Motorcycle route safety review: Inner Melbourne
Keywords: Engineering
ARSRPE
Submission Date: 2013
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Abstract
The Victorian “arrive alive!” Motorcycle Safety Strategy (2002 – 2007) aimed to reduce motorcycle rider and pillion passenger deaths and injuries. Crash data analysis identified an issue with road safety for motorcyclists, with implications for infrastructure, within the (then) RoadSafe Inner Melbourne Community Road Safety Council (RSIMCRSC) boundaries, which encompasses the Cities of Melbourne, Port Phillip and Yarra. In response, RSIMCRSC instigated audits seeking to identify hazards on the ten routes with the highest rider and pillion serious injuries and deaths. The routes audited encompassed significant lengths of arterial roads. The RSIMCRSC motorcycle safety subcommittee managed the project. The convenor is a community representative and an experienced motorcyclist. An experienced motorcyclist on a motorbike conducted the audits. The audits, which include video footage, photos, crash data, key issues and hazards, recommended remedial treatments and changes to maintenance programs. Vicroads and the three local councils accepted and implemented most of the recommendations. In 2011 a Vicroads analysis of ten years of crash data (before and after the audits) identified for the ten routes:
· an 11 per cent reduction in rider and pillion serious injury crashes, contrasting to a 20 per cent increase across the three local government areas, and metropolitan Melbourne, and
· an 85 per cent reduction in rider and pillion fatalities, contrasting to a 25 per cent reduction in the three local government areas, and an eight per cent reduction for Metropolitan Melbourne.
The development of a communication about generic hazards for motorcyclists in the inner Melbourne area is being finalised.