Pandering to the two wheeled motorist?

Originally Posted by creamerybutter

I would like to know if there is any evidence for this. Having seen the aftermath of a car hitting a queue of people outside a club I find it hard to believe a bike would have done as much damage.

I dont think you'll find many bikers willing to plow into people as they are likely to come off badly too. What injury does a car driver suffer? Nothing.

Even if its true, I'd bet that the accident was caused by some half ****ed bafoon who never bothered to look for the bike and stepped out in front of them.

Originally Posted by Jabba-the-Hutt

If i had any influence over the matter, I'd insist that scooters/learner bikers and "proper" motorcycles were treated separately in the statistics.

To true, the amount of scooters I have seen having narrow misses with almost everything while doing something stupid is amazing.

[embee]

Hmmm, that's quite a worrying article, because it's actually quite measured and seemingly rational, while introducing some fairly damning claims against PTWs. Really wild anti-PTW documents are more easily countered.

There's always a lot of statistical mumbo-jumbo bandied about regarding emissions, and understandably so because it's not a straightforward issue.
Some of the values quoted in the table for relative emissions compared to cars and buses puzzle me a little, it depends very much what they are comparing (exact vehicle details), and percantages are always deceptive (twice nothing is still nothing).

Most new vehicle emission issues are purely political and down to regulations, cleaner standards can be met if the regs required it. Margaret Thatcher was responsible for delaying the introduction of cleaner cars due to being fed some hype about how lean-burn would solve all the problems instead of simply going down the "3-way cat lambda=1" route along with the rest of the world!

Real world emissions are down to the ageing fleet, a 15 year old carburetted car will produce 100 times the noxious emissions of a new car. Older Diesels are causing the most emission problems at present in urban conditions.

I have always been of the opinion that vehicle categories should have to comply with a fixed set of standards regardless of the fuel type, why should one car be allowed to produce much higher amounts of a particular regulated pollutant than another car just because it runs on a different type of fuel?

It is sadly true that PTWs are probably the worst efficiency in terms of fuel consumption per ton.mile, and only compare favourably to single vehicle occupancy 4-wheelers for consumption per passenger.mile

The stats regarding cyclist injuries may just reflect the appalling road-craft of many cyclists, and why are cyclist&pedestrian vs PTW collisions always blamed on the PTW, and car vs PTW collisions are also usually blamed on the PTW? No doubt a cyclist vs car collision will also be blamed on a passing PTW.

The annoyance thing is a red herring. If you ask a group of non-motorcyclists, especially older females I would suggest, what vehicle type is noisy and annoying they'll be guaranteed to say motorbikes (you know, those black leather clad rockers and hell's angels just like we used to see on the telly in 1963). Most modern "standard" bikes are pretty quiet, it's only the race can brigade that causes annoyance (ducks for fear of rocks ). An awful lot of the traffic noise you hear is tyres on road surface anyway, not exhausts.

Overall the PTW "issue" is largely an emotional/political one, the reality is that they aren't that significant in the big scheme of things (please address the MRSA issue first! )

At least it's nice to know that we are not all evil criminals - quote "Of course, not all motorbikes are driven fast and not all riders are lawbreakers."

A few points to ponder anyway.

Very nice read.. something for me to think about..

This could be discussed for hours but here are a few of my thoughts.

The emissions laws do cover PTW's, maybe they are different ot cars but they are regulated. How often have you read in the motorcycle press that the igntion system for example has been modified of meet some regulation or other?

The /mile agrument. I could see this being valid if the majority of cars on the road had more than 1 person in them, but they don't. If you don't believe me have a look on your way too or from work.

I could go on, but for the good of you all I won't

This is a subject which will be around for a very long time

In one statement they claim that PTWs are more dangerous to pedestrians and then they say that motorcycles should be quiet. How will that help the numpties walking along on their mobile phones to spot us?

Have they examined the possible use of mobiles by pedestrians when considering the accident statistics? I doubt it.

I see 'em all the time, texting, talking, head in the clouds - and they just step off the kerb without a care in the world.

Anyone done an analysis of how much cr*p all the (empty) black cabs driving round central London contribute to the pollution problem?

The mans' an ****!!!

The whole article could be summed up in his "stated" aim in the last paragraph

Quote
"..... worst case scenario we could end up with people switching from public transport, cycling and walking back to motorised personal travel"

I'd have more respect for his views, if they wern't hidden in a load of waffle.

Cut the Cr%& and get to the plot!

Tris

It's just like the creationist scientists (don't get me started on these 'scientists'). They have redressed their arguments against evolution under the guise of science, and because of that people are starting to believe them again (help destroy creationist science forever )

Anyway, this is a dangerous article becuase in the first instance it seems to make sense, and a lot of people won't look at it twice.

If everyone rode bikes instead of cars then there would be less pollution.

And as a final point, this doesn't take into account that, whereas most bike riders keep their bikes wonderfully maintained out of a sense of pride, most car drivers are just concerned about scraping through the m.o.t., and therefore their emissions will be greater than those stated for well maintained cars. FACT : 10% of cars are responisble for 50% of car emissions.

Bringing up an old one here.......

The Lib Dems have written nothing else "green" about motorcycles or PTW's since this article - which was back in 2004.

What does that say about their support of PTW's?

Originally Posted by BillyC

It's a tricky situation, and a very difficult argument.

The 106 I was driving a few months back, has a larger engine than the SV, carries more passengers and luggage, but does the same, if not better mileage.

I would easily get 50+mpg out of the little 1 litre engine. Queueing in traffic was negated because I still got this figure. The SV does in the region of 45mpg... less with luggage and passengers, for which it cannot compete with a car!

Bikes are quick though, take up less space, and journey times are obviously shorter. Plus they're fun

I think peoples experiences vary greatly. My SV used to do 50+mpg all the time. I used to have a Daewoo Matiz (don't ask) and despite an economical 800cc 3 cylinder engine it used to do 43mpg on the same route to work and that was driving it a lot more carefully than the bike. Granted it could carry more people but as with most cars it only had one occupant on the commute.

Its worth noting that my journey to work is 1.5 miles longer by car as I have to avoid the major routes and use rat runs. Takes 25 instead of 15 minutes too and thats if I leave at 7am. If I leave at 8am the mpg for the bike would remain the same but the cars would take a massive nose dive as the journey time would increase to an 50 minutes!