Road Safety Report January 19
Motorcycle Safety Action Plan:
Steve 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 2021We held a meeting with the Road Safety Commission on 14th January and worked through the 14 actions that we allocated to them. The meeting went well and we will now put together a more details list with specific actions that will need to be taken to complete all tasks.We will now more onto the Main Road Department, the Department of transport and the WA Police to progress the actions that belong in their areas.These lists of actions are available on the MRAWA website.
Lane Filtering:
This was discussed at the meeting with RSC in regards to an education campaign leading up the official launch of lane filtering in WA. Yesterday I received a letter from the Minister for Police and Road Safety informing me that the legislation has been drafted and is scheduled to come into law in late March.We have done some research into the wording of the legislation and this is what the legislation states –
- The maximum speed a motorcycle is allowed to travel at when lane filtering is 30 km/hr.
- The penalty for noncompliance is $100.00 fine and the 2 demerit points.
- Learner riders cannot lane filter.
- Only two wheel motorcycle can lane filter not sidecars or trikes (pretty obvious)
- Not allowed at school or pedestrian crossings, or in a school zone.
- Not allowed between a heavy vehicle.
- If it is not safe to do so safely.
The surprise is it is not allowed on our freeways.We have contacted the Road Safety Commission asking to the reasons behind this and have received a reply that it is not seen as safe. We will continue to argue this point and hope that we can get this section altered in the future, I for one don’t want to be forced to sit on a stationary motorbike on the freeway when it is 40 degrees Celsius and I am wearing all my safety gear. I believe this would be far more dangerous than lane filtering at 30km/hr.These changes have been published in the Government Gazette(regulation 130A and 130B) and will become law on 29th March 2021
Road Safety Commission Funding:
As noted in previous reports we now have a signed Partnership Agreement with the Road Safety Commission for funding of projects for the next year. We sent an invoice for these funds and am happy to confirm that those funds are now in the MRAWA bank. We now have confirmation that we have the approval for funds to start our digital campaign so that we can engage with motorcycle riders in an improved way, 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.The balance of the funds will go towards The York Motorcycle Festival, Motorcycle Safety Week 2021 including the production of new motorcycle safety materialWe have a meeting arranged with the organising company that run the York Motorcycle Festival to go over cost for us and the WA Road Safety Commissions to stage an improved safety message to WA riders.Just as a note for you information, we often talk about new motorcycle riders and how these young people can be a danger to themselves, well at our meeting with the RSC, I asked what the average age is of people leaning to ride motorcycle, it may surprise you that the average age is 35, so perhaps calling new riders kids is not correct (although I am sure a 35 year old would not mind that title too much)Dave WrightSteve FishMotorcycle Riders Association of WA Inc.Safety OfficersEmail: safety@mrawa.org