Motorcycle Accident Rate vs Penalty Points

Borzoi

Quoting Victor

one would have expected the penalty points dividend give something to motorcyclists

though the garda statistics refute this.

This is something I've noticed over the past year, ie since penalty points, while the majority of motorists seem to have moderated their behaviour, there seems to be little difference in the behaviour of the majority of bikers.

Am I alone in thinking this?

BTW In case the bikers out there think I'm 'having a go', I'm not, I'm just trying to figure this out. I'm normally bike nuetral, unlike my thinking on say : Taxi drivers.

BogoBot

It would appear to me that only one half of the statistics are being used. Yes, the same number of motorcyclists are dying but how many more bikes are on the road than this time eighteen months ago? I seem to recall reading that the number had increased significantly?

As a matter of curiosity.....have any bikers recieved penalty points?

Bogobot.

Big al

i totally agree with you borzoi, the bikers just dont give a damn, they are still driving down the wrong side of the road and weaving in and out of traffic

of course if the government would listen to me and allow all car drivers to mash those bike assholes we would have these problems

RicardoSmith

Well it much harder to catch bikers isn't. Though I've seen a few pulled here and there. Theres also the age group of bikers to consider. They tend to be younger. As with cars its the young úns that tend to be a bit reckless, in general. But like car driving bikers need better training and rules to be enforced much more if things are to improve.

spockety

"X tends to do this.. Y tends to do this".. yadda yadda!

Car drivers need a lot more training than they have now, especially in biker awareness. How many articles have you read where it says "bike in collision with a car".. that is journo speak for "stupid f*cking car driver mashed biker".

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by spockety
"X tends to do this.. Y tends to do this".. yadda yadda!

Car drivers need a lot more training than they have now, especially in biker awareness. How many articles have you read where it says "bike in collision with a car".. that is journo speak for "stupid f*cking car driver mashed biker".

It can be interpreted either that the car hit the bike OR the bike hit the car. Funny that you CHOOSE do only see one side of it.

ditto - Bikers need a lot more training than they have now in Car awareness.

seamus

I'd agree mostly. There seems to be a little more impatience on the part of bikers nowadays, particularly in the mornings. When I first started riding 18 months ago, it seemed there was more of a brotherhood - you'd chat stopped at lights, wave on lonely back roads, and generally be courteous to eachother. Not to say that's gone, but there seems to be more bikers with the "get out of my way, I'm bigger and faster!" attitude.

Maybe ti's just in my head.

Originally posted by Big al
i totally agree with you borzoi, the bikers just dont give a damn, they are still driving down the wrong side of the road and weaving in and out of traffic.

There's a difference between careless, wreckless driving, and using your size to your advantage. Most of the time, driving down the wrong side of the road is called overtaking. Weaving is an ambiguous term. When it's safe weaving, I'd call it rapid changing of lanes

Mopeds are particularly bad for wreckless overtaking, poor weaving, and generally not respecting the road. Couriers are just as bad as mopeds, but only so because they don't care about other road users, not because they're inexperienced.

IMO, (and this is from having driven a car) bikers seem to be much more careless and wreckless than they are. Certainly, the same manouvers executed in a car would be detrimental. 99% of the time when I do a manouver that would seem dangerous or impulsive, I've weighed up as many variables as I can, made sure what I'm doing is ok, and then made the decision. As they say, bikers are 5 times more observant then other vehicles because they have to be. That doesn't mean that all bikers are great. Far from it. There are terrible bikers. There are great bikers. There are inbetweenies like me who **** up sometimes, and drive like a fool sometimes. Such is the nature of motoring.

Victor

Originally posted by Borzoi
though the garda statistics refute this.

Eh? All road deaths down, motorcycle user deaths up.

I don't know what number of motorbike users are out there, but I don't think it has gone up massively of late.

Borzoi

Read the quote from you Victor:rolleyes:

dogs

It really comes down to driver training (both cars and bikes) and the ridiculous state of licensing we have here.

