It doesn’t always make a difference wearing a high vis. I’ve lost count on how many drivers that have pulled out in front of me wearing one.
Same old story. Its someone in a office with a bright idea that doesn’t know reality.
But I will definitely wear one if I’m not wearing anything non-reflective. But that’s defining freedom of choice.
I find it interesting how many people on this site seem to think that It's perfectly acceptable to force a bike rider not only to be responsible for his own style of riding but must also become responsibly for some fool in a cage who can't be bothered to open his eyes and actually look.
The fault is not the riders and I strongly object to anyone telling me to wear something to compensate for idiots.
On the protective clothing bit, which is what this topic started off about again I say make riders aware of the consequences of sliding down the tarmac and if after being made aware they chose to wear shorts and trainers then that is their choice in exactly the same way it is another riders choice to wrap themselves up in kevlar armour, a full face lid and riding boots.
Freedom of choice folks is what it's about not some people telling me that they know better than I do about what I should wear or how I should look. That's a very slippy path to go down and never ends well.
Saturday, July 2, 2011 - Brum Demo - against European interference in biking
Organiser: West Midlands MAG
Ride to protest against European proposals for
compulsory Day-Glo, compulsory ABS and anti-modification of motorcycles - Let Your Voice Be Heard!
Make a weekend of it at the Heart of England Bike Rally.
Location: Gather at Noon for 1pm start - 'Hare & Hounds', Lickey Road, Rednal B45 8UU
"and if after being made aware they chose to wear shorts and trainers then that is their choice"
And it doesn't matter if society has to pick up the £1.8M pound cost of their death because they weren't dressed appropriately!!!
All legal safety requirements, helmet law, seat belt law etc, are there, not to protect people from themselves, but to avoid the huge costs previously met by society created by deaths and/or serious injuries because of a particular causation factor.
Each serious injury RTA costs society approx £200k and each death £1.8M (according to 2009 stats) and all road safety improvements, whether physical or legislative are always based on a cost benefit ratio analysis.
So if the introduction of the helmet law (for example) cost say £1.5M, then it would only have to save one life to be of benefit to society. As it happens, research in North Dakota in 1982 showed that a non-helmeted motorcyclist is around three times more likely to die in an accident than one wearing a helmet.
Following this, accident stats show that in 2009 there were 140 motorcyclists killed in the UK. However, based upon the ratio above, this suggests that there could have been up to 420 killed, had they not been wearing helmets.
And on that basis, it is possible that the helmet law saved society a shed load of money to the tune of half a billion pounds!! In 2009 alone!
So, should some things be left to personal choice. My opinion is that they should not.
If I apply your reasoning then lets close all the pubs because drink driving kills and injures more people than motor bikes and while we are at it ban fast foods and close the local chip shop because type 2 diabetes costs the NHS an unbelievable fortune and is preventable. etc etc ad nauseam.
You may not like the choices made by other people but they have the right to make them and you have the right to disagree with their choice but you have no right to say that your choices are better than theirs.
I'm with geoffb on this.MAG's continuing view of Fred Hill as a saint for going to jail for not wearing a lid is why MAG don't get any of my hard earned!
Sprint that is your choice, personally I applaud him for being willing to stand up for something he believed it and his willingness to pay the price for it. To the best of my knowledge MAG have not canonised him yet but there's time :)
A friend of mine is an agency staff nurse,or perhaps I should say was as she has no work due to the lack of money in the local NHS trusts-one RTA cost would keep 5 or 6 highly qualified nurses in full time employment.Do the math,as the Yanks say....
Oh god not that argument again. If you work it on cost then ban all alcohol. Look at what we could save on NHS costs then and as a nice byproduct the fire service wouldn't have to cut as many cars up at stupid o'clock in the morning and stick the bits into body bags
To quote your own words back at you "Do the Maths"
"then lets close all the pubs because drink driving kills"
lol!! Talk about ridiculous argument! Made me laugh though. That certainly isn't my reasoning at all!! People in pubs don't cause drink driving, it's coming out of the pubs (or their houses after a few more often nowadays) and getting in their cars that causes drink driving!
