Road Safety Report November 17
Motorcycle Safety WeekSteve Fish and I have now gone through the results and comments from both the Motorcycle Safety Week Survey and Forum and have condensed and consolidated the ideas from those events into a Motorcycle Safety Action Plan 2020 that we will be talking to the Road Safety Commission and other government agencies in the next week or two.The link to this working and live document is attached and we would welcome your comments on this.Motorcycle Safety Week 2020 Actions https://mrawa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Motorcycle-Safety-Week-2020-Actions-V4.pdf National Road Safety Week 2020The National Road Safety Week activities that the MRAWA is undertaking have been funded from a grant that we received from the Road Safety Commission out of the Road Trauma Trust Account and I would like to give them a huge thank you for all of their support and help during and leading up to this event.Our activities include 3 motorcycle specific first aid courses run on Saturday 21st November and Sunday 22ndNovember, facilitated by Janine Nicholas who runs the Rider Down courses.We will also have a free doughnut and coffee safety ride to Whitman Park on Saturday 21st November.I hope you can join us.My first function that I attended as part of National Road Safety Week was the National Day of Remembrance for Road Victims on Sunday 15th November.At this event I met up with Hon. Michelle Roberts the Minister for Police and Road Safety who advised me that the legislation regarding lane filtering should be completed by December or January. So this is good news after working on this for the past 7 years.On Monday 16th November I attended the 2020 WA Road Safety Forum and Steve Fish also attended online. At this event the 2020 – 2030 Road Safety Strategy was launched, and I look forward to digging into the details of what is planned for the next ten years.During the past Strategy the killed and seriously injured road users was reduced by 30% and the new Strategy has a target of further reduction of between 50 – 70 %Ambitious, yes but I believe we need to set the bar high to achieve a real reduction and that we all need to work in our areas to help achieve this target. We have ten years bet we can start right now.The presentations at the forum included the latest statistic’s, data and research. Aboriginal Road Safety. Speed Management. Heavy Vehicles. Motorcycle Safety (where I had an opportunity to raise the issue of rider training) and finally a presentation from a critical care paramedic, who man’s the RAC helicopter.General NewsI was invited onto ABC Radio on Thursday to comment on the South Australian Government plan to raise the age that a person can apply for a motorcycle licence from 17 years of age to 19 years of age. My position was that lifting the age would make no difference to rider safety and that they should be concentrating their efforts on improved rider training.As you may know we now have a signed Partnership Agreement with the Road Safety Commission for funding of projects for the next year, and we have applied to use some of that funding to go towards an ongoing digital campaign so that we can engage with motorcycle riders as we did during motorcycle Safety Week, and keep this momentum and engagement going all year round. Once we have this established any future costs of this service will be negligible.We expect to hear back from the Road Safety Commission in the next week or two.As this may be my last report before the Christmas break, I would like to wish you and you family and friends a very happy and safe Christmas and a great New Year full to the brim with everything you could hope for.Merry ChristmasDave WrightSteve FishMotorcycle Riders Association of WA Inc.Safety OfficersEmail: safety@mrawa.org