I've done my tests, got my full A and B licences. A licences are restricted however, to 33bhp/25kW for 2 years before becoming fully unrestricted. This is regardless of wether you even ride a bike in those 2 years -- but all in the name of safety (minister at the time said he would consider introducing direct access like the EU directive recommends, if road deaths went down).

I pay ~2000 euros insurance for my group 10 restricted bike. My mother, who's last time on a bike was sometime in the early 70s and the bike was a Honda 50, is not only fully licenced to drive my bike *unrestricted* her car insurance policy would also cover her on it.

You've got young idiots getting up on scooters with no clue about driving them or what proper road use is. These are the people with no observation who regularly smack into the sides of cars/trucks/etc.
Then you've got the old folks who've got licences to drive anything they like without ever doing any tests for them. You can almost see them walking into a bike shop asking them "How much for one of dem hyabooosa yokes?" and then making a big squelsh noise as their body hits the back of a tractor at 196mph on a Sunday morning.

In the UK you cant even get a provisional bike licence without doing some basic training (it's called CBT). Standard stuff; basic maintanance, weaving in and out of cones and riding along with an instructor behind you.

You don't need penalty points, you dont need bigger speeding fines, just require that everyone takes some form of training (not like giving automatic M licences to B licence holders) and some form of proper testing.

*ahem* ... </rant>

Eye

As a biker myself, i totally agree with the whole training thing.
I think the main problem with so called motorcycle accidents is kids on scooters.
Now don't get me wrong we all gotta start off somewhere, and i too started off on a scooter about 6 years ago when i had to commute to and from college, approx 30min drive each way on a main road with little or nothing resembling a hard shoulder. To start it was great i had my independance but after the first few days i saw how down right dangerous irish roads are, cars don't give a f*ck about bikes/scooters, i can't count the number of times i came close to getting blown into a ditch because of some twat in a car not pulling out a little to pass me.

Anyway, these days i drive a dragstar 650 and with regards to comments about weaving and dangerous overtaking etc... As seamus pointed out, i like him and most people on bigger bikes way up as many varibales in our heads before over taking.
For example, anyone who drives a car might answer me this, when was the last time you thought about the condition of the road surface or the weather when going to over take on a main road?
Us bikers have to go through all these little things as if there is so much as a small bit of gravel or a pot hole, if it's raining the road will be slippery, it could be the end of us. rain, wind, speed of other vehicles and behaviour of other vehichles are but a few of the other the things i think about when pulling off some overtaking.

While people are saying that bikers have'nt changed since penalty points came in, i don't think that's true, yes there is a portion of bikers who are just plain stupid and drive their R1's at ridiculous speeds on terrible roads but most of your average joe's, myself included have changed the way we drive as a result of penalty points.

For example speeding, while i've never been one to go mad and drive at 100mph everywhere i go i did occasionally tip the speedo to about 80-90 but only on long straight roads in good condition, good weather and little or no traffic, now i do not condone this and if i was caught by the cops i'd be the first to say, fair enough you got me i'm guilty as charged.
Nowadays though i drive to the speed limits about 95% of the time, i might occasionally be caught doing 40 in aa 30 zone around my small little town, but anywhere i don't know the roads well i stick to the limit. The reason for my change in attitude was solely down to the points system and how it might at some point f*ck up my insurrance and make it even higher (if thats possible) than it already is.

One other thing about the whole dangerous overtkaing thing before i end this rant, there is a huge difference between overtaking on a bike and in a car, moves which a bike can pull of with ease a car driver might think was down right suicidal. Fair enough sometimes there are ejits that don't know how to overtake properly and/or don't fully know the power of the machine they are driving, this generally leads to close calls/accidents.
with a good sized bike under your ass the power it can turn out is much greater than say your average car. when driving along at say 50mph behind a car, at the flick of your wrist there is instant power to jump you to 70mph for a couple of secs to overtake safely and be back in and down to 60mph in no time, for a car to pull off the same thing generally takes a whole lot more in terms of time and distance on the road, and thats why so many car drivers think us bikers are dangerous coz we have the power there to pull these moves off in short spaces. As long as you know your bike and what it's capable of doing and the power it can put out then you can easily overtake where cars might think it unsafe.

