PERTHSHIRE BIKERS FORUM :: View topic

Big Err · Club Racer Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 20 Location: Kinross

Sad news, two in one week in Fife.

Take care out there.

netwarrior · Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 5:08 pm Post subject: Re: Biker Fatalities

Big Err wrote:

Sad news, two in one week in Fife.

Take care out there.

Yes, it's always sad to hear this news. Here's a link I lifted from DBF relating to the above which I found very informative (credited to The Courier):

Cameras move to save bikers’ lives
By Liz Fowler

Speed cameras operating on roads across northern Scotland are set to be modified in a bid to save the lives of motorcyclists by forcing them to cut their speed.

The Northern Safety Camera Partnership and North East Safety Camera Partnership (NESCAMP) have joined forces to invest in state of the art technology which will allow them to detect motorcyclists driving over the speed limit.

The Commander system will work alongside the existing mobile cameras to provide 360 degree vision around the safety camera unit.

The system is designed to assist in the identification of motorcycle offenders by recording images when the bike passes the camera van.

Over the last two years (2005 and 2006), across Highlands and Grampian, collisions involving motorcyclists have resulted in 490 casualties, including 31 fatalities.

Across Scotland, over the same time period, the total number of biker casualties was 2070, including 75 fatalities.

Inspector Derrick Cronie, Northern Safety Camera Partnership manager, said, “Each year we welcome thousands of bikers to this area who come to enjoy the freedom of our open roads.

“This new equipment will help ensure their trip is a safe one.

“What we want is for bikers to keep within the speed limit and drive safely.

“If we can reduce the number of collisions involving motorcyclists it will go a long way to reducing the grief and suffering caused by injuries and fatalities on our roads.”

Chris Hume, NESCAMP manager, added, “This is about a relatively small minority of motorcyclists that seem to think speed limits do not apply to them, and as a result put lives at risk and do a disservice to the majority of riders that act responsibly.

“This new equipment will help us to put irresponsible riders off the roads and make them safer for all of us.”

The aim of the Scottish safety camera programme is to promote safer driving and help reduce the number of people killed or injured on roads by changing driver behaviour and by ensuring that motorists are aware of the dangers of excessive and inappropriate speeds.

For safer riding, motorcyclists are urged to be aware of the bends and slow down before going into them to give more room for manoeuvring, to avoid snap overtaking decisions, and be aware of road surface hazards and allow time and space to see what lies ahead.

Research has found many drivers have difficulty judging the speed of a bike and riders are also urged to remember that in the event of a collision they are likely to come off worst.

Reference:

ninja636; (2007); Today's Courier, Speed Camera's [online]; Available from:

Only registered users can see links on this forum!
Register or Login on forum!

DBF; (Accessed 20/05/2007)

_________________
'Never put your bike anywhere that your brain hasn't been 5 seconds before!' (

Big Err · Club Racer Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 20 Location: Kinross

Not sure if speed had anything to do with either crash, so would not comment on causes until I knew for sure.

netwarrior · Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 5:41 pm Post subject:

Big Err wrote:

Not sure if speed had anything to do with either crash, so would not comment on causes until I knew for sure.

No reference intended relating to speeding. It was simply the statistics that drew my attention to the aforementioned post. A sad state of affairs indeed. Crying or Very sad

In fact according to Deputy Chief Constable Clive Wolfendale of North Wales Police "Most motor bike collisions in rural areas involve rider error; often poor technique or risk taking". (Wolfendale,C, 2007, Blog)

Regarding road safety more locally you'll all no doubt be aware of:

Only registered users can see links on this forum!
Register or Login on forum!

Useful update to the above via DBF:

Only registered users can see links on this forum!
Register or Login on forum!

Reference:

Wolfendale,C; (2007); Motorcycle News [online]; Available from:

Only registered users can see links on this forum!
Register or Login on forum!

