What’s the ride answer? Australia needs to take a more integrated approach to motorcycle safety.
Keywords: Motorcycles and Scooters
ACRS
Submission Date: 2015 Conference: ARSC
Abstract
Australia should take a more integrated approach to motorcycle safety if the desired reduction in serious casualty crashes is to be achieved. Some great progress has been made with motorcycle safety initiatives in different jurisdictions, but things could be far better coordinated. One example is with marketing. In the digital age, state-based road safety campaigns become lost in the blur on social media._x000D_
Motorcycle use continues to grow in popularity, but in many policy areas there remains a reluctance to embrace motorcycle transport or do anything that might be seen as ‘encouraging’ motorcycle use._x000D_
As sound as the Safe System approach might generally be, since for motorcycle and scooter riders there are challenges and limitations in terms of making infrastructure more forgiving and vehicles safer, there perhaps needs to be greater focus on ‘safer road users’ when it comes to these vehicle types. Riders are far better off avoiding crashes altogether than relying on the ‘system’ to minimise injuries._x000D_
Rider education is a key to making riders safer road users. With rider training, each jurisdiction is reviewing and producing updated models, each with the belief they have the ‘best’ system._x000D_
The Australian Motorcycle Council (AMC) recommends a national approach to rider training, and one that should seek direct input from the motorcycle training industry, as recommended by the now-defunct Australian Government Motorcycle Safety Consultative Committee (MSCC) in 2010._x000D_
This presentation will highlight some good achievements, but also calls on governments to work more closely on motorcycle safety._x000D_