150,000 motorcyclists killed or injured on Britain’s roads

Well that got your interest - however ghoulish!

Of course it's a statistic. Don't take it at face value, you need to understand it before you repeat it. Unfortunately that rarely happens.
This is the figure for all fatalities or injuries (major and minor) for the 7 years 2000 - 2006.

Sounds awful.

• Why do we ride?
  
• How can we contemplate an activity with these kinds of statistics?
  
• Shouldn't we all give up and stay at home?
  

Here are some more statistics:

• More pedestrians are killed or injured on Britain's road than motorcyclists
  
• More than 188,000 car occupants were killed or injured per year on Britain’s roads between 2000 and 2006 inclusive
  
• Exceeding the speed limit was the key factor in motorcycle accidents in 5% of cases
  

Of course these too are not to be quoted lightly. Context is everything, but to me these are not the statistics I recall forming headlines in the press. I've been, for a while, curious to know more, so that I'm a bit better informed than most. Now I've discovered a report from IAM (Institute of Advanced Motoring) that does that. So I thought I'd share it here.

Maybe not of interest to all, but take a look at the graph on page 7 detailing the ages of motorcyclist casualties. Where do you fit in? Read the rest of the report and you'll find out how other road users are factors in accidents and how experience and training affect your chance of having an accident.

I would hate to hear of anyone in this group becoming a statistic in a report like this. I hope this 'evidence' gives those who read it an opportunity to reflect and consider how they ride this year. Perhaps you might be encouraged to take steps to reduce your chances of becoming a statistic? That would be great. At least it's food for thought?

Have an enjoyable 2011 and ride safely. I hope to see you on one of the rideouts this year.

Chris

Food for thought Chris

Found this quote hidden in there

If riding on the main road, remember, irrespective of the right of
way, a rider is likely to be the one to suffer most in any collision.
Pay attention to other road users and always expect the worst from
them (IAM: How to be a better rider)

How very true.
Ride safe people.

Cheers
Rosco

mmmm
i seem to remember your 1 of the static,s
Chris like parking the :yzf: half way up a 10 foot hedge on a taste of Lincoln ride out
Pete

Yep, your memory doesn't fail you

I owe you a kick in the shins next time we meet!

Nothing like learning from your mistakes, or preferably someone elses?

I'd better add mine before anyone else does.

Ride very gingerly on new tyres until they are scrubbed in.

Don't make drastic swerving and braking manouvres just to avoid rabbits that rin into the road and are intent on moving to wherever your front wheel makes a move for.

Fortunately for me the only statistic I earned was numpty points on here (self approved)

Always best to learn from others mistakes!!!

My six best crashes:

By the summer of 1984 I was two years into my biking career and still I had not crashed even once. I felt almost humiliated by my lack of good fodder for pub boasting - you know the sort of thing:

“I was doing 140 right, when I changed down two gears and blew the Porsche Turbo away, but the cops cut me up and down I went, bike smashed to pieces…”

So it was almost with a sense of relief that I finally came off! However I wasn't exactly doing 140, or 40 or even 14mph come that. Nope I was riding at virtually walking pace on my Honda CB250N Superdream (no “flat out then” jibes please),riding up to the entrance of Brum Polly (Now rather grandly called the University of Central England don’t you know!), in the pouring rain. The CB250N boasted a front disc brake that had all the power of a Alan Carr death grip, but somehow I managed to brake hard enough to lock the front wheel in a bid to avoid a Cortina coming the other way. I went down (don’t…), like a sack of spuds, the crash bars saving both me and the bike. I even missed the car only for the next one coming out the car park to bump up the kerb to drive past me and the fallen Honda rather than stop and help me up. Cheers mate.

So I had finally done it, I was no longer a so called 'crash-virgin', at last I was a real biker! Still it was only walking pace, I was riding CB250N, suffered no injuries and didn't even wreck the bike. What a useless crash, in the words of so many of my school reports:

“Must try harder”

Fast forward a couple of months and I was now a dispatch rider. Now if I can’t crash doing this then there really was no hope. Then comes what I now dub the 'Golden Fortnight' ~ in the space of only 14 days I managed to crash no less than 4 times! This is more like it! In a nice touch I achieved this great feat on 4 different bikes, only one of which was actually mine! However this happened to be the only one that I manage to write off – Doh!

First attempt to kill myself came on a Honda H100 of all things, a miserable two stroke single of 1982 vintage. It belonged to the girlfriend of a mate and I was sent off to get the chips for everybody’s dinner. One moment I am riding along happily with the smell of fish and chips wafting behind me, the next thing I know I have been taken out by a Ford Capri and I am sliding down the road after the Honda...and the chips. My radio pager took the brunt of the force, like an early form of body armour. The bloke in the Capri stopped, got out of the car and when saw me get up promptly got back in and cleared off! Cheers mate, aren’t car drivers a lovely lot?