Anyway in closing this rant i'm not sure i've really accomplished anything but hopefully have enlightend some motorists as to the dangers and risks we bikers have to face every day on these god forsaken roads.

oh just for the record, i'm only 22 and don't consider myself the best driver in the world by any means, i'm just extremly aware of the dangers of driving a bike on the roads in this country.

Damn this turned out alot longer that i thought, did'nt think i was full of this much sh*t

RicardoSmith

Just on the bike accidents being young un's last two people I knew who got killed were 30+ and had been riding bikes since they were 17 ish!

Big al

cars don't give a f*ck about bikes/scooters

damn right, we pay more for our cars and insurance and tax, 2 wheels bad 4 wheels good

when was the last time you thought about the condition of the road surface or the weather when going to over take on a main road

everytime, but when i see bikers in the rain i know why i have a car, anyone who is stupid enough to drive a bike on **** irish roads in **** irish weather deserves what they get.

there is a portion of bikers who are just plain stupid and drive their R1's at ridiculous speeds on terrible roads

there is an lot of them, drive down the nagor road any morning or evening and you will find 20+ bikes comming down the opposite lane against on comming traffic, and then they have an attitude if you dont get out of their way


I am sick of bikes weaving in around me, they buzz up the inside and the outside of cars, this morning 2 bike assholes passed me at the same time, one inside me and one on the outside of me, but if i hit them...........

seamus

Originally posted by Big al
damn right, we pay more for our cars and insurance and tax, 2 wheels bad 4 wheels good

You do more far damage to the road, and are more of a risk to other vehicles. Of course you pay more. It doesn't entitle you to any extra rights.

everytime, but when i see bikers in the rain i know why i have a car, anyone who is stupid enough to drive a bike on **** irish roads in **** irish weather deserves what they get.

The funny thing is, it's even quicker to get where you're going when it rains, because every idiot goes "OH NOE! RAIN!" and decides to drive.....

I am sick of bikes weaving in around me, they buzz up the inside and the outside of cars, this morning 2 bike assholes passed me at the same time, one inside me and one on the outside of me, but if i hit them...........

You're just bitter...

Big al

Originally posted by seamus


You're just bitter...

but dry

Gmodified

Well, Al
Looks like you have no clue about biking and I glad that you get mad sitting in traffic looking at bikes passing by. At least you have realized that you pay considerably more for the privilege . Saying this, biking is not cheap at all.

If I remember correctly most of the fatal accidents took place outside Dublin and majority of the drivers were old enough. These are all the people that buy R1's (mainly because insurance is cheap for the age group and they have few notes to spare) then after few weeks of driving they think they are racing drivers. You can still drive the bike only on Sunday and have fun.

21 years old guys do not drive high powered bikes!

i am not defending young lunatics on the mopeds and 125's but last report showed that older age group had more fatalities . When comes to claims, younger group has higher claim costs as personal injuries are more likely to be main factor here.

Bike training is good but how about lunatics in the cars also without training?

a_ominous

I posted some stuff on another thread
This is a more appropiate thread.
The Hibernian report I referred to is here
It's a 20 page document, 3MB so be warned if you're on dial-up. On page 12, titles "Hibernian's experience of motorcycle insurance", in bold it says

It is a fact that in around 3 out of every 4 cases involving motorcycle accidents there is another road user at fault, typically a Car or Goods Vehicle user who fails to see the motorcycle.

Summary here

I believe _everyone_ has to be trained. The current driving test is insufficient. It only shows if a driver has basic competence. Why aren't drivers tested on a 10 year basis at licence renewal time? Cars have to do a test every 2 years, why not road users?

If you look at the stats, there are fewer accidents in urban areas which I believe is the main domain of scooterists. Not many of them doing 200 miles in a day.
And it's not just kids getting killed. I know of bikers with over 20 years riding who've been killed in the past year.

One big difference between bikers and car drivers is bikers don't try to kill or injure someone else on the road. If a biker gets into grief with a car / lorry, the biker will come off worse. How many times do you see silly things like drivers inching forward to block someone off? No courtesy on the roads or anywhere else these days.

