Review of new Road Safety Strategy – regarding motorcycles.

Good to see data analytics being promoted, and the establishment of a new Road Safety Investigation Branch, who hopefully will be looking at ‘black box’ data.

Great to see training and testing being reviewed. Hopefully emergency braking from 60 mph will be included. According to DVSA figures it currently takes 24 years for 80% of riders to become competent, so room for improvement? Young riders are at very high risk.

It would be good to see technology address reaction times with auto closing or trigger throttles (and heel and toeing for cars etc). Could reduce impact speeds by 10-20 mph.

Good to see a Road Policing Review. Enforcement is next to non-existent so good to see this being addressed. Maybe using traffic cameras to warn drivers or riders of their behaviour?

Sad to see E-Scooters still being considered after >50 deaths and probably >1,000 serious injuries. 80% were avoidable as they are 5 x more hazardous than any other form of transport (TRL and WMG reports). 

No recognition of young rider issues. 40% of fatalities <19 are underage, more won’t have a licence. Very steep learning curve.

National Guidelines and Lifelong Learning welcomed, and supporting THINK!

Interesting to see new Safety Performance Indicators (SPIs), however the obsession with ‘speeding’ continues, despite it being only a factor in 16% of collisions.

Speeding appears twice, as it’s an overall SPI as well as being specific to motorcycles.

‘Dangerous riding/driving’ is completely missing, despite being a recorded factor in 33% of collisions, twice as high as speeding.

The government’s current ‘hidden strategy’ for motorcycles is currently outlined on National Highway’s BikeTrek website, having employed unlicensed trainers from an unapproved company to encourage ‘Track to Road  – Push your Performance’ riding (from their advertising), in flagrant breach of current official advice from the DVSA and NPCC via Roadcraft.

Hopefully this will now be taken down, commonsense will prevail, and the licensing of all commercial motorcycle trainers enforced to stop these and ‘emergency response’ and ‘pursuit’ behaviours from being continually passed on to the public.