Quote:
Originally Posted by -Ralph-
But the statistics are definitely lies. They completely skew the public perception. I recently posted this in another thread....
Rupert Paul wrote an article in Bike magazine, which I agree with, to summarise:
Inspector Simon Labbert concluded in 2004 after investigating 55 fatal bike crashes in Sussex in over a three year period, that
- 37 of the dead riders were on sports bikes, 11 on sports tourers
- 92% of those died due to rider error
The conclusion was that the riders effectively all killed themselves, and that thrill-seeking was the cause of a huge majority of bike fatalities in open road collisions. Open road collisions make up the vast majority of bike accidents. If you ride sensibly, biking actually isn't all that dangerous. Take the remaining 7 or 8 fatal crashes that were a genuine unavoidable accidents, not some idiot trying to kill himself, then ask how many fatal car accidents were there in Sussex in the same three years? If you took out all the idiots, suddenly bike accident statistics wouldn't look so bad would they? The public and the politicians wouldn't have the impression that what we do is so dangerous |
I don't really think a valid conlcusion can be reached simply by looking at 55 fatal accidents over 3years in one specific area.
If any of you have not seen the following article, I strongly recommend it - very good read.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety...orcycleacc.pdf
Its a publication from the department of transport, sampling 1,790 accident cases (including 1,003 in detail, from Midland police forces, involving motorcyclists of all ages, from 1997 - 2002).
If you go to page 40 of the article, you will see a table that summarises who is at fault in the 1,790 accidents.
Riders are accountable for 42% of the accidents, and the drivers 44%.
Also, they found 38% of the accidents to be due to a Right of Way Violation, with the majority of these violations down to the drivers error, usually not checking their blind spots, etc.
Anyway, just thought I'd post this in response to some of the other stats that have been highlighted.
Despite all of of this...BIKING is still worth it