If I was to adopt your suggestion of my reasoning Gloom, then we'd suggest banning the installation of doors in all new houses because of those people getting injured for being too stupid to open them lol!
" you have the right to disagree with their choice but you have no right to say that your choices are better than theirs"
Erm ... surely I do? Otherwise I wouldn't make a different choice? You're suggesting that if I feel my choice is a better one, then I have no right to say this? Well, yes actually I do lol! Freedom of speech and all that lol!
You have every right to put your point of view but no you have no right to say your view is better than someone who has a different view point and it was you who raised the financial cost as an argument to support your point of view I merely took it to it's logical conclusion. And
on that basis, it is possible that the helmet law saved society a shed
load of money to the tune of half a billion pounds!! In 2009 alone!
This is about a persons right to make their own choices and that IMHO is priceless.
Thats allright then.Next time I get cut up on the road by an arse in a Merc C220CDI (is it just me or is it always Merc C220's involved with poor driving?) with its driver on the phone I can think well its his personal choice to concentrate on the phone rather than on the road!
So you're suggesting that the cost benefit analysis would demonstrate that closing pubs would reduce deaths by drink driving??
Even if we ignore the huge levels of compensation that the government would have to pay out to the brewerys from the closure of all pubs or the billions it would cost to buy the pubs from landlords in the hope of then selling the land back to private developers, there is of course the vast sums of money lost on alcohol taxation each year.
And you think that the costs to society from the reduction in deaths by drink driving (380 people were killed in 2009 in drink driving accidents) would outweigh the costs above?
And there was me thinking any twat in a car who couldn't see my headlight is clearly going to see a high vis vest tucked down behind a fairing...................... (how much of a vest is really visible from the front?? Not a lot me thinks, even on a naked)
Actually no, I quite like to nip into my local for a beer or 3 or to listen to a decent band. My point which you seem to want to ignore is that if you reduce everything down to cost then the most stupid decisions can be justified.
They don't ban drinking they educate drivers not to do it and I've already said that driver education is the way forward here not forcing riders to wear day-glo fancy dress. I don't want legislation I want the right for all riders to make their own informed choices. Why should I or any other rider be legislated against in a effort to overcome the short comings of the guy in a car who doesn't look. He's the one in the wrong not me and yes I accept that in an argument with a car the rider will come off worst but that is true of all RTAs between a car and a bike and a choice you make when you get on one.
"My point which you seem to want to ignore is that if you reduce everything down to cost then the most stupid decisions can be justified."
You are right Gloom, but this is the society we live in I am afraid! Everything is driven by cost. If if wasn't then certainly smoking and perhaps even drinking would indeed be banned!
But the government make far too much money from these to ever ban them.
I agree that driver and rider education is indeed the ideal way forward but unfortunately some things prove to be such a common contributory factor to injuries that it makes economic sense to legislate accordingly. Yes, some people will be put out because they don"t want to have to wear their seat belt, helmet etc, but this is for the good of everyone else.
I don't want us all to be forced to wear hi vis either, as I've said before in this thread, or indeed full protective gear, because I feel this is legislation gone too far. I do agree entirely with helmet law and I would support legislation requiring bikers to wear all over gear (such wording as heavy cotton materials etc to cover the likes of denim, even though I rarely wear denim), but in so doing criminalising the wearing of t-shirts and shorts.
But there are other, far more justifiable arguments against the likes of hi vis than "I want to do what I want"! But this is invariably the argument that biker "action" groups use!
I know its been said before, but I stick my headlight on and my bike is bloody bright orange (it came that way )
I refuse to go any further than that. We have all had more than enough of our freedom of choice taken away. People should get more bike aware and stop bloody driving into us. Or more to the point, stop driving into me and then maybe I can continue enjoying something I did for more years than I care to mention
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