Oh, what a hard life I live!
As part of the B-Safe initiative being led by North Yorkshire, the TRL have rigged a Fireblade up with cameras and data logging equipment. The idea is to record and analyse the issues faced by bikers by other motorists.
And I'm one of the participants. Quite simply, I've been handed the keys to said motorcycle and told "You've got a month, go have fun!"
Hopefully the data that I (and others before me) generate will go some way to reducing the accident rates for bikes and could possibly even lead to alterations in the car driving test.
Good luck with that one Geoff, I'm not sure how data can reduce accident rates but any update to other road users awareness is a good thing for bikers.
I bet you'll have plenty of fun miles doing that one Geoff, and I do hope some usefull results come from it, but its suprising that your higher-ups didn't think of making you do it in winter! Although, I think a pair of forward firing AK-47's would be more likely to keep most idiot car/van drivers more alert, at least make em look out for us, and think more. (Dare I risk pulling out in front of this bike,.. he could just be armed with more than a two-fingered salute)!
This has been going on quite a while, I did some work for an unnamed gummint dept at MIRA who said the bike was operating around the Bristol area then ( June last year) Nice to see some people do actually have concerns about our hazzards. Nice one froggie.
One Fireblade, one month and fifteen hundred miles later ...
The 'blade goes back tomorrow. Some men are coming in a van to take it away from me. Given that they know exactly where I've been all month, how I've been riding and how fast I've been going, I'm hoping there isn't a second van for me!
(I'm never going to post on this forum or any other what speeds I have done on this bike as it could be highly self incriminating!)
Just got off the phone to the guy managing the exercise who says I've given them lots of very interesting data, including wheel slip on new surfacing, the issues faced by bikers by poor surfacing generally, problems caused by drivers not being observant enough where bikes are concerned (like we didn't know that already lol!) and even a couple of incidents showing how motorists can try and force a bike out of the way.
He was particularly interested in seeing the data and vids I'd produced recently showing group riding. Their thoughts regarding this was that based upon the data they now have, the way bikes are generally ridden, although not totally legal at times (ahem), is not considered dangerous. Which, he said, confirms that dangerous bikers are thankfully, in the minority. I did point out that the information he had was from a RoSPA ride out and as such may a little artificial, but he still thought it was very good data.
The data will now be properly analysed and the results sent to local authorities and other bodies around the country and should bring some changes to such matters as making motorists more aware of bikes, surfacing design and possibly in the longer term, improvements to the bike test and car test.
If all it does is proves to all the highway engineers around the country the dangers of stone mastic asphalt, then I'll be very happy.
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