North Wales Police; (Accessed 20/05/2007)

_________________
'Never put your bike anywhere that your brain hasn't been 5 seconds before!' (

F41NXS · Moto GP Champion Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 536

Cameras move to save bikers’ lives
By Liz Fowler

what can we say!

welcome to the U.K. (the nanny state)

perhaps its more to do with coining in more cash, rather than the save the biker crap

or perhaps its just my negative attitude to the boys in blue, or should i say girls? boys& girls pehaps

anyway thats it from me, im outa here

netwarrior

F41NXS wrote:

Cameras move to save bikers’ lives
By Liz Fowler

perhaps its more to do with coining in more cash, rather than the save the biker crap

For once I agree with you F41NXS. I think our governement is becoming excessive about finding new and novel ways of generating income. Shocked

It seems individuals who blatantly disregard the law which involves considerable expense or inconvience to others walk away without bearing the financial penalties of those actions while the law abiding citizen who by and large abides by the law becomes an easy 'soft' target for these schemes. Confused

Not that I'm condoning speeding in any way, shape or form. Motorcylists in particular seem to think they are immune from adhering to speed limits. Rolling Eyes

In Holland, where they've taken a slightly different approach to speeding in built up areas by establishing physical barriers to speeding in built up areas (such as chicanes and sleeping policemen etc.) they have reduced urban road traffic accidents to practically zero. Smile

I read also in 'Advanced Driving' (Spring 2007) a letter from an ex-patriot brit who returned to the UK for the first time recently after 10 years living in Spain and was horrified to see speed cameras everywhere. It struck him immediately just how much of a blight they were on the coutryside. Sad

He wrote that in Mallorca where he lives they'd never tollerate spoiling the natural beauty of the countryside by sticking cameras everywhere like that. Instead they rely on high profile policing with Police cars and motorcycles on constant patrol around main routes utilising stop checks and radar detection. The result is much fewer motorists driving without insurance, under the influence of alchohol, less speeding and a reduction in ant-social driving practices such as tailgating etc. 8-)

It's interesting though that two members of the forum picked up on the speeding implications of that article (admittedly it is about the introduction of speed cameras that revole 360 degrees to catch motorcyclists speeding) while my main motivation for posting it was for the statistical information on the amount of riders killed over the last two years. Sad

Next time I'll extrapolate. Rolling Eyes

I read somewhere recently that a motorcylist was fined for giving a speed camera in his area 'the finger'. Unfortunately, the camera identified that he was speeding and the Police traced him through running a check on the type and make of bike registered in the area. Technically he was fined for speeding of course but it's likely that his actions sparked off this massive 'manhunt' to locate him! Rolling Eyes

I'm sure though that I also read that the practice of forcing speeding offenders issued photographic evidence of speeding offences to name the driver or suffer prosecution themselves (for a 'crime' they might not have even 'committed'!!!!!!!!!!) has gone all the way to Starsburg on a human rights issue so the results on that will be interesting indeed! Smile

Sadly though it was announced a further two bikers ahve been killed over the last few days in Aberdeenshire. One at the weekend and the other on Monday morning (who hit a deer apparently) so the appalling statistics continue. Crying or Very sad

_________________
'Never put your bike anywhere that your brain hasn't been 5 seconds before!' (

Big Err · Club Racer Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 20 Location: Kinross

netwarrior wrote:

I read also in 'Advanced Driving' (Spring 2007) a letter from an ex-patriot brit who returned to the UK for the first time recently after 10 years living in Spain and was horrified to see speed cameras everywhere. It struck him immediately just how much of a blight they were on the coutryside. Sad

If you think its bad here, take a trip to Staffs in England!

Sticking my neck out a bit here... but.... I reckon if I was given the budget used to install all the Cameras in Staffs for Crash Reduction works, I could achieved the same or better crash reduction stats than the cameras are doing. Shocked

netwarrior

Big Err wrote:

If you think its bad here, take a trip to Staffs in England!

