the patchs... as for the riding fuck sake how could any person let alone politician take that shit seriously, over the center line even down the wrong side of the rd...

ps, I am seeing this from a non motorcyclist view, their attire and looks (shit they looked prettier than me) dont bother me but they arnt trying to convince me how dangerous the WRB's 'can' be

[eldog]

Yes, I did when I rode past them recently. I also noticed that I rode accordingly at that point, which would have occurred weather barriers were installed at that location or not.

I ride past them appropriately too.
Just the arseholes who drive as close as possible to me an overtake any chance they get meanwhile an added hazard is passing alongside.

But I think they.wrbs. may save my arseholes if someone in an opposing lane screw up and tries to cross

[scumdog]

yeahhhhhhhhhh well... just seen the news clip, not a trustworthy face they used, whats with the patchs... as for the riding fuck sake how could any person let alone politician take that shit seriously, over the center line even down the wrong side of the rd...

ps, I am seeing this from a non motorcyclist view, their attire and looks (shit they looked prettier than me) dont bother me but they arnt trying to convince me how dangerous the WRB's 'can' be

Sums up my thoughts too.

And how many bikers died when a car crossed the centreline vs how many bikers died hitting 'cheese-cutters'?

[Ocean1]

For people that pay far less attention to the task of operating a motor vehicle than I do I'd guess.

Oh aye, but most of us reckon we pay enough attention, that we're above average drivers, riders.

And nor is paying attention all that's required to avoid intimate contact with "roadside furniture".

WRBs or median barriers in general?

Why barriers - either median or roadside... because we don't teach people to drive or ride, just how to start, steer and stop a vehicle...

Anything that can make the consequences of an accident worse than it otherwise could have been.

I'm not convinced anyone's doing any sort of cost/benefit work before plonking yet another 4"x4" post beside the road.

And if they are it's obviously the same analysis that installs WRB instead of the equally effective concrete barriers: the sort that doesn't bother factoring the cost to bikers. Just cars.

In fact I'd suggest that if any such arithmetic did, in fact include the costs to bikers and, and as a consequence had to install WRB with Mototub panels or similar that all of a sudden concrete barriers would officially look like a fucking good idea.

[Madness]

Driving through the Waikato & Auckland regions on a regular basis it's frightening to see just how often damage is inflicted onto the WRB's. Frightening when you think about what might have happened without it being there to prevent a head-on. The Ramarama straight seems to have seen numpties hit the WRB on an almost weekly basis lately, WTF?

[Maha]

From NZTA.

A study of NZ motorcycle-barrier crash data from January 2001 to July 2013 shows of the 20 motorcycle fatalities following hitting a barrier, 13 were from W-beam and 3 from wire rope. It is worth noting that in this time period there were 97 fatalities from collision with posts or poles, 70 from hitting a traffic sign and 93 from crashing into unprotected trees.

Of the barrier collisions, the results show that wire rope safety barriers have around half the fatality rate of W-beam barriers and that concrete barriers are the most dangerous of all to motorcyclists.

[Moi]

If you want a bit of reading:

Go to this thread: http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...-rope-barriers

You'll find plenty of reading there.

Ocean1, I agree that a "safety barrier" should enhance safety for all, no matter where it is. As I have said before, I don't believe we can change the use of WRBs but we may be able to change the way they are constructed. Concrete barriers may be a preferred but the reality is that WRBs will continue to be used as either median barriers or road-side barriers. We need to work to make the barriers safer for all road users.

[russd7]

From NZTA.

A study of NZ motorcycle-barrier crash data from January 2001 to July 2013 shows of the 20 motorcycle fatalities following hitting a barrier, 13 were from W-beam and 3 from wire rope. It is worth noting that in this time period there were 97 fatalities from collision with posts or poles, 70 from hitting a traffic sign and 93 from crashing into unprotected trees.

Of the barrier collisions, the results show that wire rope safety barriers have around half the fatality rate of W-beam barriers and that concrete barriers are the most dangerous of all to motorcyclists.

kinda the way i woulda thought, not that we have a huge number of cheese cutters down here, we have the way more dangerous (but obviously much more effective) plastic posts in the between us and on coming traffic in the dangerous spots on our roads.

but on a more serious note, it seems to me that the whole cheese cutter thing is based on emotion not fact and i seriously can not see the benefit of hitting concrete barriers over cheese cutters with a motorcycle

[Moi]

kinda the way i woulda thought, not that we have a huge number of cheese cutters down here, we have the way more dangerous (but obviously much more effective) plastic posts in the between us and on coming traffic in the dangerous spots on our roads.

but on a more serious note, it seems to me that the whole cheese cutter thing is based on emotion not fact and i seriously can not see the benefit of hitting concrete barriers over cheese cutters with a motorcycle

If you want some reading about barriers: http://trafinz.org.nz/workspace/down...dfcb668f97.pdf

[Ocean1]

From NZTA.

A study of NZ motorcycle-barrier crash data from January 2001 to July 2013 shows of the 20 motorcycle fatalities following hitting a barrier, 13 were from W-beam and 3 from wire rope. It is worth noting that in this time period there were 97 fatalities from collision with posts or poles, 70 from hitting a traffic sign and 93 from crashing into unprotected trees.

Of the barrier collisions, the results show that wire rope safety barriers have around half the fatality rate of W-beam barriers and that concrete barriers are the most dangerous of all to motorcyclists.

So, as I said: what the fuck are all those posts doing there other than killing bikers?

Holding up dangersafetywarnings?

Ocean1, I agree that a "safety barrier" should enhance safety for all, no matter where it is. As I have said before, I don't believe we can change the use of WRBs but we may be able to change the way they are constructed. Concrete barriers may be a preferred but the reality is that WRBs will continue to be used as either median barriers or road-side barriers. We need to work to make the barriers safer for all road users.

WRB is slightly cheaper than concrete. Over 5 years. Just about the same price over actual expected life. Performs indistinguishably.

Now, maybe I'm getting cynical in my advanced dotage, but as I said I bet you a pound to a pinch of shit that if they had to make WRB more friendly to bikers then we'd be using concrete.

Even as it is the price differences are almost negligible, bikers safety is being compromised for a few bucks a mile.