Whilst this represented a big improvement on the first crash, I actually managed a collision this time, I was still pretty low: Think about it for a minute; I was on a girls bike, didn’t hurt myself and the damage to the Honda was kicked straight in five minutes. In the meantime the boss made me cough up for the flattened pager too. Even worse the chips were ruined and nobody spoke to me all afternoon! Doh!

So it was time to 'up the ante' so to speak, so for my next attempt at true biker credability, only a few days later, I tried to see how Honda’s then legendary Plastic Maggot (the CX500) bounced. This was a particularly dog eared 1978 example with a mere 108,000 miles on the clock. The poor thing was, to put it politely, shagged. This was the company bike we all tried to avoid and I was stuck with it for the whole day. It turned out to be a long and gruelling slog too and by the time I decided enough was enough and actually crashed I had added another 700 miles onto odometer of the clapped out V twin. It was at this point, somewhere in Leicestershire, that the sheer boredom of all day (and night) on CX just became too much and I actually nodded off! One minute I was barrelling along the A512, the next I was sitting in a hedge with only a large Honda for company. From somewhere I found the strength to dig the bike out of the hedge and even knocked up another 100 miles before finally getting back to base 23 hours after I set out.
This, yet again, was a poor effort, falling asleep is hardly cool is it? Nothing else for it but to have another go...

A few more days tick by and peach run to London comes up. All the bosses favourite riders are out so I get the job, and just to top it off nicely I also got the pride of the fleet on which to do the run –a new Kawasaki GT750. So I charge off to collect the parcel doing my best “CHiPs” impression (it was still a big, big show in 1985!) as I leave the depot. It all went horribly wrong…did I get to London? No. Did I get out of Birmingham? No…Did I fall off before even collecting the parcel? Yes. What a turkey! Mind you it was in the middle of the city centre and I did send shoppers sprawling for cover as the Kawasaki was punted up onto the pavement by a moron in a lane changing Ford Sierra. I went one way the bike another. Amazingly I wasn’t hurt and the big Kawasaki, whilst a bit bent, was still rideable. Time for another go then.
Not wanting to waste time the very next day I stuffed my own bike, a Yamaha RD350YPVS, straight into the side of a Bedford Lorry. This was about 30 seconds after a mate piled his Kawasaki GPz1100 into the same truck! Much better! We had just been racing a Porsche too (really) and won quite comprehensively. He did have last laugh as both the Kawasaki and the Yam were written off! Amazingly neither of us were hurt and we even walked the remaining half a mile to the pub we were heading for when we crashed. Finally I had a cool pub story and could tell it straight away! Well worth wrecking my bike and nearly killing myself for! Maybe not.

Anyway that was enough crashing for a while and apart from taking a Honda VF1000 for a brief, unplanned tour of the Norfolk countryside I have stayed on the tarmac ever since. I am off to touch the biggest piece of wood I can find!

So always remember...

"Its not what you ride its the way that you crash it!"

Nice one Tony, I hope the coffee all over my laptop keyboard stops smoking soon or I'm offline

reading that reminds me of riding a yam xj650 home and some jam jar wearing old dude in a jag turning across me into his drive, hit him square on front hub, went clean over the bonnet bending the bars with my knees, landing in a heap at bottom off a big oak tree in horkstow.
Was trying to get up when an old dear came out with a cup of tea and biscuits for me while she waited for the ambulance.
bearing in mind just in work boots, jeans and what they tentatively called leather jackets in those days, and my sheene rep helmet i was unharmed except handlebar shapes in the knees, police found i was 7 miles per hour below limit , wrote the jag and the bike off , pushed the hub into chassis, and bent the headstock, will dig pics out and scan them in

Pete

A similar thing with me.

Pensioner in a lada on a mini roundabout. He pulled out and my A reg, black 350 YPVS ended enbedded in his drivers door! The girl on the back flew off and broke the rear passenger window. He shoulder was ok but my wrist was potted, as a precaution.

I really miss that bike. But I got another! which was stolen.

greencat wrote: Where do you fit in?

The advantages of getting older - statistically I'm far better off this year than last, don't feel it though. Taken on board what is said Chris, thanks.

I don't have any 'decent' oh dear stories to relate, a few near misses though, twice a 'wobble' in diesel first on my nifty 50 broadsiding gently (no damage) into a mates' mom's Beatle and then 2 years later on the opposite side of the same road on my 750 kettle (teapot or whatever ), put both feet down and got the bike back under control.

When I started riding I was told that you can't really ride till you've fallen off at least 7 times, a thought held by many around me and was often an introductory question.
Thank goodness there is a more scientific approach, and what took me years to learn and find out for myself is expected in the test, or offered at a BikeSafe day or through advanced training.

greencat wrote:
I owe you a kick in the shins next time we meet!

Would you mind leaving me one? I owe him a kick too