Accident Study

.... on TF1 last night, and many of the findings reproduced in French here..

url:http://www.moto-net.com/p_article.php?RefArticle=662

In brief:

* 50% of accidents car-bike are the fault of the driver, 37% are
the fault of the biker. In 70% of cases where the driver is at fault, it's
because he 'didn't see' the bike.

* speed is found to be an 'aggravating factor' when the biker falls, due to
increased severity of injuries, but in 75% of accidents, the rider was
actually travelling at _less_than_ 50 km/h at the moment of impact, and in
1.5% of cases, the bike was in fact stationary.

* In 71.2% of cases, the rider tried to avoid the obstacle in the seconds
before impact, but 32% of them failed, and lost control.

* 72.3% of accidents occur in town, compared to 24.9 in the countryside,
and 2.8 in 'other' zones. Taken overall, bikes hit cars in 60% of
the accidents, the road in 9% of cases, a truck, van or bus in 8.4% of
cases, a fixed objet in 8% of cases, and another two-wheeled vehicle in
6.9%.

* the famous 'guillotine' crash barriers have caused injuries to
motorcyclists in 6% of accidents.

* no category of two-wheeler is over-represented. Scooters account for 354
of the accidents, which isn't out of proportion to their 'risk factor'
(whatever the **** that is). Sports bikes account for 137 accidents for a
risk factor of 126. Sports-tourers (yeah !) are under-represented, with 76
accidents for a risk factor or 110.

* engine size is found to have little impact (no pun intended) on accident
rates. <50cc are slightly over-represented, but > 750cc < 1000cc have 8.7%
for a risk factor or 11.6%, and >1000cc are even less likely to be in
accidents, with 6.3% for 9.5%.

Voilà.

 

<snip>

Who cares?

And it's all bollocks anyway.

 

and here:

http://www.therockalltimes.co.uk/2004/11/29/racing-ring.pub.html

 

Similar figures to here I believe - And yet, under the new suggestions/laws,
you can do 40mph+ in a 30 without getting in too much trouble.

Go above 60 in a 60, or 70 in a 70 though and you're immediately liable for
a fine.

Barmy.

 

It is commonly accepted that 64.8% of all statistics are made up on the
spot, this does not include all those statistics that may be made up to
prove any particular point that a survey is trying to prove. There are lies,
there are damned lies, and then there are statistics. There are also
statistics that only exist when jernalists sit around a table trying to
think up ways of padding out the column inches that remain barren even after
a liquid lunch.

The following are the only true statements you will ever come across in your
life :

1. You are born.
2. You will die.
3. Flat roofs leak.

Everything else is bollox.

 

Very interesting.

I rode out this afternoon towards a small airstrip called 'Toussous-le-
Noble' near Versailles, and there's a long straight which goes past the
town of 'Haut-Buc', and which has a central reservation for cars coming off
the road, and cars joining.

I was buying a sandwich, and on the way out, I nailed it along that
straight, and as I approached the Buc cut-off, a small white van came
towards me, indicating left, i.e. to turn across my path. Imagine if you
will your diarist wrinkling his nose in a charming, gallic sort of 'wot ees
'appenin' 'ere ?', and thinking to himself, that ****'s going to SMIDSY me.

So I close the throttle, and lightly press my rear brake, more to activate
my brake light than to slow down, as there were cars behind me. Sure
enough matey pulls across in front of me, oblivious to the huge ****-off
BMW bearing down upon him.

However, I wonder about drivers who use an 'A piller' to say, 'I didn't see
him'. Imagine, eh ? Biker runs down granny, oh mister policeman, it's not
my fault: my visor had a sheet of cardboard on its inner surface, and I
couldn't see the old bint ...

Where do cunts get off saying, 'I didn't see you' ? If you don't see, you
don't fucking move, end of bloody story. If blind people made a habit of
sprinting down the centre of the Champs-Elysées, whose fault would the say
it was when they got killed ? Their own, of course. Car drivers only do
it because they've got a more than even chance, thanks to the bodywork of
the car, of walking away unhurt. Bikers rarely do it, because their bodies
_are_ the bodywork, and it hurts if you fall.

