White Van Man gets ����Millions

Single vehicle offs = single vehicle accidents, but I suspect you knew that.

dutch wrote: The bike & it's rider.........no invlovement by any other road user including pedestrians etc. what you mean the driver who cuts you off, touches you whilst passing, stopping to let passenger out whilst turning right resulting in door fixed to the front of bike, brother hospitialised foR two months  didn't stop. OH THAT'LL BE A SINGLE VEHICLE OFF sorry livvy the stats can be made to reflect the worst case senario.go to any bike meet and ask forget what your stats are conjuring up.

How do you work that out ?

If I go to the meets how am I going to speak to the rider killed to confirm what you have just said ?

143 riders killed with nobody else involved, is what it says & means.

Expensive extensive investigations that show no involvement by anyone other than the rider & invariably that the speed they were travelling at just prior to the collision was excessive & a contributory factor in that collision.



Edited by livvy

Dutch

Is the training offered by the bikesafe lads good or bad ?

dutch wrote: superb!

Then enjoy it and stop worrying about figures lol

I don't know what you do for a living Dutch, but they pick up the bodies, tell the relatives,etc etc etc, day in day out.

It just has to alter your outlook.

In a silly way, all this spin on safety has caused those of us that try to promote it ( and having done it you must be one) so much grief !

Just a point about white van man (nothing to do with push-bikes, sorry - that should realy be a separate thread)

The vast majority it seams to me that need help are the courier/express drivers. Listening to the radio earlier they interviewed van drivers - mostly couriers. Their excuse for their driving style was they have deadlines to keep - so they drive fast. Most bashed up vans belong to courier firms, the drivers don't own them so they have no respect (yep, that old chestnut again) NO RESPECT.. so they don't care if they damage them, consequently they don't care about other road users - even though most agreed the scheme would work, saving them money on fuel and making them better drivers. BUT they still have deadlines (so it sort of goes out of the wimdow then)

Don't encourage him horsey !

Nice to see you back John, computer problems sorted ?

I haven't heard from you for a couple of weeks, I'll give you a ring tomorrow ( if I remember once I get to work).

Nigel,

You're right if it was compulsory there would be an uproar. This however doesn't mean it should be compulsory, but I suspect politicians are more concerned about staying in power than doing what needs to be done.

This is why employers should make it compulsory. The government could use the money to provide financial assistance to smaller firms who might struggle to pay for it.

Some people on this forum will oppose anything brought in by the current government regardless of what it is. I wonder, if these plans were brought in by the tory party if they would receive such vocal opposition. I don't like a lot of the governments current transport policy but that isn't going to stop me agreeing with sometning if I think it is a good idea, rather than the political approach which is taken by news papers and politicians of disagreeing with everything regardless.

Fey! wrote: What about giving the business' that use the training tax relief against it?  Let them write of the cost against their tax rather than giving them money for the course.

Good idea!

If you examine the latest Road Accident Statistics you will have a surprise - the dreaded White Van Man (ie Light Godds Vehicle driver) enjoys the lowest rate of death and serious injury of all UK road users - and a lot less than bus and coach drivers/passengers!

Why? All I can suggest is that size really does matter, as LGV drivers are not exactly paragons of virtue. Many LGV drivers have a rather cavalier approach to other road users,and this may be due in many ways to their employers, who require them to drive too long and too fast in order to meet committments. For example, I know of one company in Plymouth who regularly travel to Newcastle and back in a day, and sometimes even Edinburgh!

Apart from that, most of them have no interest in road safety, or even in perceiving possible hazards to themselves, dealing with each situation after it has happenned. This is of course no different from most other road users.

Those who want to continue the freedom of LGV drivers will of course be horrified at any imposed restriction on their activities, but it will be in the interests of all concerned when EU law forces all LGVs to be fitted with tachographs - particularly minibuses.

Additional training for LGV drivers - and all others - is a good idea, but why should the state pay for it?

Oh - Bikesafe MAY have improved the riding skills of a few riders, but viewing the figures for our ever-increasing motorcycle-related carnage shows a clearly increasing trend, whihc has continued for many years. We can expect a revision of motorcycle licensing law, probably with a 100 bhp power limit to start with (ample, really) and tighter experience/licence/power relationships.

As the real problem (as with most road accidents) is inside the rider's head, these measures will do nothing, so the next step will be to reduce the power limit further. As you can still easily kill yourself with 15 bhp this will have no real effect. Further steps will probably ban filtering in traffic, and enforece the existing law where riders cross 'Keep Left' signs and solid white lines in dense traffic - remember that over 70% of accidents take place in urban areas.

Sounds grim? Depends on your point of view, but the present world of UK motorcycling carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the day of reckoning is fast approaching.