Why don't they just accept that motorbikes are deathtraps and campaign against people riding them?

[GoshAnneGorilla]

Instead of spending so much time and money going on at car drivers, wouldn't it be better to discourage people from using motorbikes in the first place?

where did you find the stats, katy?

I have seen them before but can't find it.

I'm fucking livid at reading posts saying things like, "Most motorcyclists ride too fast". No they fucking don't.

There are knobheads using every mode of transport but we dont' generalise and say, "Most horse riders are cunts", even though there are a small minority who cause accidents.

The reason car drivers are 'targetted' is that by far the most likely cause of death or serious injury to a biker is a car driver turning right out of a junction pulling out on them.

If you think bikers aren't targetted by the police, have a run up to North Yorkshire on a sunny Saturday/Sunday afternoon and watch as bikers are stopped and prosecuted for any bad/dangerous behaviour.

Car drivers are not targetted in order to let bikers have free reign to ride like wankers.

I had a friend who was a motorcyclist. His bike went under a bus. But I'm in no doubt it was his own idiotic fault from knowing the accident site, his risk-taking behaviour at the time.

They do terrify me. I worry that I will hit one, or cause someone to fall off and I have my dc in the car most of the time.

I'd like to say I think they are all idiots. I don't. I do think the 'think bike' signs do more harm than good. In my experience of driving in areas where these signs are every few hundred yards, motorcyclists seem to take more risks. It seems because there is a sign telling everyone else to be aware that they are there, they are absolved of responsibility if they are in an accident.

Most strongly I think ALL road users have a responsibility to keep abreast of the Highway Code and any updates and use the road within its constraints.

I'm not a biker, had I had no intention of being a mother I would have been a biker but I digress-I'm a driver & can honestly say I have never felt dread at the sight of a biker-don't honestly understand why you would, it's quite simply another road user & you should give them the due care & attention that you would expect to receive yourself right?

Ivy In answer to your first question: no, that is clearly not what I have said.

I have addressed your comments upthread, but to reiterate:

Cars can indeed be a lethal weapon, but motorbikes are even more so, to a disproportional level:

"Injuries to motorcyclists are out of proportion to their presence on our roads. Motorcyclists are just 1% of total road traffic, but account for 19% of all road user deaths."

Those statistics are horrendous.

piglet

OhLori

"Actually, not true Mittens. IME you will not see them in those instances because they are (a) weaving or (b) speeding or (c) weaving and speeding in combination."

During normal driving conditions you should be checking mirrors approximately every 5-8 seconds.

Let's not confuse 'weaving' with 'overtaking' and 'changing road position for maximum visibility'.

If you didn't see them, how do you know they were weaving? If anything, the extra movement of wildly swerving from side to side would bring them to your attention more effectively (human eyes are very good at picking up movement). Combined with the fact many bikes have headlights on automatically (and all riders are taught to switch them on) then you must have been completely ignoring your mirrors to not see them.

"At the same time they will get extremely close to the car they are overtaking,"

Hang on, a second you condemned them for 'weaving' - now you're condemning them for getting too close? You don't like it when they move over to give space between them and cars, you don't like it when they don't. I'm not sure you know what you like, only that you don't like bikers.

I lost my leg after coming off my bike, I know lots of amputees who have modified bikes so it hasnt put them off.
My husband still rides regularly.
Each to their own I say.
I believe my husband is a better car driver having had several years on a bike prior to gaining his car licence.

But gosh you don't want to ban cars - why not when they are clearly more lethal than motorbikes?

You don't make sense

it would be like ploughing 80% of funding into deaths by cricket accidents and then leaving the other 20% to research for death by heart disease, Heart disease is the biggest killing disease in this country whereas cricket accidental deaths are low but probably out of proportion to people playing cricket

Ivy - You don't seem to be grasping the statistics and pulling dubious equivalences out of thin air highlights that.

Gosh you don't seem to be grasping the fact that it isn't the bikes that are the problem but the car drivers.....

BTW, in California it is legal for a motorbike to weave between stalled cars in a traffic jam.

Just in case you're even in California in a traffic jam.

It might be 19% of road traffic deaths, but a large proportion of those will be because of other road users.

Idiotic road users driving like twats will do so in whatever form of transport they use.

But you need to consider that car occupants make up 46% and pedestrians make up 24%,
So if you are just looking at percentages of fatalities and over generalising, then pedestrians are far more of a risk than motorcyclists.

indeed, so lets ban pedestrians. Seems logical from stats?

bi-peds. They walk around, constantly weaving and changing speed. Just asking for it really.

I wish to stand up for the old men in panelled rooms, who have saved tens of thousands of lives over the last twenty years by their nannyish "we know best" attitude. They have done it, for the most part, by targeting car and lorry drivers, since they're the people who do most of the killing. And long may they continue to do so.

I disagree with the OP about motorbikes, but I think she has a point about Syria actually - in general there is very little overlap between the truly authoritarian thought police states, and the elf and safety nannyish states, because the real bastards honestly don't care whether their subjects live or die as long as they're not causing trouble.

Pan - addressed upthread already. People need to walk around. No one needs to ride a motorbike.

Well, then, LadyIsabella, let's scrap them both and find that happy medium!

Or a cheeful psychic. I'm not that bothered either way.

::has been drinking, it's true::

ARGH! Cheerful psychic!

::blew the joke::

I'm a driver (a careful considerate driver who always checks for bikes) but motorcyclists terrify me.

I live on a road that's very popular with bikers, a long windy bendy scenic road down a river valley. There's been three bikers killed on it in the last few years. Every one of them was involved in a collision with a car yet in each case the driver of the car has not been held responsible. The bikers were overtaking or going too fast on bends, and therefore on the wrong side of the road, in each collision.

I am genuinely scared of being the car driver in an accident like that. I would be devastated to be involved and also I'd be fucking furious that someone had felt their need for speed and thrills and fun had caused that devastation. I've been driving down there often enough and been overtaken in utterly twattish places by bikers, and also had to slow down as I've come round a bend to find one on the wrong side of the road as they whizz past the bus or bin van or whatever (and I don't drive at a silly speed down that road due to aforementioned bendy windiness!)

I think everyone should just chill the fuck out, drive carefully and considerately and SAFELY and give a bit of thought to everyone else that is on the road. And if you want to zoom about dangerously fast for thrills then go to a racetrack or on the dodgems or something.

We could also assume that all of that 24% ran into the road infront of something.
Clearly this is not true by any stretch of the imagination.

But it's the same assumption that all bikers are twats that ride too fast and are killing themselves.

Noone needs to ski, or abseil, or mountain climb either.

Or cycle.

gosh noone "needs" to drive a car either.

Can we ban pushchairs too? because some of those drivers are lethal. And mobility scooters? (Old man near me goes to the local pub on his, and irratically drives it home when he'd pissed out of his face half cut)

Frustrated - For me, it's that a motorbike will not protect you in a collision, that's why there are so many motorbike related fatalities and that's why I think they are inherently unroadworthy and unsafe.

As my biker husband says, there are two types of bikers. The speed demons who take big risks and then there are the cautious, normal ones. DH is very cautious and hyper aware of everything around him because he knows how easy accidents happen and how often cars don't seem to see him. He's had some near misses. Car drivers just not paying attention. When I'm on the back I see the things people do. The texting, calling, some people seem to treat their car like it's their livingroom. Smoke, drink a cup of tea, do their make up, make a call... All distractions from the road. BUT not all drivers are like that. There are ones who do that and ones who are perfectly good drivers.

Get the fannies off the road who can't drive properly. Would solve a few problems :)