I've noticed, as a pedestrian, that if a set of traffic lights goes to red,
and the only other 'user' of the particular junction where they're situated
is the pedestrian, then cars will merrily go through on the red. When
there are cars approaching from the traditionally 'weak' angles of a car,
i.e. the sides, then drivers are much more likely to stop. I'd love to
discount this (admittedly non-empirical) evidence as not being proof that
car drivers are selfish twats ... but I have great difficulty in doing so.

Now pass me that Beaujoulais Nouveau ...

 

Versailles rocks, particularly:

The Sunday market.
The big lake with the old house by it and the terrapins in it.

--
Dan L (Oldbloke)
My bike 1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr
M'boy's bike 2003 Honda NSR125R
Spare Bike 1990 Suzuki TS50X
BOTAFOT #140, DIAABTCOD #26, BOMB#18 (slow)

 

Quite funny though. Watching someone so inept rail against his own
stupidity.

 

I believe there's some place where "I didn't see him" is tantamount to
pleading guilty to Due Care.

Actually, it's a rather pleasant Saumur-Champigny, and there's none left.

 

Apologies, it was due to the aforementioned wine box.

This morning I are mostly being very quiet and consuming black coffee.

--
Dan L (Oldbloke)
My bike 1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr
M'boy's bike 2003 Honda NSR125R
Spare Bike 1990 Suzuki TS50X
BOTAFOT #140, DIAABTCOD #26, BOMB#18 (slow)

 

I'd say it was more the fault of his newsreader.

 

<VVBG>

 

Haven't been out there on a Sunday for _at_least_ a decade. More's the
pity, as it's nice biking roads aroundn that way.

 

Hmm, lots of cobbles in town, IIRC.

--
Dan L (Oldbloke)
My bike 1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr
M'boy's bike 2003 Honda NSR125R
Spare Bike 1990 Suzuki TS50X
BOTAFOT #140, DIAABTCOD #26, BOMB#18 (slow)

 

Cobbles aren't as dangerous as idiots like Ace, or newbies like Cab like to
claim.

The place de la Concorde is cobbled only, and despite my crossing it every
morning and every evening, in all weathers and all conditions, and despite
Korean and English tourists crossing like twats in the dark, wearing dark
clothing, and outwith zebra crossings, I still derive pleasure from it.

 

Hmm, do you enjoy it in the same way as a housewife "enjoys" the washing
machine on spin cycle?

--
Dan L (Oldbloke)
My bike 1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr
M'boy's bike 2003 Honda NSR125R
Spare Bike 1990 Suzuki TS50X
BOTAFOT #140, DIAABTCOD #26, BOMB#18 (slow)

 

More like the bloke who's givin' 'er one

<aside: was that suffuciently cliquish ?>

 

How enjoyable is it to give someone a washing machine?

 

I am now a convert of flat roofs not leaking but only if you use sheets
of EPDM.
(ETHYLENE PROPYLENE DIENE MONOMERS)

This stuff is unbelievable. Get the thickest grade you can afford.
Get the supplier to prefabricate the shape.

I've used these guys and they are very, very good/helpful etc.

http://www.avenirroofing.co.uk

When I spoke to the Firestone guys in the states when I was researching
what to cover my upper terrace at Peafield Wood it went like this:

Me: How long will it last?
FS: Where are you?
Me :In a valley in Kent south east England.
FS: Well.........When the next ice age sweeps over south east England
and a glacier is grinding the bricks of your house into grit, in the
middle will be a large sheet of EPDM off of your terrace still in one
bit.

Trust me on this one!

 

"There is no clique"

--
Dan L (Oldbloke)
My bike 1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr
M'boy's bike 2003 Honda NSR125R
Spare Bike 1990 Suzuki TS50X
BOTAFOT #140, DIAABTCOD #26, BOMB#18 (slow)