Concern over rise on motorcycle casualties

29 March 2016

It is not just in Britain that there is increased concern over motorcycle casualties. In Australia, more than a third of those who've died on Victorian roads in 2016 have been motorcyclists. Seventeen riders have died this year, which is double that of the corresponding period in 2015.

In a week when UK' launched its latest Think Campaign aimed at motorcycliste Road Safety GB North East, published its figures which show that between 2011 and 2015, 52 bikers were killed and 771 seriously injured. They also reveal that in 2015 there was a 13% rise in ‘the most serious accidents’, with 15 people killed. Stats also show that motorcyclists are 38 times more likely to be killed in a road collision than car drivers. Its new campaign is welcome.

THINK! too has launched its 2016 motorcycle campaign in a bid to improve the safety of the ‘most at-risk user group’ on Britain’s roads. The campaign will run between March and September and will be social media driven. Its core target audience is ‘male hobbyist’ riders aged 30-59 years. The campaign will run from the THINK! BIKER Facebook page and was launched with a series of promoted Facebook posts over the Easter weekend.

Around one in six deaths that occurs on the road in Europe and Brazil involves a motorcyclist — in India and China, that figure is even higher. What’s more, according to the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), the risk of a motorcyclist having a fatal accident is 20 times greater than for a car driver traveling the same route.

ABS  The antilock braking system for motorcycles can provide significantly more safety than education alone. Numerous scientific studies have shown that ABS is the system that gives motorcycles an enormous boost in terms of safety. A study by the Swedish Road Administration "Vägverket" presented in October 2009 confirmed that ABS can prevent 38% of all accidents resulting in physical injury, and 48% of all serious and fatal accidents.