Incapable of interpreting statistics and unable to come up with sensible idea, the Queensland State government has flagged the idea of zero alcohol limit for Queensland's motorcyclists. Promoted as a response to that state's worrying road toll statistics for 2009, it is in fact more like a populist attack on a pretty much defenceless minority group - motorcyclists.
Motorcycle statistics are showing a rise over the last five years, but the numbers are far below the increase in motorcycle use. In other words, it’s like employing more people in your company and then complaining that the wage bill has risen.
Once you consider the full figures, it looks as if motorcycling is actually becoming safer. But it’s also looking as if the Queensland government would prefer to wipe motorcyclists off the map entirely – witness the nonsensical decision to require potential riders to have a car licence for a year before they can apply for a bike or scooter permit.
And they’re reviving the idea of radio tags for bikes, an invention George Orwell would have loved for his book 1984.
According to the Brisbane Murdoch paper, the Courier Mail: "Queensland Transport is investigating the benefits of a zero alcohol limit as part of its four-year motorcycle safety strategy, along with new technology to prevent bikes escaping speed camera detection.
"Radio Frequency Identification Devices are being developed to help overcome the problem of motorbikes not having a front registration plate by allowing bikes to be identified through other means.”
And it’s never really hard to find someone who hasn’t thought things through to make a comment, is it?
Also in the Courier Mail, the clearly confused Terry Walker of the United Motorcycle Council of Queensland said: "Make it zero tolerance on the road everywhere. But certainly we'd support a zero limit for bikers because you need to be as alert as possible when riding.”
And make motorcyclists wear yellow hats while you’re at it, Terry. And when they’re not on their bikes, make them ride in the back of the bus.
Mate, think before you comment: anything that discriminates against riders only makes it easier to target them.
Peter “The Bear” Thoeming
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According to the Queensland government 72 motorcyclist were killed in 2008 (March, 2009 road toll summary report produced by the Queensland Government) and using the past 5 years its an average of 52 per year. In 2008 there were 30 pedestrians killed on the road an on average its an average of 42 per year. If we include push bikes its actually 50 per year on average (not really any different to the 52 MC's) - perhaps bicyclists and pedestrians should also have a 0 BAC. Perhaps pedestrians should hold a car licence for a year before than can walk on the footpath. Or perhaps we can just get the cars to stop hitting them a swell.
In 2008 328 Queenslanders lost their life on the road, of these 235 (or 72%) were over 25. This are not young learner drivers so I'm a little confused on how more restrictions on learner drivers well help. It probably wont - it just easier to place restrictions on those people without licences (and in particular 17 year old that can't vote).
Our approach to MC road safety in Aus is very different to Europe. In Europe they have developed CE standards for motorcycle safety gear (jackets gloves etc) in Aus there we just can’t be bothered to do it. In the UK they go a little further. Take SHARP (sharp.direct.gov.uk) which rates MC helmets on safety between 1 and 5 stars. Presumably all the helmets meet min standard that the gov't requires (whatever the UK equivalent of the Australian standard is), yet some helmets rank poorly as 1 star while others have far better safety performance at 5 stars. Sharp believe that if riders were safer helmets that 50 lives a year could be saved. Considering Queensland kills 52 MC on average per year - it seems like a good idea to me for Queensland to help MC buy better helmets. This could be done by the Aus governments setting up a site that compares helmets like the SHARP site. Or all governments could reduce the price of the helmets by reducing taxes or even providing rebates for people with helmets over 5 years old.
Sorry for the rant but it seems that in Australia we try and reduce MC deaths by saying ban the bike; think that 52 people PA in Queensland alone (but we could save another 276 if we banned cars). Europe remembers that we have a choice in what we drive or ride and provide positive measures on road safety by giving us better standards or better information on which we can make a choice. It high time that the Australian governments got together to support motorcycling by providing more information, better standards for gear and by considering motorcyclist in road design and construction, and so on. After all we pay our taxes (I even pay taxes for the car as well).
We discussed this on the BikesAndScooters forum and the overwhelming response was that this should only be introduced if it applied to all road users. Perhaps if car drivers were double zero BAC they wouldn't hit bikers so much.
After all, are they not the next largest vehicle on the roads?
They are definately the most common...
This idea of forcing motorcyclists to have a zero BAC is discrimination.
If this was to come in, then the only ones not required to have a zero BAC would be car drivers yet cars are the vehicles most commonly involved in accidents! Work that out.
Although it is not Australian, if they bring this in, then I think it should be across the board.
Zero BAC for everyone. Cyclists and scooter pilots too.
I won't like it, but at least the rest of the comunity will get a slice of the crap we have to deal with, day in and day out, year after year.