</fx: dismounts hobby horse>

RicardoSmith

Even though I take extra care when driving to look out for bikes, its still very hard to see a bike. One dark wet night I nearly creamed a biker who was lit up like a christmas tree, but because of the angle of his approach was completely obsured by the pillar in the car, luckily something made me heistate and nothing happened. I find that most bikes, cyclists and pedestrians just don't make allowance for the bad visibilty out of a car and the many blind spots that exist.

The problem those statistic with car vs bikes etc that theres a much bigger of number of cars than bikes on the road, so you'd expect more cars to be involved anyway.

seamus

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Even though I take extra care when driving to look out for bikes, its still very hard to see a bike. One dark wet night I nearly creamed a biker who was lit up like a christmas tree, but because of the angle of his approach was completely obsured by the pillar in the car, luckily something made me heistate and nothing happened. I find that most bikes, cyclists and pedestrians just don't make allowance for the bad visibilty out of a car and the many blind spots that exist.

Most of the time we'd be well aware. I would assume however, that the majority of motorcyclists, like myself, assume that no car can see you. Even with full lights on, beeping the horn, and whatever else, there'll be somebody who just doesn't notice you.

So I make every attempt to make myself as visible as possible, but never assume that you can see me. So if it seems like I'm driving in your blind spots, and not taking care that you mightn't be able to see me, it's because I assume you can't see me anyway, whether I'm in your blind spot or not.

The problem those statistic with car vs bikes etc that theres a much bigger of number of cars than bikes on the road, so you'd expect more cars to be involved anyway.

Not if they were equally at fault....it'd be 50-50. There's more car accidents, sure, but the statistic is that 75% of car-bike accidents are the fault of the car.

Stephen

Originally posted by Big al
of course if the government would listen to me and allow all car drivers to mash those bike assholes we would have these problems

Why don't you go play a nice game of hide and go fúck yourself?

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by seamus
....Not if they were equally at fault....it'd be 50-50. There's more car accidents, sure, but the statistic is that 75% of car-bike accidents are the fault of the car.

Not sure I follow you. If the majority of the traffic on the roads is cars then the odds of having an accident with a car are much greater than having an accident with another kind of vehicle. I assume the majority of accidents involve two vehicles and the majority of times one of these at fault. By the sheer weight in numbers cars are going to be a fault an awful lot of the time.

So its likely that ...

the majority of car-bike accidents are the fault of a car
the majority of car-truck accidents are the fault of a car
the majority of car-bus accidents are the fault of a car
the majority of car-cyclists accidents are the fault of a car
the majority of car-pedestrian accidents are the fault of a car

...beause theres more cars on the road. That said I could be completely wrong

seamus

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Not sure I follow you. If the majority of the traffic on the roads is cars then the odds of having an accident with a car are much greater than having an accident with another kind of vehicle. I assume the majority of accidents involve two vehicles and the majority of times one of these at fault. By the sheer weight in numbers cars are going to be a fault an awful lot of the time.

So its likely that ...

the majority of car-bike accidents are the fault of a car
the majority of car-truck accidents are the fault of a car
the majority of car-bus accidents are the fault of a car
the majority of car-cyclists accidents are the fault of a car
the majority of car-pedestrian accidents are the fault of a car

...beause theres more cars on the road. That said I could be completely wrong

lol, I get what you're thinking, but no.

What you're thinking is the majority of motorcycle accidents involve a car, which yes is likely since cars are the predominant vehicle on the road.

Think of it this way, in car-car accidents, the car is at fault, 50% of the time.

Ideally, it would be this way too with car-bike accidents. But the fact that the car is found to be at fault 75% of the time in car-bike accidents (ie when a car and bike collide), it is driver error on the part of the car driver that has caused the accident. Which means that car drivers are less careful, or aware of motorcycles than motorcycles are of cars.

It'll probably click for you, and you'll smack your forehead

RicardoSmith

So its 25% more than in car vs car accidents.

