Safe Speed Forums

From Swiss Newspaper "Le Matin" and also from "Figaro" - both of 30 April 2004:

There is evidence to suggest that patients dying as result from RTAC within 20 days are classed as KSIs and those dying later of their injuries later are discounted to promote theory that "lives are being saved" (cynical mode) .

Also - sometimes our RTAC victims contract MRSA (not in my hospitals and death is attributed to the bug and not the RTAC. Also if RTAC develops pneumonia (which is not all uncommon) and death occurs - then patient died of pneumonia - and patient would not have contracted the disease but for the RTAc in the first place! Perhaps another theory as to why Ks are on the up and SIs are "odd"

champion man, are u mad... read it again.

the definitions, described by me in a shorthand , are a way of describing pretty swiftly what is behind the numbers. I know the full definition. Thankyou kindly for not offering to type them all up for everyone to see.

Likewise, it was a large MIGHT, I typed it like that, just to emphasise.


your experience is minutia, and irrelevent as a very small cog in a very large wheel, being driven by lies and mistruths. Being the lowest of the low, u would not have the capability to understand the larger picture, After al u have swallowed the line anyway. U dont have enough perspective do you ?

I still stand behind all of the words I said, in the way they were represented. They are fair. and the REAL definitions, as described by me in shorthand, are open to abuse , and give an altogether misleading picture of what is really happening .

In my view , there are only 1500 really serious accidents a year ... Is it worth all this fuss and confusion and penalising of people. I dont think it is..

A broken finger may be inconvenient and make it difficult for someone to do their job, but it is not a serious accident.

rgds
Bill

I think the reason for the rise in motorcycle deaths can largely be attributed to the long hot summer we enjoyed last year. Since for the majority of motorcyclists riding a bike is a leisure pursuit this probably meant a significant increase in total miles covered by motorcycles.

Of course the police reaction to this is a clampdown on motorcyclists, and whilst this could well be constructive a little bit of education pointed towards car drivers wouldn't go amiss as well.

If the summer continues in its present vein I would expect a fall in total motorcycling miles this year and this may see a reduction in casulties. This could of cause be sighted as a success for the police clampdown on popular biking routes, although maybe I'm getting ahead of myself there.

gatecrasher,

for what ever reason, sometimes I find bikers creep up from no where, or are hard to see.

This means we all need educating, the driver to be aware of the possibility of bikers, but also for bikers to realise they are tough to spot.

takes two to tango

the bright coloured leathers are a good move..


as for more bikers getting hurt, maybe there are more bikers ? Maybe theere are more bikers in the south as its so hard to get around in a car due to the under investment in our new roads and the subsequent congestion.
Maybe some of them are born again bikers and find the new bikes 0f 1000 cc , which they can easily afford in their 40's are a little bit tougher to control than the 150cc bike of their youth.


maybe its all of these things.. and others..

rgds
bill

I think the reason bikers faired so badly last year is because we had record bike sales combined with a long hot summer.

While it is true that the majority of motorcycle accidents are right of way violations (SMIDSY's typically). The vast majority of fatal bike accidents occur in rural areas as a result of overtaking or cornering. One could argue that these are 'leisure related accidents', which would suggest that a year with a long dry summer is going to increase a leisure riders exposure.

I suspect this year with a high profile anti biker speed management focus and a wet summer we will see a lot of leisure riders choosing to stay at home which will reduce accidents (for all the wrong reasons).

regarding bikers wearing bright colours, as a [car] driver I'm more than happy for them to also leave their lights on full beam. Never really bothers me, and I see them more out the corner of my eye in the rear view than i no doubt would normally. Especially in slow moving traffic where people tend not to look, as what could possibly be approaching.

Obviously only in the day, don't full-beam me at night please

Though I did nearly hit a biker on my first day of driving, as I was turning right in heavy two-laned traffic down a side road, didn't bother looking behind. He beeped, i stopped. Guess that taught me a lesson from day one...

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uzz

PLEASE do not encourage main beam headlights on motorbikes, just because they don't affect you!!!!!!!!! They leave me almost blind for several seconds if I inadvertently get caught by them. Bikers think they need them on because of the black visors they use, anything less than main beam is invisible to them! Dipped beams are more than adequate.

Bikers don't use main beam because they wear dark visors. We wear dark visors in the sunlight, our headlights are only on in the day to make us more visible to other road users.
Put your car headlights on and see what a huge benefit to your visibilty they are on a sunny day!
However, headlights should only be on dipped beam, because main beam actually makes it more difficult for other road users to judge your speed. So yes bikers riding around with their main beam on are annoying and ill informed.

As a motorcyclist of 27 years experience and a car driver I refuse to ride with the headlamp on (main or dipped). On my latest bike I have had to wire-in a switch and relay to allow me to turn off the headlamp as the manufacturer no longer fits a switch. The reason - since getting the bike I have had more people pull out on me than ever before. Yes they can see me coming, but they can't judge my speed properly (See the SMIDSY site). I now notice this when I am in the car, I find it very difficult to accurately judge the speed of an approaching motorcycle because it appears as a point light source, there being no other reference points visible, the speed of which is known to be very difficult to judge. It took a long time before Police motorcyclists rode with the headlamp on

Just an observation from personal experience..

Since getting my first speeding conviction in 25 years of riding last year, I have been riding considerably slower than I ever have before..

This tends to result in me being placed "IN" the traffic, rather than in front of it. I am sure this is increasing my vulnerability by many times.

I am also finding that my escape options now tend to be limited to braking rather than finding an escape route and driving around the danger. (If you ride into and out of London every day you will find that you have at least one incident every day that needs some kind of avoiding action)

I just wonder if this has any relevance to the biker casualty figures? Coming off at less than 30mph and going under the wheels of the following truck will kill you just as dead as losing it on a corner at 80mph..

Russ