Government statistics, announced as the biking season came to an end, delivered good news to the industry as they revealed the number of motorcycle user casualties on British roads is continuing to fall, despite continued growth in motorcycling overall. The number of motorcyclists killed in 2005 fell by 3% to 569 and at the same time traffic rose by 5%. This follows on from the improvement seen in 2004 and indicates that recent initiatives to raise other road-users’ awareness of motorcycles and further improve riders’ skills are bearing fruit.

The industry participates in a number of safety initiatives and is working in partnership with many agencies including the Institute of Highways Incorporated Engineers (IHiE), Department for Transport (DfT), Driving Standards Agency (DSA), the police, schools and with other bodies across Europe including ACEM.

LINKS

The youth project “LINKS – connecting Citizenship and Road User Education” was launched in May at the “Proud To Be Involved” conference organised by Transport for London. The educational pack has since been distributed to around 5,000 schools and youth organisations in the UK. Sponsored by GoSkills, “LINKS” is a comprehensive pack that has been produced to help teachers, youth workers and anyone involved in education inform young people about road safety issues.

The Citizenship pack is linked to the Key Stage 4 syllabus, which has 12 individual units on topics as diverse as planning a community event to crime. The pack contains a guide for teachers/ tutors and a toolkit of activities, puzzles, articles of interest, web links and assessments and offers a unique opportunity to discover the various elements about road use in assorted contexts.

Europe and motorcycle safety

Increasing awareness of the role of the highway itself in vehicle accidents prompted the European Commission to consult on a possible roads infrastructure directive. The directive would introduce benchmark safety standards in the design and construction of roads and road furniture (barriers, signs, and so on).

The Commission is aiming to create a directive which will introduce a set of guidelines covering various road infrastructure aspects, which EU member states can implement in a flexible fashion, according to local conditions and national considerations. For a number of years MCI has highlighted how poor road design and maintenance can have a strong impact on rider safety. In addition to working with the Institute of Highways Incorporated Engineers on the publication of their “Guidelines for Motorcycling”, MCI successfully persuaded the government to include infrastructure aspects in the government’s Strategy for Motorcycling. In addition, MCI, along with other European partners, launched “Guidelines for PTW Safer Road Design” in Europe at the Intertraffic Conference in Amsterdam earlier this year. See www.acembike.org for further information.

MCI staff at Intertraffic Conference

Eugene Daams ACEM handover to IRF IN April 2006

BikeSafe

BikeSafe at Ride to Work Day event

The MCI has supported BikeSafe for the last three years and has helped it with funding, publicity and political lobbying to enable it to become an independent, selffunding operation. It now has two full-time police officers managing the scheme and has rolled out a national strategy across the UK to help create continuity so that riders should follow the same syllabus wherever they train. A new DVD was launched at the NEC Bike Show, and it will be incorporated into the BikeSafe assessment. The DVD has been produced with funding from the Department for Transport and uses advanced computer graphics to demonstrate riding techniques and accident avoidance. The DVD will be used to illustrate some of the dangers on the road and how to reduce risk. Topics covered include cornering, group riding, junctions, filtering and overtaking.

Earlier in the year BikeSafe also supported Ride to Work Day and provided the MCI staff and board members with an assessment which was well-received and very educational to even the most experienced riders.

Prince Michael Road Safety Awards

The motorcycling award, sponsored by the Motor Cycle Industry Association, has been given to the organisation that demonstrated innovative and effective ways of reducing motorcycle casualties.

“A biker’s safety depends on their ability to take and use information”

The “Where You Look Is Where You Go” (WYLIWYG) initiative, created by Buckinghamshire’s Casualty Reduction Team, recognised that single vehicles losing control on rural roads accounted for the largest number of crashes, so set out to solve the problem of these crashes, mainly on left-hand bends. The WYLIWYG scheme places marker posts further round the bend to the point where the “vanishing” point starts moving away from the biker’s view, which is often into the straight. In addition, the posts are placed closer together so that they keep appearing into the rider’s view, focusing on a point around the bend allowing the rider to negotiate the hazard safely.

This fresh approach to the treatment of rural bends has proven to be successful in Buckinghamshire and it is an initiative that can easily be replicated in all regions across the UK and can also be effective in non-rural settings. The MCI is delighted to give this award to a concept that is relatively inexpensive and can have significant results which can be easily replicated by others and in a range of locations. A biker’s safety depends on their ability to take and use information so it is important that highway authorities provide the right information in the right place, and this is an inspiring step towards achieving that nationwide.

And finally …

The final accolade came at the end of the year when it was announced that the MCIA had been awarded a prestigious Prince Michael Road Safety Award for its on-going commitment to safety initiatives. Partnership working, independent projects, media campaigns, political activity have all contributed to a multi-pronged approach to safety and reducing motorcycle casualties and the MCI will continue to drive forward its safety strategy to build upon the current successes.

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