Fudger

Everybody's points are very valid and with good cause. As a young (careful) Male driver who spends alot of my time on the road around the country with my career, i have seen many nasty accidents and near misses to beat the band. This whole cars v bikes could be debated till the cows come home, but the fact is "everyone needs to get around" your choice of transport is mainly decided by either comfort or pleasure but lets face it the real decider is cost. I would more than prefer to have a bike (although insurance is still too high for bikers, it is slightly better than car insurance, but its just not practical in my case) The fact is we are ALL getting screwed no matter how we get around, VRT, TAX, INSURANCE, NCT the honour of sitting on the M50 for an hour and paying €1.30 for it, this fully applies to public transport aswell, by the good old government.

Example: "too dark to see a biker"....."Bikes Blasting past me"......... "cars not giving bikers enough room"

Surely it is completely obvious and as we all know that our infrastructure is crap, if we can't see eachother due to poor visibility,congestion on our roads and frustration due to bikers and drivers getting their vehicles destroyed by potholes, and thrid world country roadways, plus the fact that the gardai aren't exactly lighting the country enforcing real law instead they enforce PR Law ie: 2 penalty points for doing 32 mph in a 30 mph zone, this is the kind of thing that the stats are made up of, not for drink driving and knocking down a predestrian (recent TD as an example), they really made an example of him didn't they??!! that really had people shaking in their boots, now i know not all bikers etc wear high viz vest etc, but not all drivers turn their lights on either, until you practically stop them, get into their car and turn them on and even then after you tell or inform them they throw a hissy fit for commenting on their driving. i think everyone is focusing to much on blaming eachother, remember that the government are the ones with ultimate responsibility for making our roads safe for all, Where is all our money going? paying for tribunials???!!!! For Burke to get a new house, for Lawlor to run off with it, for certian past Taoiseach's to bring the country to its knees.???????

Basically i fully agree with "a_ominous"..... there isn't enough training and too many inexperienced drivers on the road, only yesterday I saw a very obviously middle aged inexperienced driver doing around 55 mph in a 40 mph area, L plates perched on the front and back windows happy as larry in the car by themself and a garda bike overtook the car and blasted off into the distance, no lights flashing. Basically it doesn't seem that anything is enforced until another PR stunt is needed. Come on for gods sakes the garda drivers don't even get any extra training in high speed driving, example: the recent garda car crash on the N11 if i remember correctly, where it was admitted it was caused by the garda driver not being experienced in high speed driving, cause they don't get it!! Now thats a PR nightmare

Lets take a very serious simple example. If your caught drink driving why are you not banned for life? If your caught drink driving and kill someone why are you not banned for life? answer---- drivers both bikes and cars bring in the dosh! It's in the governments interest to have as many people on the road as possible no matter how dangerous they are. If people start getting banned for life the governments purse gets fairly light, think about it!!!!!!!

The government are the ones who are killing and letting people be killed on our roads. New training, harder to achieve licences, awareness and better garda enforcement plus making examples of drink drivers etc, will at least encourage better safety, it won't stop it cause accidents happen, thats just the way things go. i do think that the National Safety Board, etc do an excellent job and fair play to them, but the insurance companies have alot to answer for, they make record profits and never put anything back into road safety, they support the odd add but thats not good enough and in turn awareness and campaigns are left to the national safety council etc to do with their crap set budgets and constraints......

But when the weather is as crap as it is today..... i'll stick with my warm car!!!!!!

PS. A certain amount of older drivers are as crap a driver as a certain amount of younger drivers. I think that whole issue is dated and none applicable. My career does depend on me being mobile, along with a huge number of other young drivers, therefore I am not going to risk my career for the sake acting like an idiot on the road, so i don't appreciate being struck off with one big brush..."young = dangerous" people with that sort of view are very narrow minded and under-educated............. But the stats you might say???? Those stats come from the insurance industries, they make, no pun intended, a killing from young drivers, their not going to say young drivers are safe drivers...!!!!!!!!! think of the loss of dosh?????

