Re: Motorbike rider re-testing
This sounds like gross victimisation.
Maybe we should test houses every seven years to ensure they are sound enough to withstand the impact of cars being driven by the many lunatics that manage to make them a target these days.
Hang on, lets wrap all the houses in High Vis. That will fix it.
I smell a hidden agenda here to line the pockets of instructors and testers.
There are a lot more motorcycles on the road in 2014 than there were in 2008, so that comparison figure is somewhat unrealistic.
I agree that there are a number of fools riding bikes on the road, likewise, driving cars, trucks, buses, boats and jetskis.
Ash Sewell.
I’ve read your article with much interest today.
I have been around and riding bikes for many years and I’ve had moments and occasional accidents when I was younger, I admit I’ve been lucky to a degree.
I think if you spoke to many bike riders out there, they are all in favour of trying to bring down fatality rates and the devastation it brings to families and attending police and emergency services.
I am however a little puzzled by the notion that re-testing riders every seven years will help.
Will this make drivers of other vehicles more aware of people on two wheels?
I don’t think so. Will drivers of road trains stop cutting off motorcylists at roundabouts? Will car drivers suddenly start looking properly at junctions and intersections? Will irate drivers stop swerving and swearing at bikers who are within there rights to lane split at traffic lights?
To me the largest problem is lack of proper training before and after passing a test for all motorists.
How many people know someone who has been taught to drive by their parents or grandparents, some of whom didn’t even take a test and had no training from a real instructor.
I don’t believe that all accidents involving bikes are the fault of car drivers, I am a car driver myself, I know speed is a factor as well as many others things, but are we going to retest car drivers too every few years also?
I’m also loking forward to getting home from work and taking my bike out for a ride, experiencing the freedom it gives and having a chat with the boys in blue when they pull me over.
Brian, Australind.
Another way to target bikie gangs?
Are there any bodies like Spokes or Smidsy in WA?
Now that may be a worthwhile investment instead of slugging the majority of us two-wheeled machine operators, that would be better than car drivers any day of the week in road skills and awareness.
This is a joke, look into why this is happening?
Conspiracy theory?
Is this another way to target the bikie gangs indirectly? But harms all motorcyclists?
Rick Cave, Bunbury.
Why not target speeding riders and drivers?
It’s great to see a pro-active approach to a subject that concerns a lot of us, especially the part of the biking community that do have the right licences and ride responsibly.
What is a concern is thinking that all the training and assessing of people that do ride and have riden for a long time is going to change those statistics.
Let’s face it, there is a certain sector of the public that will break the law and that’s what needs to be addressed.
Maybe what needs to be assessed and tightened up is the licence instructors actually giving the licences out and the most effective deterent for the people breaking the law.
Maybe an approach could be to call in the riders that have a number of speeding fines over a short amount of time for reassessing or to attend a safety course and if the powers that be are going to do this to riders better think about doing it with car licences too.
Or maybe a good thing would be to reassess these under-powered scooters that dribble along the fog line of the roads with kids doubling each other – now there’s an accident just waiting to happen.
Mark, Bunbury.