Sticking my neck out a bit here... but.... I reckon if I was given the budget used to install all the Cameras in Staffs for Crash Reduction works, I could achieved the same or better crash reduction stats than the cameras are doing. Shocked

Funny you should mention that but I received an e-mail from one of the guys on the GS Forum (see:

Only registered users can see links on this forum!
Register or Login on forum!

who's from Notts. He tells me they have cameras in place down there to catch motorcyclists filtering. If caught they are fined, so he's forced to sit in petrol fumes in traffic every evening on the way home from work! Shocked

_________________
'Never put your bike anywhere that your brain hasn't been 5 seconds before!' (

thumper · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 5:10 pm Post subject:

filtering is not illeagal , but if something goes wrong then the biker IS at fault

sad news , thoughts with the families

_________________
what if the ho-ki-co-ki is what its all about???

netwarrior · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 10:26 pm Post subject:

thumper wrote:

filtering is not illeagal , but if something goes wrong then the biker IS at fault

According to Lee, if you are caught on camera in Nottingham filtering you get a fixed penalty for your trouble. Confused

Notts were one of the first local authorities to install average speed cameras and have installed night vision cameras to boot. Shocked

_________________
'Never put your bike anywhere that your brain hasn't been 5 seconds before!' (

TINBITS · Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 3:16 pm Post subject:

Canada Here I come,
Since the end of WW2 ,successive Governments have ground our once Righteously proud nation, into the Mire.and each one has tried it's best to outballsup the last , and now we have a nationalist assembly God help us all.
Cameras are gonna be the least of our worries..
re: staffs. I was in stafford a couple o years back, and on the wolverhampton rd there were four in the space of a mile and a half, and the one outside the hotel went off about every fifteen seconds.The barman commented that there had been an article about how much it had raised in the local Newsletter. it caught everyone. so as soon as i get the Visa/work permit..I'm offski. it's too depressing here ,and my stress meter is rising with every newscast Pissed off

_________________
JUST SHOW ME THE DAMMNED CONTROLS AND DIAL 999

netwarrior · Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 2:47 pm Post subject:

TINBITS wrote:

Canada Here I come,
Cameras are gonna be the least of our worries..
re: staffs. I was in stafford a couple o years back, and on the wolverhampton rd there were four in the space of a mile and a half, and the one outside the hotel went off about every fifteen seconds.The barman commented that there had been an article about how much it had raised in the local Newsletter. it caught everyone. so as soon as i get the Visa/work permit..I'm offski. it's too depressing here ,and my stress meter is rising with every newscast Pissed off

One of the guys on the GS forum (who spent aroud 25 years as a motorcycle cop before becoming a motorcycle tour guide) told me about an incident near a local cafe close to where he lives.

He was 'ambushed' close to a national speed limit applies sign by road traffic cops mounting a mobile radar patrol. In a local cafe where these cops congregrate he was told by locals that the cops are regularly overheard discussing the 'record' for the number of fixed penalties given out there at that particular 'ambush' site. Rolling Eyes

Seems the focus has moved from road safety to 'easy' targets with the emphasis on hitting performance quotas rather than catching dangerous drivers/riders. Pissed off

Could I suggest that a similar 'ambush' site is at the chicken factory enterance in Coupar Angus. Conveniently close also to the National Speed limit applies sign. Confused

Technically, you are not supposed to increase speed until you pass this sign.

I got similarly 'ambushed' there a few years back when the bypass just opened. There were no road signs indicating speed from the Forfar approach. Confused

After clearing the pedestrian crossing I assumed the speed limit would be around 40 - 50 mph and was sitting at 46mph when the 'ambush' was initiated. Pissed off

Thing was, the cops involved mut have redesigned the laws of physics by being able to bend light waves because they were able not only to 'ambush' me but also the car in front. New semi-automatic radar detector - measures the speed of two vehicles to a fixed location instead of one Shocked

).

I wrote and complained of course but it fell on the usual deaf ears. Next time I visited the area the council had cultivated new maximum speed limit signs and painted the road surface. Shocked

_________________
'Never put your bike anywhere that your brain hasn't been 5 seconds before!' (