Cars/bikes etc are a necessity and "fun" (sounds sad)... eh...lets say are good crack, everyone has the odd heavy foot on the pedal or harder grip on the the auld bike throttle (not to sure if that is correct) so anyone who says they have never speeded or had a bit of a mess or made at least one stupid action/decision on the road is a liar, lets face it don't try and deny it. If people won't even admit that they are not a perfect driver or rider then its pointless even bothering for you to make a comment against that and if your can't admit that, well then your obviously not human!

Act responsible but also question the governments motivation, to me they don't seem to give a dam about any of us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Big al

Originally posted by Stephen
Why don't you go play a nice game of hide and go fúck yourself?

lighten up asswipe, thats why i put a smiley at the end of it, its a joke

True I have no idea about bike but i dont get mad in traffic i'm lucky enough to have a 15 min communte to work. I just hate them comming down the wrong side of the road

Victor

Originally posted by Big al
lighten up asswipe, thats why i put a smiley at the end of it, its a joke

400 dead people, year in, year out is no joke.

deecom

Big al, have you heard of anger management? Arrogance is no excuse.

malico

IN the last 2 years I can only remember being wet thought about 6 times. Period. So the wholw car idea of "oh I'm dry" doesn't work. Especially when I uesd to go to work in the car, it took me about 1.5 hours on the M50, now if i'm taking it easy, I';m there in 25 minutes. I call it another hour in bed!

ANd I have the refute the idea that the brotherhood is gone. A few weeks back, i was stopped on the side of the road and about 5 bikes (all the ones that passed) stopped to see if iwas ok. I do the same. And we still wave and chat at lights. Even the cop bikes

The real show of the brotherhood was when i came off (a car hit me, as a side note most accidents are from cars side swiping bikes.... just a thoght car drivers) 3 bikers stopped, dragged my bike off the road and chained it toa post for me to recover when I got out of hospital (Which was later that day). Do car drivers do this? Hell no!

BUT my REAL pet peev is gear. Because of the gear I wear (AKITO COUGAR full 2 piece suit only about E400) I didn;t break my knee when I came off, and I was out in 3 hours. I HATE seeing people going out on bikes without gear. Because I know what will happen to them if they don;t wear it!

Look after yourself, and each other... The brotherhood lives!

sceptre

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
So its 25% more than in car vs car accidents.

33

(or 25% less if you assume that in a car-car collision /a/ car is wrong 100% of the time)

Big al

give it a rest lads, I take no enjoyment out of seeing people die, how many motorists have said to themselves "if another bike comes down my side of the road again........" Driver education be it cars or bikes is lacking big time, we are all agreed on that and we all agree that it should be improved.

I drive about 30000 miles per year all around the country (insurance companies love me), I see things that would terrify people, I have been hit by rocks, bikes & cars over the years some of them serious some of them not so. I have never been injured but i cant say that about the biker who hit me. nothing worse than seeing a bloke comming through your rear window.

I love to drive no amount of accidents can put me off it but I hate seeing kids, who do not fully understand the risk, flying around traffic as if they own the road.

Whats missing on Irish roads is respect. Respect for other road users. Respect for conditions. etc etc. I could go on.

As an aside perhaps i am missing some unwriiten rule here but i thought that if you put a at the end of a comment people would not think you were being serious, if not i'm sorry and sorry if i offended anyone but i refer you back to my first paragraph.

Keep Safe

NeRb666

Originally posted by Eye

with a good sized bike under your ass the power it can turn out is much greater than say your average car. when driving along at say 50mph behind a car, at the flick of your wrist there is instant power to jump you to 70mph for a couple of secs to overtake safely and be back in and down to 60mph in no time, for a car to pull off the same thing generally takes a whole lot more in terms of time and distance on the road, and thats why so many car drivers think us bikers are dangerous coz we have the power there to pull these moves off in short spaces. As long as you know your bike and what it's capable of doing and the power it can put out then you can easily overtake where cars might think it unsafe.

That's part of the problem for motorists, we can't be watching our mirrors 100% of the time. A bike can be comfortably behind us one second, and alongside us the next.